“I love you,” he says the words rough with truth. “Every day I choose you, Lana. Every single day.”
“I love you too,” I answer, voice breaking as pleasure coils tighter. “Always. Only you.”
His hand slips between us, fingers circling my clit in perfect sync with his thrusts, and the world narrows to nothingbut him: the flex of his back beneath my nails, the drag of his cock inside me, the raw honesty in his eyes.
“Come with me,” he breathes. “Let me feel you—”
The orgasm hits me like a wave breaking over stone, fierce and endless. I clench around him in pulsing waves, crying out as pleasure floods every nerve. He follows moments later, burying himself deep and coming with my name on his lips, hips jerking through each hot pulse until we’re both trembling, clinging, undone.
He collapses gently, rolling us so I’m draped across his chest, still joined, hearts hammering in frantic unison. His arms band around me, one hand stroking my hair, the other tracing lazy circles on my back.
Outside, the city moves through its morning rhythm. Inside, there is only the sound of our breathing slowing, the faint creak of the bed, the quiet certainty that this—this man, this life, this love—is the ending we fought for.
I press a kiss over his heart. “We made it,” I whisper.
He smiles against my temple, voice soft and utterly sure. “Yeah, baby. We did.”
And here, in this moment, wrapped in the arms of the man who chose redemption and chose me, I finally believe in happily ever after.
Eventually we shower, dress in comfortable clothes that signal neither of us has anywhere important to be today, and return to the living room where foundation applications and security contracts are waiting for our attention. This is the rhythm we've established—work and intimacy and domestic routines layered together into something that feels sustainable rather than suffocating.
I settle at the dining table with my laptop, pull up the latest expansion reports from Austin. The numbers are strong, donor engagement is high, and we're on track to help another fifty women by year's end. Every metric confirms that we're doing exactly what we set out to do—transform Gabriel's blood money into other people's freedom.
Jax works at the kitchen counter. And I catch him glancing at me occasionally, see the small smile that crosses his face when our eyes meet, and I realize this is what triumph looks like. Not the dramatic victory of defeating external threats, but the sustained success of building a life worth living.
By early afternoon, my phone rings. Solange.
"Can you talk?" she asks when I answer, and there's excitement in her voice that suggests good news.
"Always. What's up?"
"The board just approved Denver expansion. We're adding a fourth city next quarter, and they want to fast-track the timeline given how successful Austin has been." Her words tumble out with the kind of enthusiasm that only comes from work you genuinely believe in. "Lana, we're going to help so many more women. This is everything we hoped for when we started."
I feel tears prickling my eyes, the good kind that come from vindication and purpose and knowing you're building something that actually matters. "That's incredible. When do we start?"
"The planning phase begins next month. I'll coordinate with the Denver team, start researching local needs and potential partnerships. But Lana? This is your vision made real. You took the worst thing that ever happened to you and turnedit into freedom for hundreds of women. That's not just survival—that's triumph."
After we hang up, I sit with the news for a moment, letting myself feel the full weight of what we've accomplished. Four cities. Hundreds of women helped. A mission that keeps expanding because the work matters and people believe in what we're building.
Gabriel tried to make me into an accessory he could control and discard. He failed. I'm here, thriving, building an empire of freedom with his money and my determination.
"Good news?" Jax asks from across the room, reading my expression.
"Denver expansion just got approved. We're adding a fourth city next quarter." I can't keep the smile off my face. "The foundation is growing faster than we projected. We're actually making a difference."
He crosses to where I'm sitting, pulls me up into his arms, holds me while I process the reality of how far we've come. "You're making a difference," he corrects gently. "This is your vision, your work, your transformation of tragedy into purpose. I'm just proud to witness it."
"You're making a difference too," I remind him, because he needs to hear it as much as I did. "Eighteen clients, all of them getting security that protects without violating. You're proving that surveillance and ethics can coexist. That's not nothing, Jax. That's everything."
We stand like that for a long moment, holding each other in the home we built together, both of us processing how much work it took to get here and how worth it the struggle has been. No crisis is waiting to interrupt. No external threat is looming. Just two people who chose each other through the hardestpossible circumstances and built something real on the other side.
Eventually we separate, return to our work, spend the rest of the afternoon in comfortable parallel activity. By evening, we're both tired in the good way that comes from productive days rather than exhausting crisis management. We make dinner together, eat while discussing plans for next week's dinner with Elias and Mara, clean up with choreographed efficiency.
Later, we settle on the couch with wine and a book Solange recommended, taking turns reading chapters aloud to each other like we've been doing for months now. It's domestic and comfortable and exactly the kind of ordinary evening I used to dream about when Gabriel made every moment feel like a performance.
"Lana, are you happy?" Jax asks during a lull between chapters, and there's genuine curiosity in the question rather than insecurity.
I consider the question seriously, think about everything that brought us here—Gabriel's death, Jax's confession, The Glasshouse's attempts on my life, protective custody and federal investigation and eighteen months of choosing each other through circumstances that would have destroyed most relationships.
