I read the message twice, let the reality sink in. We'd known the trials were wrapping up—Agent Reeves had kept us updated throughout the process—but seeing it confirmed publicly, knowing the last of them are headed to federal prison, makes it feel final.
Ezra Pope had come up during the investigation too. Agent Reeves interviewed him extensively about his involvement with Trask and Reese, about the campaign funding that connected him to Glasshouse operations. Evidence showed he'd been coerced—The Glasshouse had approached him after Gabriel's death, offered to help with his political ambitions, presented themselves as Gabriel's former business associates who could provide campaign funding and strategic support. Ezra hadn't known what he was stepping into, hadn't realized they were just looking for a way to access Lana, to assess what Gabriel's widow knew about operations they couldn't afford to expose.
When he learned they'd attempted to kill Lana in that parking garage, he'd cooperated fully with federal investigators. Provided everything he had on his interactions with them, testified about the pressure they'd applied, expressed genuine remorse for his role in tormenting Lana even though he'd been a pawn rather than a willing participant. He'd also admitted he'd never known—or had ignored the signs of—Gabriel's abuse during the marriage, and that guilt compounded his regret over everything that followed.
The federal investigation cleared him of criminal charges given the coercion and his cooperation, but the exposure destroyed his political aspirations anyway. Last I heard from Elias, Ezra had withdrawn from the state assembly race entirely and returned to practicing corporate law with significantly lower ambitions than he'd had a year ago.
"Lana," I say, and she looks up from her laptop. "Brandon said he saw the glasshouse operatives' convictions on the news yesterday. It's officially over. The whole nation now knows them for who they are."
Her face does something complicated—relief, vindication, residual fear finally releasing its hold. "It's really. Completely."
"Completely." I cross back to her, pull her up from her chair, hold her while she processes what this means. "No more threats. No more looking over your shoulder. No more wondering if they'll try again. It's done, Lana. You won."
She's crying now, but it's the good kind of tears, the kind that come from releasing tension you've been carrying so long it became part of your baseline existence. I just hold her through it, let her fragment and reform in my arms, remind her that she's safe and loved and free.
She pulls back enough to see my face, and her eyes are still wet, but her expression has shifted into something that looks like hope. "The foundation event is next week. I'm giving the keynote speech about expansion to two new cities. We're announcing the legal aid program, the emergency relocation fund, all of it. And now I get to do it knowing The Glasshouse can't touch any of it."
The foundation event. Right. The thing she's been planning for six weeks, the public triumph where she gets to stand in front of donors and board members and media and announce that the Gabriel Pope Memorial Foundation—built with her dead husband's fortune—is expanding its mission to help even more women escape the kind of control she survived.
"You're going to be magnificent," I tell her, because it's true. "Standing up there, telling your story, showing everyonewhat's possible when you transform trauma into purpose. I'll be in the audience watching you own that stage."
"Watching me." She says it with a small smile, acknowledging the irony. "Is that still surveillance, or has it become something else?"
"It's become love," I say honestly. "I'll be watching you the way someone watches the person they're proud of, the person they've chosen, the person they want to spend their life building things with. That's different from surveillance, Lana. That's just being present."
She kisses me again, deeper this time, with the kind of heat that suggests she's thinking about more than just coffee and work. "You know what I realized this morning?"
"What?"
"We've been back in this apartment for six weeks. We finished unpacking, arranged the furniture, and made it home. But we still haven't properly christened the kitchen."
Heat pools in my stomach at the suggestion, at the promise in her voice. "The kitchen."
"The kitchen." Her hands slide under my shirt, palms flat against my chest. "I want to remember us there. I want to think about you every time I'm cooking dinner or making coffee. I want this space to be ours in every possible way."
This is what healing looks like when it's real—not the absence of trauma, but the ability to reclaim physical space and intimate connection despite everything that came before. Lana in her own kitchen, initiating sex, claiming agency over her body and her home and her pleasure.
"Then that's where we'll be," I tell her, echoing the words I used three months ago in the living room.
I scoop her up without warning, one arm under her knees, the other supporting her back. She gasps, arms looping around my neck as I carry her to the kitchen. When we reach the counter, I set her down on the granite edge, step between her thighs, and kiss her with all the want I've been holding back since this morning.
She responds immediately, hands fisting in my hair, her mouth opening, legs wrapping around my hips to pull me closer. This isn't the desperation of two people trying to survive. This is us, messy and complicated and choosing each other anyway, building something that belongs only to us, building something real in the aftermath of chaos.
I work her yoga pants down her hips, help her take them off along with her underwear, and then she's naked from the waist down on our kitchen counter in the middle of a Tuesday morning. The ordinariness of making love in our home during daylight hours without fear or crisis driving the decision—makes this feel more intimate than any of the desperate encounters we had before.
My hands slide under her shirt, palms skating up the soft skin of her waist, thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts. She gasps into my mouth as I kiss her, slow and filthy, tongue stroking hers like I’ve got all the time in the world. Her head falls back against the cabinet with a soft thud, and I follow, sucking a wet path down her throat, teeth scraping the spot that always makes her shiver.
“Jax,” she breathes, already rolling her hips against me.
I drop to my knees right there on the kitchen floor.
Her shirt rides up as I push her thighs apart, and fuck, she’s already slick, swollen, glistening in the morning light. I drag my tongue up her center in one long, greedy lick and shecries out, fingers knotting in my hair. I don’t tease. I devour—tongue thrusting deep, then circling her clit with tight, relentless flicks until her knees buckle and she has to brace her hands on the counter behind her.
I slide two fingers inside her, curl them hard, and suck her clit between my lips. She comes fast and hard, thighs clamping around my ears, a broken moan tearing out of her as her pussy flutters around my fingers in wet, rhythmic pulses. I keep licking her through it, gentler now, drawing out every aftershock until she’s trembling and tugging at my hair to pull me up.
When I stand, she attacks me—mouth crashing into mine, tasting herself on my tongue, hands ripping at my sweatpants. I help her shove them down, and my cock springs free, heavy and aching. She wraps her fingers around me, strokes once, twice, her thumb smearing the bead of pre-cum over the head until I groan into her mouth.
Suddenly, she’s off the counter, then she sinks to her knees.
