YOU'RE EVERYTHING I NEVER WANTED (A VP fanfic)

chapter 9

PETE

Vegas confuses Pete. One moment he's caressing his hand gently next moment he's lashing out at him.

Pete sighs getting off the bus. God knows how Vegas will react later, he dared to go against him. But Pete can't afford to offend the Royals at college. It'll be the death of him. Among bad and worse, Pete chose bad.

Pete finds Leya in the class. She introduces him to two more scholars of their same major and same year. Green and Jim.

"What the hell happened to your hand?" Leya asks concerned when they finally settle down in the back benches.

"Oh it's nothing serious." Pete tries to wave away.

She looks at him warily.

"Pete does your family beats you up? Is it a stepmom or half siblings perhaps?"

"What? No-" Pete chuckles," I burnt myself while holding a hot pan."

"Oh sorry for assuming wrong." she looks guilty for a moment then suddenly smacks Pete on the head.

"Ouch!"

"Where is your mind? Why'd you hold a hot pan like that?" She scolds.

Pete laughs, "I know, I'm an idiot... you're the second person to scold me today." He ends with a small sigh.

"Who's the first?" Leya raises an eyebrow.

'The one because of whom I got distracted in the first place' Pete thinks, but doesn't say.

"Oh it's my grandmother." He lies.

"You live with your grandma?"

"Yeah.... something like that."

"What about your parents?"

"They died." Pete says shortly.

Leya looks guilty again. "Hey...I shouldn't have asked, I'm sorry."

Pete smiles, "it's okay, I don't mind. It was a long time ago. I don't even remember them much."

Someone asks him to get cigarettes for them and the conversation is cut short. He's used to getting ordered around. All his life has been spent as a maid's grandson. It doesn't bother him much, he's more resilient than others.

Before lunch Pete gets a message in the senior group chat, with an address somewhere inside the campus and time. Looks like he'd have to skip lunch.

After getting lost twice he somehow gets to the place. It's in an old building of the campus, on first floor. Pete knocks, heart racing a bit. Knowing whatever awaits inside can't be good.

A girl with curly hair and specs opens the door and signal him to come inside. Taking one step in Pete's taken aback. The insides look like a lavish resting space. With luxury arm chairs and gaming area, there's a pool table as well. In the middle is a big table and couch set.

"Are you just going to gape around all day?" A voice snickers and Pete flinches. Finally noticing the people in the room.

He recognises Sean and that pretty girl in red dress from first day. There's another very good looking guy and the girl who opened the door. Pete scans the room for Vegas and finds him in one of the chaise lounge facing away from him. He stiffens a little. Vegas seems to be reading a book.

Pete knew Vegas is also in the group when he checked the gc in the morning. He should have expected it, Vegas is a Royal too afterall. But still the gc and the texts got him off balance and added to it was last night's events that he couldn't get out of his head. Naturally, he was very much out of it in the morning which led to the mess.

Pete couldn't decide if Vegas being in the group was good or bad. Vegas has clearly told him to not acknowledge his presence in college, so it won't really matter Pete supposes. He'll just treat him like other Royals and Vegas is his boss anyways.

"You know all of us right?" Sean asks bringing him out of his headspace.

Pete nods, he memorised everyone's names from the gc.

Sean looks disappointed, as if he expected Pete to not know. Pete pats himself mentally for thinking ahead.

"Since you already know let me get straight to the point then, we don't have time for all of this bullshit project and all, so you're gonna do it all by yourself."

Pete's heart sinks, he knew they'll bully him, but doing the whole project all by himself...how can he? It's a senior class project, he doesn't even know the topic well.

"What? Don't like it?" Sean smirks," oh you have the choice to deny, but tell you what, we're gonna pass anyways, the college can't run without our father's money, but guess who's gonna fail?" He gives Pete a dirty grin.

Pete feels like screaming at the unfairness of the situation but he knows his place well.

"Okay," he says slowly," what do I have to do?"

"Oh nothing much, you just have to collect the materials, type out our parts and send the PDF copy to each of us." The handsome senior, who's name Pete knows is Dan speaks now.

Sean stands up and slowly walks to him. Pete stiffens nervously. Sean invades his personal space, puts a hand on Pete's shoulder,leaning closer to his ears and whispers,
"Don't worry, if you do a nice job we'll reward you well, but if you mess up..." He chuckles and Pete physically trembles at the threat. Eyes involuntarily seeking out Vegas. He doesn't even know what he's expecting but he finds Vegas also looking at their direction now. His expression unreadable.

"You know the deadline right?" The curly hair girl named Nash speaks up now, "it's next week. Send us the PDFs by this weekend, we'd need to print them out."

"Huh! Tell him not to snitch on us first...the way he looks, might just do that." The pretty girl named Prim scoffs.

Pete has a feeling she doesn't like him and the feelings are mutual.

"I'll do my part myself." Everyone turns their attention towards Vegas who speaks up out of the blue.

"Wth dude?" Sean asks in disbelief, "did you get ordained or something, are you trying to be a saint?" He mocks, laughing at his own joke, the others join him but not so confidently, as if unsure whether it's offensive or not. And Pete realises with wonder that even these people who're supposed to be his friends are scared of Vegas. Just how powerful Vegas is?

"Neither," Vegas replies calmly, " I just don't want my project to be ruined by a first year who knows nothing about shit."

"Since when did you start caring about grades?" Sean shoots, not wanting to accept a defeat.

"Since you thought you can decide for me too. Did you ask me before?" Vegas challenges.

Sean clenches his jaw. The atmosphere is suddenly very tense, everyone including Pete can feel it.

"Why'd I? It's how we do it every year."

"We did, when we were naive and arrogant. We're going to handle our family business soon, do you think this will work with men working for you? You can't buy loyalty by force, they'll bite you the moment you losen your gaurd." Vegas lectures.

Pete is surprised at Vegas's insight, but worry takes over his thoughts as he looks at Sean's face fuming with anger.

Sean's murderous glare finds him.

"THE FUCK YOU STILL WAITING HERE FOR! OUT! NOW" he shouts at Pete.

Pete jolts up in fear. Quickly grabs his things and rushes out, not wanting to witness any more of what he supposes was not meant for his eyes and ears in the first place.