Page 25 of Secret Redemption

“Yeah not exactly what I had in mind, but I’ll take the good with the bad.”

“Hey, I’m not bad,” K answered, and Zack snorted, which caused him to glance Zack’s way.

“Yeah okay. I might be a bit overbearing sometimes.” He sniggered, “So, does this mean Samson won’t want to kill me?” he asked hopefully.

“Samson is loyal and loves me. If I hurt, he hurts. So, behave, and he will love you as much as I do.”

Kanan’s face blanched of all colour. “You love me?”

“Of course, I do. You’re my brother, how could I not?” she asked quizzically.

“God, how did you end up with such a beautiful heart?” K asked gruffly.

Celeste grabbed his hand. “When you hear the hate that I do you, you always look for the good, and I know good when I see it. That’s why I’ve come to love my Fortis family so quickly. They are all inherently good people. And whether you believe it or not, so is Zin.”

Zack tensed at her words not wanting to hear about Zin. He was so fucking angry at him and yet he knew without him he would never have even known about his son. In fact, he had once again saved Zack' s ass last night.

Celeste crossed to him hesitantly as if picking up on his feelings of confusion and he also felt Ava move in closer. He caught the scent of her perfume and the feelings it evoked were heady, but also in a strange way, calming.

"I know you’re angry Zack," Celeste said softly, "but please don’t give up on him. He needs us now more than ever." The emotion and desperation in her voice made him pause, and for the life of him, he didn’t know what to do. The intense need to protect what was his was like a mantra running through his body, making him want to kill the world to protect them. But he couldn’t get the look Zin had given him last night out of his head. Did Zin deserve the benefit of the doubt or was he letting emotion and gratitude cloud his judgement?

He looked to Kanan, who looked as torn as he was. Zack knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would die to protect Celeste, but their relationship was so tentative that he didn’t want to rock the boat and lose the sister that he had only just gained.

Ava stood up beside him, and he felt the loss of her immediately, but she curled her hand around his bicep drawing his attention to her face. "Zack, please listen to her. Proceed with caution around Zin. I trust your judgement, and you’ve trusted him so far, and you wouldn’t do that without good reason," she implored softly.

He rose and turned so that he was facing her and cupped her cheek in his palm. "He could have hurt you when he was waving that gun around yesterday. Fuck, he could have killed you."

"No Zack, he couldn’t. You said yourself that he’s the best. If Zin had wanted me dead, I would be dead, and nobody would have stopped him. You know that in here," she said, tapping her forefinger on his chest, close to his heart.

Zack gazed at her beautiful face for a second and then dropped his hand. He was so close to telling her how much she meant to him and he knew now wasn’t the time. He needed to win her fair and square, so instead, he pasted a cocky grin on his face. "Don’t you trust me to keep you safe Sweet Cheeks? Need me to show you again that I’m man enough?" He saw the light and softness dim from her eyes and a competitive edge creep in.

Stepping back, she half turned so her back was to him. "No thanks Zack, been there done that, bought the t-shirt. I don’t do re-runs," she answered in a cool tone.

Zack heard a snort beside him and remembered Celeste and Kanan were there. Fuck. He was such a dick.

Kanan shook his head at Zack and then turned and walked towards the door pulling Celeste with him. He watched as they left and then took a step towards Ava intent on apologising for being a prick. He saw her body tense as he approached and she whirled on him, putting her hand out.

"Don’t say a fucking word, Zack," she hissed. "You were man enough for me until about five minutes ago, when you tried to humiliate me in front of my friend. So now you can take your manliness," she sneered, "and shove it up your ass because you will never touch me again." With that, she sashayed out slamming the door behind her.

He realised with a grin that she was fucking perfect for him, and he was now fighting for his life. It was game on!

Walking from the conference room, Zack made his way to his office. He would give Ava an hour, then go look for her. Sitting behind his desk, he opened Zin’s file and started pouring through it for clues as to why one of his most trusted men had turned on them.

An hour later he was no closer to finding anything, and his positive mood from earlier was fading fast. Turning off his computer he left his office and headed for the tech room. He moved to Will whose fingers were tapping at lightning speed, with code appearing on the black monitor in front of him.

"How's it going?"

Will nearly jumped out of his skin at Zack’s voice, as he was so engrossed in what he was doing. "Oh yeah good. I've used the firewalls I set for SIS last year, but I’ve given them a tweak so that anyone that had any clue about how they worked before will be thrown off kilter.

"Good. Thanks, Will." With a clap on Will’s shoulder, Zack left to go in search of Ava. It was nearly lunchtime, and he'd managed to set up a two-thirty appointment with Julian to go back into the library. Julian had seemed off somehow, and Zack had the feeling his old friend was tweaked about something.

Moving back into the conference room he found Ava standing at the conference desk, with all her files spread out over it. He took a second to study her profile before he made his presence known. Her long hair which this morning had been down around her shoulders, was now clipped back with tiny wisps falling onto her neck.

His mind wandered, and he imagined walking up to her and brushing those tendrils off her neck and replacing them with his mouth. Would she arch back into him, thrusting her ass into his hard cock, or would she turn and slap him?

Without conscious thought, he moved and found himself standing within a hairs breath of her, his hand gently moving the hair from her nape. She flinched but instantly settled as she realised who it was behind her.

"Zack?" It came out as a question.