Just got home from work. Checking in. How are you?
I'm okay. Tired but okay.
I type and delete three different responses before settling on:Good. Try to sleep. Tomorrow's going to be another long day.
You too.
I close the phone, close the app, and force myself through the mechanics of preparing for bed. Shower, brush teeth, set alarms, lie down in sheets that feel colder than they should given the season.
Sleep doesn't come. My brain keeps circling back to the way she looked at me across that table, the way her voice cracked when she talked about being terrified, the way I wanted to close the distance between us and didn't because crossing that line would transform everything we've carefully negotiated.
But Lana already feels personal in ways I can't rationalize as professional investment anymore.
I think about calling Elias. Confessing that I'm failing at the boundaries we established, that watching her yesterday required more restraint than any protection detail I've ever worked, that going to her apartment afterward wasn't tactical necessity but personal need.
I don't call him. That conversation requires more honesty than 2:47 AM allows.
Sleep eventually comes in fragments. I dream about cameras and distance and Lana standing on a terrace in the rain while I watch from behind glass, unable to reach her, forced to witness instead of act. In the dream, she looks directly at me and says:This is what you chose.
I wake at 8:34 AM feeling less rested than when I went to bed.
My phone shows two texts. One from Lucien, sent at 7:15 AM:Report on Ezra investigation. My office, 3 PM today.
The second from Lana, sent at 8:02 AM:Meeting with Mira at 9. Will update you after.
I respond to Lucien first:I'll be there.
Then to Lana:Good luck. Text me when you're done.
I down two cups of coffee back-to-back, trying to override the exhaustion from a sleepless night, while calculating how many hours until I need to be at Lucien's office. Six and a half hours. Enough time to check in with Elias, do surveillance work on Ezra that doesn't require Lucien's resources, maybe review Lana's apartment security remotely to confirm no one approached her building overnight.
Maybe stop by her apartment after her attorney meeting to debrief in person instead of over text.
The thought arrives fully formed, rationalized before I can question it. She'll need to process whatever Mira tells her. Face-to-face debrief is more effective than text communication. Seeing her reaction in person allows better threat assessment than reading messages.
All true. All justification for what I actually want: to see her again before another twelve-hour shift at The Dominion puts distance between yesterday's proximity and whatever this is becoming.
My phone rings at 9:47 AM. Elias.
I answer. "I was going to call you."
"Sure you were." His tone is dry. "Lucien contacted me this morning. Said you've been distracted. That your judgment regarding Lana Pope might be compromised."
"Lucien's concerned about my judgment or his interests?"
"Both. Which is why I'm calling." I hear him moving, the sound of a door closing, the shift to more private conversation. "Walk me through yesterday. The lunch with Ezra. Your response."
So I do. I describe watching Lana walk into Marconi's wearing the recording device, seeing Ezra arrive and perform concern while systematically threatening her, following every rule Elias gave me even when following them felt like cutting off my own hands. Texting him twice when intervention became overwhelming. Document everything. Let her fight her own battle.
"And afterward?" Elias prompts.
"Afterward I went to her apartment. Debriefed. Brought food. Made sure she was processing everything appropriately before I left for my shift." The summary is accurate and incomplete simultaneously.
"How long were you there?"
"Hour and thirteen minutes."
"That's specific."
