Ava had just drifted off to sleep when she was woken by loud voices and people moving around downstairs. She frowned and got up; she had gone to bed in one of her more risqué nightgowns after what Zane had told her. As she didn’t feel like showing it off to the rest of the house, she took one of Zanes hoodies and pulled it on. She opened the door and to her surprise she looked at Ryders back, he was standing in front of the door. “Ryder?” “Miss A, please go back inside the room and stay there,” he told her, only turning his head to glance down on her. “What’s going on?” “Nothing to worry about, go back to bed,” he said. Right, like Ava was some dumb bimbo. Something was obviously wrong, and Ava refused to be taken off guard again. If there was danger coming, she would be prepared for it. “Ryder, you are going to tell me what is going on or so help me god I will perform a vasectomy on you,” she said, she knew threats were how these men communicated to establish some kind of rank. She j

Ava swallowed and stood up, walked the one step to the desk and placed her hands on the hard wooden surface. Zane followed her and stood beside her, placing a hand on her lower back.“Tell me why you are being punished,” he said.“Because I didn’t obey your orders,” she answered him.“That’s right. And why did I give those orders, angel?”“To keep me safe.”“So by not listening to my orders, you put yourself in danger. If one of my men would have put you in danger, do you know what I would have done to him?”“No.”“I would have killed him. No mercy.” Ava didn’t know what to say to that, so she stayed quiet, trying not to think about why it made her feel all warm and fussy inside. “I’m going to spank you as punishment. Since this is your first offence, I will use my hand. Don’t expect me to be so lenient in the future, understood?”“Yes.”“How many swats do you think you deserve?” Zane asked. Ava had no idea, this was unfamiliar territory for her.“Ten?” she hesitantly suggested. Zane

It had been two weeks since the ambush, and Zane was in a bad mood. They still had no solid proof of who had been behind it. Not that Zane didn’t have his suspicions, he was certain the fucker Johnson had orchestrated the whole thing. But he had been clever about it. All the men had been hired guns without affiliation to any organisation. The ones they had let live long enough to talk had said they had been hired by a Mr Smith, a man they all described differently. Everyone had been paid in cash and the money had proven almost impossible to trace. Almost, it was possible, but it would take time. That was why Zane was in a foul mood. He didn’t like the fact that someone had struck against his family and he hadn’t been able to retaliate. That also left the organisation vulnerable to more attacks. It left his angel in danger. Zane had wanted her to stay within the mansion grounds. She had happily obliged the first week. But over the last couple of days, she had become restless. It hadn’t

“Yes,” Ava said and looked at Ryder. “Losing his grandmother like that has made him, I guess you can call it sensitive, for when people don’t touch base with him. Especially if he knows there’s a risk involved. He just needs to know everyone is safe.” Ryder nodded. “After his grandmother died, he hit a rough spell again. She had left him her house, so he had somewhere to live. But she didn’t have much money, so he needed to work instead of going off to college,” Ava continued. “It was before I knew him, but I think he was depressed and vulnerable. That’s when he met Jonas. Jonas was older, almost twenty years older than Gabriel, and from what I have heard, he was just confident and took charge over situations. Gabriel fell hard for him, and Jonas took over parts of Gabriel’s life.” Ava paused again, even if this wasn’t her story, and the pain in it didn’t belong to her. It still affected her deeply. “It got to a point where Gabriel was more or less emotionally dependent on Jonas. Jona

Zane knew something had changed, and he didn’t like it. Ava had always been comfortable around him, maybe with the exception of the first days. But now it was like she tried to put up a wall between them. It had started the night he and Jax had met with two of the other families to talk about Johnson. Jax had made an idiotic comment which had Zane wanting to kill his friend. Jax had made it sound like they were heading out to party with women. To make the fucking mess even better, Zane didn’t have time to get away and call Ava like he had said he would. When he had come home to find his bed empty, he had gone into panic for a moment, fearing something had happened. When he had found her sleeping in her room, he had been pissed. After that night, something was different. At first Zane had considered that Ava had been upset by him not calling. But she didn’t seem upset. She was her usual happy self, and she was just as passionate when they had sex. She just wasn’t as present. It was slo