CHAPTER 29: JAX
Three months later
The apartment smells like coffee and the vanilla candle Lana bought last week because she decided our home needed "warmth beyond just security systems."
I'm standing at the kitchen counter drafting a security assessment for a tech startup in The Gateway—my first potential client for the consulting firm I'm working on officially launching next month.
They want comprehensive physical security for their new office space: access control systems, surveillance camera placement that protects the facility without creating privacy nightmares for employees, protocols for visitor management and executive protection.
It's the kind of work that uses everything I learned at The Dominion but applies it ethically—security that protects without violating.
Lana works at the dining table behind me, her laptop open to a video call with Solange about upcoming board meetings. She's been working remotely since we went into protective custody three months ago, managing foundation operations from safe houses and now from home, but next week she's finally returning to the office full-time.
A long deserving break after six weeks of federal interviews and another six weeks of recovering from the intensity of watching The Glasshouse dismantled through testimony and trials.
This is what domestic life looks like when you've earned it through confession and federal investigation and choosing each other through the worst possible circumstances—ordinarymornings that feel extraordinary precisely because we survived long enough to have them.
Three months since we handed Gabriel's files to Agent Reeves. Six weeks of that spent in protective custody while federal investigators used those files to dismantle The Glasshouse, arrest key operatives, and build prosecutions against people who thought they were untouchable. Then six weeks back in this apartment, finally finishing the unpacking we started, finally building the life we'd been fighting for since the parking garage attack.
The difference between protective custody and now is staggering.
Then, Lana was terrified every time someone knocked on the door, jumped at unexpected sounds, carried the weight of being a target for people who had resources and motivation to eliminate threats. Now she's sitting at our dining table in yoga pants and one of my shirts, humming something under her breath while she reviews applications from women who need exactly the kind of help her foundation provides.
My phone buzzes with a text from Elias: Tech startup is signing next week. Six more clients in the pipeline. Your consulting business is launching strong. I told you building something legitimate would be worth it. Proud of you.
He's right. When I left The Dominion and Lucien's surveillance empire three months ago, I wasn't sure ethical security consulting could actually sustain itself financially.
Turns out there's a market for someone who understands physical security and surveillance systems intimately enough to design them ethically, who can protect facilities and executives without creating privacy nightmares for employees, who treats consent as a feature rather than a limitation.
Companies want security that actually protects rather than just monitors, and they're willing to pay for someone who knows the difference.
The work is satisfying in ways The Dominion never was, the kind of professional fulfillment that comes from using skills for protection rather than control.
Lucien and I reached an understanding after everything went down with The Glasshouse. He called two months ago, asked to meet for coffee in neutral territory, and we had the kind of conversation that should have happened before I ever confessed to Lana.
He acknowledged that he'd enabled my worst impulses, that he'd known I was obsessed with Lana and did nothing to intervene.
"I'm not apologizing," he'd said, because Lucien doesn't do genuine remorse. "But I'm acknowledging that I benefited from your obsession and didn't care about the cost to either of you. That was wrong."
Close enough to accountability that I accepted it. We're not friends, never will be, but we maintain professional respect. He still runs The Dominion with the same morally bankrupt practices, but he refers clients to me when they want security that doesn't compromise ethics. Strange detente, but it works.
"Jax?" Lana's voice pulls me back to the present. "Can you look at this application? A woman in her early thirties, husband monitored her phone and installed tracking devices in her car. She needs emergency relocation funds and legal representation for the divorce."
I cross to where she's sitting, lean over her shoulder to read the application on her screen. The details are familiar in ways that make my chest tighten—the escalating control,the technological surveillance, the husband who thought monitoring was the same as loving.
"Approve it," I tell her. "Give her whatever she needs. And Lana? Make sure she knows to check for AirTags or Tiles hidden in her belongings. Abusers who use GPS trackers rarely stop at just the obvious locations."
She looks up at me, and something complicated crosses her face. "You would have known exactly where to hide them. How to make them impossible to find."
"Yes." I don't flinch from the truth. "Which is why I know exactly where to look for them now. If you want, I could help with cases like this—do technical sweeps for survivors who need tracking devices found and removed. We could work together on it, combine the foundation's mission with my expertise. Use what I know for something that actually helps instead of violates."
Lana reaches up, pulls me down for a kiss that tastes like coffee and forgiveness. "I love you."
"I love you too." The words come easier now, after three months of saying them daily, after choosing vulnerability over control repeatedly until it becomes something close to habit.
She returns to the application, starts composing an approval email while I move back to the kitchen counter and my own work. This is partnership—both of us building things that matter, supporting each other's missions, existing in the same space without needing constant interaction to feel connected.
My phone buzzes again. This time it's Brandon:Just saw the news. Final Glasshouse operative sentenced yesterday. 15 years federal. They're done. Thought you and Lana would want to know it's officially over.
