Love's Revenge

Chapter twenty six

~Zane

Her small nod was all the answers I needed. She was going to give me a chance to earn her forgiveness. I muttered a quick goodnight before closing her door and making my way back to my office. 

My office is on the bottom floor, a little ways away from Heidi's bedroom. I push open the dark oak door, plopping down onto my leather chair. A bright computer screen glows in the dark room. I let out a long sigh, flicking on the lamp at the end of the desk. 

My mind flickers back to her. Seeing her upset... it affected me. I do not understand why I haven't brought myself to just kill her. End her suffering here. But I didn't want her to be gone. 

Shaking it off, I open the drawer to my desk in search of a pen. I need to figure out a plan to deal with my restless pack. Jax had caused the beginning of a revolution, so his death just left all of the pack members antsy. They were still angry at the other packs. 

Inside the drawer, I catch a glimpse of a shiny metal beneath a scrap of old paper. I move it to the side, seeing a watch.

This was my father's watch. He had passed while I was inside of the Pioneer pack's prison. I run my finger over the rigid watch with a broken face. 

My mind thinks back to before I was so angry, before I learned to hate my brother...

I was seven years old. My brother was my best friend. We were so close in age-- just nine months apart. The problem was, I was not a planned child. My mother had gotten pregnant with me just a few weeks after having Jax. This was nearly impossible, yet it happened. 

I remember the night I first saw the watch. It was the first time I had seen it off of my fathers hairy wrist. 

I was in his office. The fire was burning brightly in the fireplace, letting off small popping sounds from the wood turning to ash. I always came into his office at night, to watch the fire. The way the colorful flames danced on the wood. The smell of the bourbon my father consumed. It was as homely as it got. 

My parents argued often when I was young. Almost every night as soon as my father had retreated to his office to stress drink, my mother would call him out to cause some ruckus. I would always sneak to the door to eavesdrop on their arguments. 

That night, they were arguing about me. 

"Have you not seen the way he is maturing? He's just as strong as his brother." She screamed at him. 

I heard some rustling around, probably my father approaching her like he always did. He had an angry heart towards her. My mother was not his mate. She was his betrothed. They married for the better of the packs. They married to solidify the Terror pack. Their love was not real. It was a facade.

"I don't care if he is as strong, Jax is the first born and that's how the hierarchy works!" My father yelled back at her with even more intensity. 

"They both need to be raised as equals, Daryl, the better man should be Alpha, not the oldest."

"Says who?" He slurred back at her. 

"If you want this pack to actually survive you need a strong Alpha, not the one that's older. You've seen how troubled Jax can be." She argued with such passion. Her voice was filled with a burning fury every time they had argued, but her words always spoke the truth. She was the balance he needed, she was voice of reason.

"Zane is an abomination of a son, Teresa! The boy shouldn't have even been born!" 

My mother argued back in my defense for a few minutes, screaming profanities at him. I then remember the terrible shrieks of pain that my mother had let out. My father was an angry drunk, an abusive man.