Next Morning, 6 hours before Smackdown
Ava sat up the second she heard her little girl cry. She stretched and she raked her hand through sleep tossed light brown hair, and stood, promptly tripping on her own two feet. Regaining her footing, she walked the few inches to the crib her daughter lie in, picked her up and held her against her.
Lola was too little to understand everything now, but what in the hell would she tell her when she was older, and Lola inevitably asked where her father was?
What if the worst happened, and she was asking that bastard Ben where her mother was? She wasn't an idiot, she knew about Ripley and Ben's mob ties, if they wanted, they could fabricate anything and get a judge to turn over custody to him.
And that'd mean her adoptive father, Ripley, well he'd finally have the revenge against her for her 'betrayal' when she'd chosen to leave him after her mother's death, go to live with her birth father, Paul Levesque..
Ava grumbled and bit down hard on her lip, wincing as the pain sprang forth and she tasted the bitter copperiness of her blood. "There is no way in hell those two assholes are getting their hands on my daughter. My dad's got connections too and I'm pretty sure my stepgrandfather will figure something out."
Even as she reassured herself this, she had a tiny nagging thought in the back of her mind.. What if the worst case scenario happened and she never got to see her little girl again?
This made her angry, more determined to somehow find a way to keep that from happening. The door being knocked on had her surfacing from her own mind for a moment as her stepmother Stephanie called from the other side, "Sweetie? You awake?"
"Yeah, mom.. Both of us are awake. I'll be down in a minute." she said as she rummaged around in her bags, found a tanktop and slid it down then wiggled into some jeans. Changing Lola's diaper and dressing her in her onesie only took a few seconds and soon she was sitting at the breakfast table, everyone looking at her, waiting on an explanation.
She bit her lips, told her stepmother everything she'd told her father, HHH the night before. Stephanie gaped as she listened, let what her stepdaughter had been a victim of sink in.
"That no good, rotten son of a bi.." Stephanie bit back her words and then stood and said "Going to call dad, sweetie. From the sound of it, we're definitely going to a lawyer."
"If he hasn't put a hit out on me for leaving him already, you mean." Ava said grimly, as her father shot her a dirty look and said "That little prick's lucky I didn't drive there last night, or he wouldn't have had to worry about breathing another breath. And if he thinks he's going to do something stupid and show up and try and hurt you or pay someone else to? I'll break his neck."
Stephanie explained the situation to her father and Vince sighed as he said calmly, "I'll call the legal team, you just make sure she stays with you two. Bring her on the road. She's safer."
"Trust me. She's not getting out of our sight, dad." Stephanie said as she hung up and walked back into the dining room, explained what her father offered Ava.
Ava blinked and then said "Yeah? I can do makeup, I mean I got my cosmetology license.." and then it sank in that if she worked for the show, she'd be moving around constantly.
It was less likely that Ben would show up and create chaos or hurt her family, or her, or most importantly, her little girl, Lola.
And if he were stupid enough to show up? Well any case he'd have, should he try and take her to court would be blown straight to hell.
Ava knew all this, but she couldn't help the intense fear or the overall omnious feeling of something bad waiting just ahead for her that crept it's way in and took hold, yet again.
Was she ever going to get a chance to have a normal and worry free life, ever again? Would she ever trust anyone again? She'd been lied to so many times before and for so long, she kind of wondered if her family were the only people left on Earth who didn't mind telling the truth, even when the truth hurt.
Hunter spoke up and said "Ava? You alright?"
"Yeah, dad, just thinking.." Ava sighed as she picked her daughter up, walked up the stairs and back into her room. What she needed was a plan. Because now, every threat Ben (or Ripley for that matter) ever made were rattling around in Ava's mind, and she didn't want to be the cause of someone she cared about or loved being hurt in the long run.
But how does one go against an angry mobster hell bent on revenge, with his right hand man also gunning for you, simultaneously.
"If you're listening, God.. It'd be nice to have a break. I.. I just don't know if I'm strong enough to handle all of this coming at me left and right.. And I'll die and burn in hell before I let those two jerks take my daughter from me or hurt my family."
She felt this odd sense of relief, but she knew better than to get too caught up in it. Still, she spent the rest of the day formulating an exit strategy that just might keep everyone safe, and her daughter with her and not those two snakes.
Downstairs, Hunter groaned quietly and asked his wife, "So.. Do you think she's up there trying to plan everything out so that nobody but her gets hurt?"
Stephanie nodded and then said quietly, a confident voice as she looked at her husband, "Yes, most likely, she thinks a lot like I do, and that's the very thing I'd be doing.. Let's just concentrate on getting her safely out of this so she doesn't have to use it, okay?"
"Oh definitely. I'm half tempted to just show up at that son of a bitch's house, go on a rampage."
"Hunter, he fights dirty.. If you do that, he'll use it against her."
"That's the only damn reason I haven't yet, babe.. But we're going to get him this time. We have to."
"Yes, we do."
Upstairs, Ava held her daughter, as she tried to keep her mind from wandering and dreaming up the worst possible scenario as she said quietly, in a grim and sarcastic tone of voice, "When I screw up, baby girl.. I really go all out, don't I?"
There had to be a way out of this, there just had to be.. Little did she realize that tonight, she'd be put in the first of many hairy positions and she'd have her answer from the prayer uttered moments ago, although she wouldn't realize it.
But this was only the beginning of a long and very messed up and complicated situation.
