By 7 PM, I'm sitting on my couch with my phone, reviewing the text exchange with Jax. The admission about emptiness and surveillance. The vulnerability wrapped in midnight honesty.
I try to eat some more—leftover soup from two days ago—but my throat won't cooperate. Try to read, but the words blur together. Try to watch something mindless on my laptop, but my brain won't stop replaying Ezra's calculated threats.
By 9 PM, I give up on productivity and take my sleeping pill early and lie in bed counting ceiling fan rotations, waiting for the medication to drag me under.
Tomorrow, I'll meet with Mira and start building my legal defense. Tomorrow, I'll figure out how to fight Ezra without falling apart. Tomorrow, I'll make rational decisions about boundaries and protection and whether letting Jax this far into my life was wisdom or weakness.
But tonight, I close my eyes and count heartbeats until they return to normal, grateful that for once I wasn't alone in the warfare.
CHAPTER 11: JAX
The control center hums its familiar midnight frequency, and I've been staring at the same security feed for seventeen minutes without actually seeing it. My shift ends in forty-three minutes, but my mind is still in Lana's apartment, still sitting across from her at that small kitchen table, still watching her try to eat Thai food while processing psychological warfare.
The Dominion's late-night crowd needs monitoring—camera angles checked, exits verified, the handful of remaining patrons assessed for acceptable behavior.
Instead, I'm replaying the way her knee pressed against mine under that table, the way she looked at me when I told her fear doesn't mean failure, the way she said "thank you" like the words cost her something.
This is the problem. The exact problem Elias warned me about.
My phone sits on the console beside my coffee, Elias's rules still set as my lock screen. I've read them approximately thirty times since the lunch at Marconi's. Rule three keeps circling back:Let her fight her own battles. She's stronger than you think.
I followed the rules yesterday. Documented instead of defending. Let Ezra's threats play out while my hands clenched under the table hard enough that my knuckles went white. Texted Elias twice when the urge to cross Marconi's and end the conversation became overwhelming. He talked me down both times with reminders that intervention would compromise Lana's legal position, that she was handling Ezra perfectly, that my job was witness rather than savior.
The rules worked. I maintained professional distance. Lana survived the lunch with evidence documented and composure mostly intact.
But sitting in her apartment afterward, watching her try to process everything while exhaustion pulled at the edges of her performance—that wasn't standard security protocol. A professional check-in would have taken fifteen minutes. I stayed for over an hour because leaving her alone felt worse than arriving late to my shift.
Lucien noticed. Sent me a text at 5:52 PM while I was walking to The Dominion:You're invested. Remember what I said about motivation and boundaries.
I didn't respond.
I close down my workstation at 1:47 AM and save the reports Marcus will need for overnight monitoring. Marcus runs the main security office on the second floor—basic coverage, access control, routine patrols. He doesn't have access to this control center without me being there.
I take the steel stairs up to the second floor, find Marcus already settled at his desk with coffee and the night's patrol schedule.
"Anything I need to know?" he asks, not looking up from his screen.
"Two members stayed past closing. Both regulars, both cleared personally by Lucien. One altercation in the main bar around eleven, resolved by floor security before it escalated. Camera seven in the east corridor is showing minor interference—maintenance has been notified for tomorrow." I run through the report from memory rather than notes, the routine so ingrained I can perform it while my actual thoughts are twelveblocks away in an apartment I've watched but never should have entered.
Marcus nods, makes his notes, asks the standard follow-up questions. By 2:03 AM, the transition is complete, and I'm climbing the final stairs to The Dominion's main exit.
The main floor is empty now, the cleaning crew working their efficient choreography of returning the space to pristine condition. I exit through the staff entrance into October air that's turned properly cold, the kind of temperature that makes the walk home feel like punishment for unclear crimes.
My apartment is seventeen minutes away. I count the blocks, count my steps, count anything that prevents me from thinking about the fact that Lana's apartment is only four blocks in the opposite direction and I could be there in six minutes if I turned around right now.
I don't turn around.
Inside my apartment, I pour myself some water, stand at my window looking out at a city that contains her somewhere in its sprawl, and pull out my phone to check the apartment cameras one final time before attempting something resembling sleep.
The feeds show her apartment in the half-darkness of 2:18 AM. Living room empty, kitchen untouched since we cleaned up together, entrance showing no activity in the hallway. The bedroom camera I deliberately didn't install means I can't confirm she's actually sleeping, but the lights are off, and the apartment is secure.
Professional assessment complete.
I should close the app. Go to bed. Sleep for six hours before I need to be functional again.
Instead, I text her:Are you sleeping?
The response comes ninety seconds later:No. You?
