Which he has. I'm certain now. The man behind the cameras at The Dominion. The one who's been watching with the kind of attention that makes me feel simultaneously exposed and seen.
I should be terrified. Should report him to someone, though I'm not sure who you report surveillance to when the surveillance is conducted by the head of security himself. Maybe I should stop going to The Dominion, stop accepting Lucien's invitations, stop putting myself in spaces where Jax Hills can watch me.
Instead, I'm thinking about the way he looked at me in that elevator. The careful distance he maintained. The admission that watching wasn't enough anymore, but he didn't know what came next.
I understand that uncertainty. I've been living in it since Gabriel's body hit the rocks.
My phone buzzes. Solange:You're ignoring me. That means either the dinner was terrible or you're spiraling. Office by 9? I have croissants.
I text back:On my way.
The foundation office is a twenty-minute subway ride from my apartment. I take the same route I've taken every weekday for the past three months, the same train car, the same position near the door where I can exit quickly if needed. Routine is safety. Predictability is control.
Except today, routine feels watched.
I can't identify specifics—no one is following me, no one is staring—but the sensation persists. Like someone mapped my movements and is confirming I'm following the expected pattern. Like I'm being monitored not for threat but for consistency.
By the time I reach the office, the paranoia has settled into the low-grade anxiety that's become my baseline. Solange is already there, as promised, with coffee and croissants and an expression that says she's prepared to extract information.
"So?" She pushes a croissant toward me across her desk. "How was dinner with Miramont's elite?"
"An exhausting performance. Exactly what I expected." I break off a piece of croissant, force myself to eat even though my appetite died somewhere around Gabriel's funeral.
"And Lucien?"
"Calculating. Everything he does has three layers of intention." I sip coffee that Solange made too strong, which means she's worried. "He introduced me to his head of security. Jax Hills."
Her eyebrows rise. "The hot one?"
"I didn't say he was hot."
"You didn't have to. That pause before you said his name told me everything." She leans forward. "What happened?"
I could deflect. Could maintain the boundaries I've built around anything remotely personal. But Solange is the only person who knows fragments of truth about Gabriel, about what our marriage really looked like behind the charity galas and society photos.
"He showed me Lucien's panic room. Explained the security features. And then he told me he could see that I was putting on a performance, trying to act like I am recovered from Gabriel’s death." I meet her gaze. "He saw through everything I've been carefully constructing. Just looked at me and named it."
Solange is quiet for a moment. Then: "How did that feel?"
"Terrifying, validating. Maybe both." I set down my coffee. "The Dominion has cameras everywhere. I think he's the one behind them. The one watching. I've felt it, that specific kind of surveillance, and I think it's him."
"And that doesn't make you want to run?"
"It should." I pull apart more croissant without eating it. "But there was something about the way he admitted it. Like he knew it was wrong but couldn't stop. Like he was as trapped in watching me as I am in being watched."
"Lana." Solange's voice goes serious. "That's not romantic. That's concerning. A man who admits he's watching you but can't stop? That's a red flag the size of Miramont."
She's right. I know she's right. But there's a difference between Gabriel's surveillance and Jax's attention that I can't articulate without sounding damaged in ways that would worry her more.
Gabriel watched me to control. To catch mistakes, document failures, build cases for why I needed correction.
Jax watches me like he's trying to understand. Like I'm a code he's attempting to break, not to exploit but to comprehend.
The difference matters. Even if it shouldn't.
"I'm being careful," I say, which is the lie we both need me to tell.
Solange doesn't look convinced, but she lets it go. We spend the next two hours reviewing survivor requests and interviewing potential attorneys for the legal aid expansion.
