PETE'S POV:

It had been a few days since I had last visited grandma's house. The cup examination results were supposed to be out by the evening and with nothing else to do, I was dying to find out the information that I had once deemed to be useless.

It was the day of Saengtham house's founding ceremony hence the whole house was bustling. Everyone was running around preparing for the big event and the elders were rechecking the guest list along with the assistants to make sure the important guests were coming. Vegas was surprisingly interested in the preparations or atleast was pretending to be since he thought that people were going to point fingers at me if the eldest son-in-law of the house was to stay alien to the preparations.

"It's one of my duties as the husband of the most ravishing man on the planet." Were his words to be exact.

"Bored I believe?" A voice came in interrupting my string of thoughts.

"Bored to death!" I said while fainting dramatically. It was Macau who was the source of the voice and he chuckled seeing the overacting.

"Still as bad I see...if bad acting was to be a crime, you would be the Pablo Escobar of it." He soft-dissed my acting skills as he walked up to sit beside me.

"So...how's everything going?" He asked.

A lot was on my mind but barely a few words came out of my mouth.

"It's...everything's too vague. It feels like am missing out a lot but I don't know where to find the missing pieces." He understood that I didn't want to reveal everything yet and didn't try to pry into the matter. It was not that I didn't trust him but one thing that I had learnt from living in the Saengtham family was to 'never trust anyone blindly' hence I thought it would be safer to reveal everything only after finding out the whole truth and everyone involved in the cobweb of incidents.

"You'll find them soon. All you need to do is find the key piece, everything will then fall into place like domino." He assured me.

"Right...all the pieces are in fragments...I just need that one thing to connect them..." I agreed.

"Anyways...I was just here to inform you that P'Vegas has been meeting up with uncle Sitisak. I thought he hated him? Phi...I know you love him...but please be a little careful..." He sounded genuinely worried while saying it.

"He's been meeting up with phaw?" I had no idea about any of it.

"Well...from what I have heard...uncle was the one to call him the first time but he went there voluntarily afterwards. I don't doubt him but...you know...I can't help but feel paranoid about it." He said.

"I get what you are saying...he sure hates phaw then...I didn't even know about any of this..." I said in a grave tone.

The news that Vegas and Phaw had been meeting each other was completely new to me.

"Don't worry...you know me...I will be careful." I reassured him which barely seemed to work.

Macau had his eyes engraved in almost all corners of the house so it would be difficult to hide activities from him as an outsider so if Vegas was indeed meeting up with phaw, it would be impossible to escape Macau's eyes as a non-resident. Hence there was a high possibility that Vegas had no idea that Macau already knew about the meetings which meant based on his response, I could make out if he was trustworthy or not.

"Please answer truthfully Vegas" I silently prayed not wanting the trust I had placed in him to break.

"..." My mind felt blank for, I had no idea what questions to ask or how to ask him any of it.
Maybe I was afraid that he would get irritated by me constantly trying to interfere in his life or maybe I was of the possibility of finding something out that would shatter my heart. I didn't know...but I couldn't not ask him...afterall I didn't want myself to turn out to be the fool in the end.

A few hours later:

"Ready?" I asked.

"For you? Always" Vegas winked.

"I am going to punch you in your guts one of these days" I faked anger while trying my best not to blush.

Even if I was stuck in a web of questions I couldn't help but blush at his words. That's one of the biggest disadvantages of being married to someone you are madly in love with, you can't help but blush at their flirty and love filled lines no matter how many questions you have for them.

"Let's go" He looked into my eyes as we linked arms and went towards the main hall. The guests stopped whatever they were doing and looked in our direction as we entered. Some of the eyes were curious, some a little malicious while some were surprisingly pleasant.

"Ladies and gentlemen...I would like to dedicate this evening to my son and son-in-law!" Phaw made a toast and everyone cheered while looking at us.
We greeted everyone present there and after spending a considerable part of our time, we were summoned by phaw.
Both of us went there but phaw as well as the guest seemed to be interested in only Vegas. He noticed that and wanted to pull me in but I signalled him to not do anything since I wanted to avoid any unnecessary controversies.

I went away to fill my stomach since I had nothing else to do while waiting for their meeting to get over simultaneously. It went on for a while after which he came straight towards me.
Phaw looked like he didn't expect Vegas to start looking for me as soon as he got free but masked the emotion almost immediately.

"How did it go?" I asked.

"Don't ask. I felt like I was going to die out of boredom. " He said and I chuckled softly.

"Vegas...um...did you by any chance had any meeting with phaw in the past few days?" I questioned.

"Uh...well he had called me into his office a few days ago so I had no choice but go there but that's all...there were no further meetings. Why?" He said.

My eyes had captured a moment of grim expression on his face before he masked it with his normal expression but that split second was enough to have me confirmed that he was definitely hiding something from me.

"No...I was just afraid if he had acted rudely or unnecessarily questioned you after calling you into his office." I gave a plausible excuse to prevent him from doubting me.

"Ahh...don't worry...the only person that can do that is you...I won't let anyone else treat me however they please" He smiled and caressed my cheeks while looking into my eyes with a love-filled gaze. For a moment I felt like letting go of all my doubts but realised that I was about to make the mistake I had so earnestly vowed to be aware of.

Thus, with a fake shiny smile I hit him lightly for being flirty and acted as if I was convinced, as if I had received all the answers I needed.

The rest of the party went fairly normal and all we did was have dinner and make small talks with the guests. At midnight, after all the guests went back home, we both retired to our rooms too but Vegas excused himself on the pretext of wanting some fresh air after the suffocating party.

POV ENDS.

THIRD PERSON POV:

Vegas dwindled about for a while as he checked for the presence of any suspicious eyes and entered a room after making sure that no one was looking.

"Was the party to your taste?" Sitisak said as he traced his finger along the rim of the whiskey glass.

However, he just kept staring at his father-in-law instead of saying anything.

"What happened? C'mon...have a drink" Sitisak said as he pushed the glass that he was holding towards Vegas.

Vegas picked it up and brought it near his lips to take a sip while looking at him but before he could take one, he took a look at the cup and threw it across the room with such force that it shattered into pieces.

"Why did you do that?" He demanded an answer.

"Do what?" Sitisak asked.

"Don't pretend to be all innocent. I am asking for what reason did you pretend like Pete didn't even exist back there. What problem do you have with him? Why can't you just treat him the way you treat me?!" Vegas' voice rose by a considerable margin as he argued.

"So it's about that.." Sitisak looked a bit disappointed.

"Well...you don't need to concern yourself with it...it's between me and Pete, there's no need for you to get involved." He drew a clear line.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE'S NO NEED FOR ME TO GET INVOLVED. THAT'S MY HUSBAND YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! WHAT REASON DO YOU HAVE TO TREAT HIM SO TERRIBLY?!" Vegas was no longer in the mood to sort things out in a civil way.

"Look child...I really don't want to argue with you, neither do I want to reveal those things to you. It's something that's between me and my son and you need to...stay with hell out of it." Sitisak said while putting emphasis on the fact that Vegas needed to keep his head out of the drama.

"You know what...you can either give me a proper reason for everything or I am taking Pete back to the Teerapanyakul mansion right now! And if that happens, trust me...we won't be back here or meet up with you ever again." Vegas threatened him not knowing to what extent it was going to work.

"You-!" The older man looked frustrated but gave in eventually.

"I really don't want those memories to resurface but you have left me with no choice. Well...Pete's mother...she was someone I loved dearly...she was all that ever mattered to me. But unfortunately she passed away due to extreme bleeding during Pete's birth. I know that it's not his fault but I just couldn't help but blame him for all the misfortune, for destroying my happy family, for snatching the love of my life away from me. Moreover, we saengthams are never raised with love, it's a law of Saengtham family- that all the offsprings that are contenders of the position of the family's head have to be put through extreme challanges and torture to make sure that someone resilient, someone deserving becomes the head, it's a process of eliminating the weak so it was inevitable for Pete - one of the candidates to be put through those hardships.
All the heads and second sons were raised the same way...so I had no choice but to put him through that otherwise he would have been either pushed out of the family line or gotten executed for being too weak. I hated him but he was the last fragment of my late dear wife so I just couldn't stop myself from doing everything I could to make sure that he wouldn't be deemed as someone unfit for the position of the head. With his mother gone, I was blinded by the tradition."

"I know...I really shouldn't have done all that to that child but it's too late now...he already hates me...nothing can get any better now no matter how much I want it to be. So it's better to keep the things the way they used to be." Sitisak broke down crying as he reminisced the past and revealed everything infront of Vegas.

"Why don't you talk to him if that's the case? If...if you really want to solve everything?" Vegas asked.

"Solve everything? Do you really think I deserve to do it after everything I did to him? Everything...his whole life is going to fall apart once I apologise. That child has been using the hatred as his source of life. Once that diminishes, he's going to be left with nothing...he'll end up losing himself...you'll end up losing him. There's nothing that can be done now. It's too late already...too late..." His voice sounded really shaky as thin drops of tears streamed down his eyes. His shoulders rocked gently as he kept his face covered with his palms being unable to face Vegas after the confession.

Vegas placed his hand on Sitisak's shoulder to empathize with him and no longer continued to coerce him to make up with Pete. He understood the situation and decided to keep quiet on the matter.

"I...I apologise for acting too rashly" He said finding himself at a loss for words.

"It's fine...you were just trying to do your duty as Pete's husband..." Sitisak tried to assure him.

Vegas looked here and there for a moment before finally deciding to leave the room.

"I'll take my leave. Good night phaw" Vegas greeted him before excusing himself to give the man some time alone with himself to deal with his mental state.

Meanwhile Pete's room:

"The test results are here" A voice informed Pete through the phone.

"Did you find anything?" Pete asked making the voice present everything that they had found out through the examination of the cup.

"...what...?" Pete's eyes filled with horror as he acquired the new and highly unexpected information.