Val already told the MC that she can't just ignore Zach without at least an explanation why, I think that this is the conversation of her trying to talk some sense into him, clearly the idiot takes it the wrong way. Or he asked Ethan for dumb advice.
The scene we see of Ethan, his goons and Val is clearly us seeing what happened when they bumped into each other at the end of ep13 if she helped the MC. This is nothing to do with Zach because at this moment Ethan has no clue that Zach likes her.