Obsidian Faith by Bev Elle

couldn’t pay the loan sharks. Trevor felt more and more trapped, but he knew if he went to the authorities, he could be taken out of Philip’s custody, and put back into the system.
    Hired muscle for the loan sharks came around and roughed up Philip when he couldn’t pay. Trevor always dreaded this, since right after a beat-down, Philip would make him do more funneling from the unclaimed accounts.
    “Hey Trev?”
    Trevor had grown to hate the pet name Elena had given him simply because Philip used it. “What?” Trevor was unable to answer with any respect. The man didn’t deserve it.
    “Watch your tone, son.”
    “I’m not your son,” Trevor said, unable to stop himself.
    “Thank God,” Philip said. “As long as you do as I say, I’ll keep a roof over your head and clothes and on your no-good back, but you’ll do what I tell you to do.” Philip handed him a list. “Hack into these accounts and take several thousand out of each. Clean up like you always do, because I don’t want the feds snooping around.”
    Trevor must have taken too long to take the list from his hand, because Philip pulled him out of his chair and held him up by the scruff of his collar. “When I tell you to do something, you will answer me in a respectful tone. Do you hear me?”
    Trevor wanted to push it, but all it would do was cause his uncle to punish him physically. At sixteen now, Trevor had stopped caring about his uncle and his tirades.
    “I’m going to tell Pastor Bailey and Ms. Brenda about this, so they can get custody of me. I’m tired of stealing for you.”
    Philip tightened his hold on Trevor’s collar, and his nostrils flared. “If you breathe a word to the Baileys, or anyone, about this, you’ll be sorry. As sorry as my dead brother and his wife.”
    That scared him. His uncle was intimating that he’d had something to do with David and Elena’s death. It sickened Trevor to hear that.
    “You know, it would be easy for me to hurt that little play sister of yours, too—.” Philip said. “She could disappear one day, and the Baileys would never see her again. You either, boy. So get your attitude together.”
    Trevor was really afraid of what his uncle might do. If Philip hurt Shanice, it would be all his fault, and he couldn’t live with that. For the first time, he hated how stupid he’d been to help Philip out the first time. He should’ve refused, because now he was trapped. Trevor was sure those guys his uncle was hanging with all were part of some organized crime outfit. He’d watched enough of the Sopranos to know about the mob. His uncle had told them about his computer abilities, and they brought him small jobs to do.
    The two tough guys who were around the most, the ones he’d nicknamed Frick and Frack, were sort of like the cartoon characters, Pinky and The Brain . One was tall, lanky, and feeble-minded, and the other was a short, stocky, vicious schemer.
    “Hey kid,” the short one, Frick, said to him one day. “Our boss wants you to work on the program that runs his slot machines. He needs you to make it more difficult for anyone to win but leave a few loose, so we can keep the suckers coming. Can you do that?”
    “Why would I want to do that?” Trevor said. “I get caught, I’m going to Juvie.”
    The little man glared at him. “Phil told us how you cover your tracks when you take for him, so you do the same thing for us, or else you might get into that nice little car Philip’s giving you, and the brakes will go out, or a bomb might go off.”
    Trevor didn’t care. He’d almost prefer it, he was so sick of all of it. “You do what you want to me. I don’t give a damn.”
    Frick and Frack worked Trevor over that day until he passed out. They’d been careful not to injure his face so he could go to school, or his hands so he could type, but his gut felt like someone had put him through a meat tenderizer, and he was sure one of his ribs might have been cracked. Even that didn’t