Chapter Text
Theerakit Kian Lee sat in Diesel’s childhood home with blood already decided.
The house smelled wrong. Too clean. Too controlled. The kind of place where anger didn’t explode—it fermented. Family photographs lined the walls, Diesel smiling in most of them, younger, obedient, eyes dulled in a way Khun Thee recognized too well.
Diesel’s father sat across from him.
He hadn’t offered tea. He hadn’t offered politeness. He was smart enough to know neither would matter.
“You didn’t come here for conversation,” the man said finally.
Thee didn’t answer.
His gaze had drifted instead—to the corner of the room, where a hockey stick leaned casually against the wall. Not hidden. Not ashamed. As if it belonged there.
Something inside Thee tightened.
“You know why I’m here,” he said at last.
The father scoffed. “Because you think you own my son?”
Thee lifted his eyes, slow and lethal. “Because you broke him.”
Silence pressed down hard.
“He’s dramatic,” the man replied. “Always has been. You mistake discipline for cruelty.”
Thee stood.
The movement alone made the guards at the door tense.
“I have seen bruises fade,” Thee said calmly. “I have seen fear that doesn’t leave the eyes even when the body heals. And I have heard him apologize for pain he didn’t cause.”
The father’s jaw tightened. “This is between me and my son.”
Thee stepped closer.
“Anything related to Diesel,” he said, voice quiet enough to terrify, “includes me.”
The man laughed once, sharp. “You think killing me will fix him?”
“No,” Thee said. “But it will end you.”
The father leaned back. “Funny. Two years ago, you were far kinder.”
That did it.
The past surfaced, not gently, but whole.
⸻
⸻
Two years earlier, Diesel was laughing.
The bar was packed, heat and noise colliding until the air felt thick enough to choke on. Music slammed through Diesel’s chest, vibrating in his ribs. He leaned back in his chair, legs stretched out, drink in hand, grin wide and careless.
“Drink faster,” one of his friends shouted over the music.
Diesel lifted his glass in salute. “You trying to kill me?”
“Like you’d notice.”
He drank anyway. Whiskey burned, familiar and comforting. A girl pressed against his side, fingers sliding under the hem of his shirt like she owned him for the night. Diesel let her. He liked the way people wanted him when he didn’t have to try.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
He ignored it.
It buzzed again.
Diesel frowned, pulling it out just long enough to see the name. Father.
He scoffed and tossed the phone onto the table.
“Bad timing,” he muttered.
The girl laughed. “Trouble?”
“Always,” Diesel said easily, and leaned in to kiss her.
An hour later, they spilled out into the street, drunk and loud and invincible. Diesel jingled his keys between his fingers, the sound sharp and metallic.
“You sure you’re okay to drive?” someone asked, already climbing into the car.
Diesel smirked. “Relax.”
He slammed the door, turned the engine over, music blasting instantly. Laughter filled the car as he pulled out too fast, tires screeching in protest.
Streetlights blurred. The city stretched ahead of them, open and unguarded.
Diesel felt untouchable.
Then something crossed the road.
Too fast. Too close.
Diesel’s foot hit the brake.
Impact.
The car jolted violently. Someone screamed. Glass shattered. Diesel’s head snapped forward, pain exploding behind his eyes.
Silence followed.
Heavy. Deafening.
“What—what the fuck was that?” someone whispered.
Diesel’s hands trembled as he looked ahead.
A body lay crumpled on the asphalt.
Not moving.
The world narrowed to a single, unbearable point.
“No,” Diesel breathed. “No—”
“Drive!” someone yelled. “Diesel, go!”
He didn’t think.
He drove.
⸻
The cell was colder than he expected.
Diesel sat on the bench, elbows on his knees, hands cuffed, head hanging low. The alcohol had burned away, leaving behind nausea and a pounding headache that wouldn’t let him forget.
Killed someone.
The word lodged in his chest like a shard of glass.
Footsteps echoed.
His father appeared on the other side of the bars, face tight with fury and something worse—fear.
“What did you do?” his father demanded.
Diesel swallowed. “I didn’t mean—”
The slap cracked across his face.
Diesel’s head snapped sideways. He didn’t resist. He never did.
“You’ve ruined everything,” his father hissed. “Do you understand what this means? Elections are coming. They’re watching me.”
Diesel stared at the floor. Shame curled deep in his gut.
“I can’t cover this up,” his father continued. “Not this time.”
Diesel’s breath hitched. “Dad—”
“There is one person,” his father said finally, voice low. “One man who can make this disappear.”
Diesel looked up.
“And I hate that I owe him.”
⸻
Mr.Theerakit Kian Lee did not go to the jail.
He didn’t need to.
When Diesel’s father arrived at his mansion alone, pale and tight-lipped, Thee already knew why he was there. He listened in silence as the man spoke about the accident, the death, the cameras, the witnesses.
When the man finished, Thee folded his hands.
“I’ll handle it,” he said calmly.
“How long will it take?” the father asked.
Thee smiled faintly. “A few hours.”
He made one phone call.
⸻
Diesel was half-asleep when the cell door opened.
He looked up, startled, heart pounding.
Two men stood there, dressed sharply, faces unreadable.
“Diesel,” one said. “You’re coming with us.”
“What?” Diesel’s voice cracked. “Where?”
“Don’t ask questions,” the man replied, unlocking the cuffs. “Walk.”
Diesel’s legs felt weak as they led him out. Papers were signed. Doors opened. Just like that, the world shifted.
An hour later, he stood in a mansion that smelled like polish and money, every surface pristine and unforgiving.
Thee waited inside.
He rose slowly as Diesel was brought in, eyes assessing, calculating. Diesel felt exposed under that gaze, like everything wrong with him was suddenly visible.
Behind him, his father stepped forward, hand already lifting
“Not here,” Thee said quietly.
The room froze.
Diesel flinched anyway.
Thee moved closer, stopping directly in front of Diesel. He studied him openly now bruised cheek, shaking hands, eyes too young for what he’d done. Too pretty to ignore.
“You can relax. Don’t worry about what happened’,” Thee said. “Think of me as a brother.” He said something that didn’t sound like himself.
Diesel didn’t know why his throat tightened.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Thee watched him carefully.
And somewhere deep inside him, something dangerous took root.
———Days passes by———
Theerakit Kian Lee was only there to work.
The mall was his—glass and steel and money stacked neatly into something that looked like leisure. He walked its upper level with two assistants trailing a careful distance behind him, tablet in hand, eyes moving with practiced disinterest from storefront to storefront.
Lighting. Rent flow. Foot traffic.
He stopped in front of a luxury watch boutique, listening to a manager explain something about seasonal sales, and found his attention drifting anyway. It irritated him. He did not drift. He did not linger on irrelevancies.
And yet.
Diesel had been on his mind far more than was necessary.
Thee had looked him up—quietly, thoroughly. School records. Social circles. Police reports that never matured into cases. The pattern was unmistakable: excess without consequence. A boy cushioned by power, shaped by violence, unafraid of impact because impact had never lasted.
Thee should have forgotten him after the problem was solved.
He hadn’t.
He dismissed the manager with a nod and continued walking. His gaze lifted automatically, scanning the crowd below with the same instinct he used to assess threats.
That was when he saw him.
Diesel moved through the mall like he owned air itself. Loose-limbed, unbothered, laugh spilling easily from his mouth as his friends crowded around him. He wore ripped jeans and an open jacket over a dark shirt, skin catching the light every time he turned. A girl clung to his arm, fingers digging possessively into his sleeve, lips pressed close to his ear as she said something that made him laugh again.
Thee slowed.
He told himself it was coincidence. The mall was large, but not infinite. Still, his eyes stayed where they were, tracking Diesel without effort. He noticed everything: the way Diesel leaned slightly away from the girl even as he let her cling, the careless confidence in his stride, the faint shadow under his eyes that spoke of nights spent too hard and too late.
He looked alive.
Dangerously so.
Thee felt something unpleasant coil in his chest. Not jealousy. Not yet. Something closer to recognition,the sense of watching a fire burn unchecked, knowing exactly how easily it could consume itself.
Diesel didn’t look up.
He passed beneath the balcony, laughing at something one of his friends said, entirely unaware of the gaze following him. The girl kissed his cheek. Diesel grinned and accepted it like a tip he’d expected.
Thee stood still long after they were gone.
“Sir?” one of his assistants prompted gently.
Thee blinked, the moment sealing itself away behind his eyes.
“Continue,” he said.
But the numbers on the tablet blurred.
⸻
Diesel felt good.
That was the simplest way to put it. The sun filtered through the glass ceiling above the mall, warmth settling comfortably on his shoulders. His hangover had faded to a dull hum, easily drowned out by noise and movement and people who wanted things from him.
He liked being wanted.
One of his friends bumped his shoulder. “So?”
Diesel raised a brow. “So what?”
“You gonna tell us or what?” another pressed. “How the hell did you get out?”
Diesel smirked, hands shoved deep into his pockets as they walked. The girl at his side tightened her grip on his arm, listening openly now.
“I didn’t,” Diesel said lightly. “I was very much fucked.”
“Bullshit,” his friend snorted. “You killed a guy.”
The word landed heavier than Diesel expected. He shrugged it off with practiced ease.
“Yeah,” he said. “And then someone helped.”
“Someone?” the girl asked.
Diesel glanced at her, then away, eyes unfocused for a brief second. He saw polished floors, quiet rooms, a man who looked at him like he was a problem worth solving.
“An angel,” he said. Then, after a beat, he grinned. “Or a devil. Hard to tell.”
His friends laughed, satisfied enough with the answer. Someone changed the subject. Diesel let the conversation wash over him, attention drifting.
He didn’t think about Thee often. Not consciously. He thought about the relief of that night, the way the world had tilted back into place without him having to beg. He thought about how easily it had all disappeared.
Power like that was comforting.
The girl tugged him closer. “You’re not listening.”
Diesel smiled at her, charming and automatic. “Sure I am.”
She laughed, unconvinced but pleased anyway.
They passed a column, moved deeper into the mall, swallowed by noise and light. Diesel never once looked up at the upper level.
If he had, he might have felt it—the weight of attention, cool and deliberate, already memorizing him.
⸻
Thee watched the space Diesel had vacated long after he was gone.
He told himself this was nothing. A passing curiosity. A loose end his mind insisted on tugging at. Diesel would spiral, burn out, destroy himself eventually. Boys like that always did.
And yet.
Thee turned away from the railing, jaw tight, already aware that he would remember the exact way Diesel had smiled, the exact shape of his recklessness, long after he should have forgotten.
That bothered him more than he was willing to admit.