133

Zane looked into his angel’s eyes and he used the calm she gave him to centre himself. Then he told her what he had learnt, why his father had tried to take the organisation over. Ava’s eyes grew big and he had hardly finished telling her when she wrapped herself around him and gave him a long hug.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to him. Zane hugged her back and the tight knot he had felt in his chest since he found out started to unwind. “That is messed up on so many levels,” she told him. He just nodded. “You know this is a reflection of your father and not of you, right?” she asked. Zane didn’t know how to answer it. He did his best to shrug, which was difficult with Ava clinging to him and him refusing to let her go. “Zane, honey,” she said and tried to create enough space for her to look at him. Their eyes locked and he could see her emotions swim in the deep blues of her eyes. “You are not a bad son. You are an amazing son. Despite how he treated you growing up, you have steped up and done what he asked of you. His need to start over is a reflection of his failure. He isn’t happy with how his life turned out so he want’s to do it all again,” she told him. Zane knew she had hit bullseye. With out even realising it, Zane had put the blame on himself. If he had only been a better son his father wouldn’t try to do something like this.
“I don’t know, angel,” he said.
“I don’t know if you realise this, but the men talk to me,” she told him. He frowned.
“Talks to you how?” he asked.
“Zane, really? They talk to me in general. I guess it’s easier to talk to me than you or Jax. The two of you can be scary, I have heard. But my point is; I hear things. Most of the men thinks you taking over the organisation is the best thing that has happened in it’s history. You were young, but you had a clear plan. You don’t micromanage them, but there are clear expectations and most of them don’t even mind the rules you have in place. They don’t want to be involved in trafficking or selling drugs to children. They like being top dogs in the underworld but at the same time being able to walk in the ordinary world with an air or legitimacy. What I have heard, your fathers time, especially after your mother passed away, were chaos. No one knew what would happen the next day. Someone that were an ally in the morning was an enemy in the afternoon. No one knew if they would get to go home to their families at the end of the day. You made their lives better,” Ava told him. Her words took away some of the pain in his chest.
“Thank you, angel. You tell me things I don’t know that I need, but when you say them it’s like I have been starving to hear you say it,” he told her. Ava gave him one of her brilliant smiles.
“That is what I’m here for. Now that we have agreed that this is not a reflection of you. What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Zane admitted and leant his head on her shoulder. Ava played with his hair.
“Tell me about the alternatives,” she said.
“We kill them all. My father and this woman that is carrying his child. That is the traditional, and probably the safest, option.” Zane heard a little gasp from Ava. “Then there is the option of killing my father, get the woman and hold her until she gives birth and take the baby from her and place it in a new home where no one knows who they are. The final option is killing my father and then protect the woman. Talk to her and explain the situation she is in and then hide her and the baby away.”
“All the options start with killing your father,” Ava said.
“There is no other option. Especially if we don’t kill the baby. He will never give up on his dream of doing it all over,” he told her.
“Are you okay with that?”
“I am. What little loyalty I had to him died when he made plans to replace me, to take the life from my child that they deserve. I’m not going to let him rob my child of the future that is rightfully theirs,” he told her.
“Protective as always,” she mumbled and placed a kiss on the side of his head before continuing playing with his hair. “You can’t kill the baby,” she said.
“It would be the safest play for you and our child,” he told her and placed a hand on her belly.
“How can we build our future on the sacrifice of a baby?”
“I know. I hate the very idea, I keep thinking of our child. But to keep the two of you safe, I would do it,” he told her.
“I know you would. But we would never ask you. Why don’t we wait to decide between option number two and three until we meet the woman?” she asked. Zane felt another weight fall from him. He would have killed the woman and the unborn child, he wouldn’t have hesitated if it was needed. But Ava taking it off the table made him breathe easier.
“I think that is a good idea. Spencer is picking her up and will bring her here unharmed,” he told her.
“I will make sure a guest room is made up for her.”
“Angel,” he started to object.
“No. She is a pregnant woman. The least we can do is to make her comfortable. And it will make a better impression,” she insisted.
“Yes, angel,” he said and felt a smile kreep into his expression.
“I love you Zane, I love that you protect me and support me and let me take the lead on occasion,” she told him.
“I love you, too, angel. I have become addicted to your presence and it almost killed me not to be able to talk to you the moment I found out about my fathers plan,” Zane confessed.
“I like that, and it takes us nicely into the discussion about what happened today,” she said. Zane groaned internally. Ava had not yelled at him for locking her up. He had almost believed she had let it go. Ryder seemed to be in more trouble for being shot than for locking Gabriel in Ava’s office, if Zane understood it correctly. Jax’s arm had been stitched and bandaged when he returned with Linda, but he also walked with a limp. Zane would ask his friend what had happened first chance he got. Now, it seemed it was his turn.
“I locked you in your office for your own safety,” he told her and straightened up so he could look at her. “You, my little angel, has a tendency to put yourself in the middle of the danger. And it usually ends with someone getting their head bashed in.”
“And I get that part. I’m a bit upset over it, but mostly okay with it. What I’m not okay with is that you left me in there for hours. Hours! Without letting me know what was happening. We got no information at all. Do you know how many horrible scenarios i had time to think of?” she asked him.
“Angel, if something serious would have happened to me, you would have known. Tom would have taken you out of the city and got you and the baby to safety,” Zane said.
“Well that is not as comforting as you think it is. But besides that, I wasn’t just worried about you. What if the mansion was ablaze? What if something would have happened to Anna? What if the war drew police attention? What if we were loosing the battle? I had no idea and I couldn’t prepare for anything. It’s like that thing with the cat in the box that is neither dead or a live. Gabriel and I lived in a state where everyone of our worst nightmare could be true, or none of them. It’s fudging scary and infuriating,” she told him. Zane looked at her. He had never thought about it from that point of view.
“I understand what you are telling me, and I can see that it may have been a bad decision on my part. My thinking was that I didn’t want you to get worked up over things you couldn’t do anything about. But I see that I didn’t think that all the way through,” he admitted.
“No you didn’t. I’m not fragile and I don’t need to be locked away,” she told him.
“You are pregnant,” he said.
“And do you think it’s a good idea to stress your pregnant wife out for an entire day?”
“No. I’m sorry angel. I will do anything to make it up to you, to earn your forgiveness,” Zane told her. He thought about Ryder’s advice and got ready to grovel.
“Do you mean that?” Ava asked.
“Of course I do. I will do anything you ask of me, angel,” he reinforced. A smile spread over her face, it was a new smile to him. The best way he could describe it was; wicked. She leaned in to him.
“Then I think it’s your turn to be punished, Zane. What is it you always tell me? I need you to understand how bad this behaviour is. Will you let me punish you, Zane?”
“What?” he asked and looked at her in utter surprise.