She lives on the fourth floor of a walk-up that's seen better days but maintains character through sheer determination. The hallway is thick with the scent of garlic, spices, and something baking—layers of meals from a dozen different apartments mingling together, sounds of families and arguments and life happening in close quarters. It's the opposite of Gabriel's estate—warm where his house was cold, chaotic where his control demanded order.
I knock at 6:51 PM.
Solange opens the door wearing an apron that says, "I have neither the time nor the crayons to explain this to you" and an expression that says she already knows I'm about to complicate her evening.
"Wine first or confession first?" she asks, stepping aside to let me enter.
"Can I have wine during confession?"
"That bad?" She takes the bottles, studies the labels with approval. "You bought the good stuff. This is definitely about Jax."
I should be surprised that she's already guessed. I'm not. Solange has been reading my tells since before Gabriel taught me to hide them.
"Wine first," I decide, settling onto her couch—second hand like mine but more lived-in, covered with blankets and throw pillows that suggest comfort rather than survival. "Then confession."
She disappears into her kitchen, returns with two glasses and one of the bottles already opened. She pours generously, hands me a glass that's fuller than responsible and keeps the other for herself.
"So," she says, settling into the chair across from me. "Tell me what happened that's making you look simultaneously terrified and hopeful."
The assessment is accurate enough to sting. "I kissed Jax. Or he kissed me. Or we kissed each other. I'm not actually sure who moved first."
Solange takes a long drink of wine. Sets down her glass with careful precision. Looks at me with an expression I can't quite read. "Okay. When?"
"This morning. After my meeting with Mira. He came over to debrief and we were talking about attraction and boundaries and somehow we ended up—" I gesture vaguely. "Kissing."
"Somehow." She repeats the word with enough skepticism to make it clear she doesn't believe in accidental kisses. "And how do you feel about that?"
"Terrified. Confused. Aware that getting involved with someone who's been surveilling me is probably catastrophic judgment." I drink my own wine, welcoming the burn. "Also not sorry it happened, which might be the most concerning part."
"Why is not regretting it concerning?"
"Because I should regret it. He's been watching me for weeks, Solange. Monitoring my phone, installing cameras in myapartment, tracking my movements. Everything Gabriel did to me, Jax is doing. The fact that I'm okay with it—that I kissed him anyway—means I've normalized surveillance in ways that should terrify me."
Solange is watching me with the careful attention she reserves for moments when what I'm saying matters more than what I'm admitting. "Is Jax doing everything Gabriel did? Or are you conflating methodology with motivation?"
The question catches me off guard. "What's the difference? Gabriel watched me. Jax watches me. Both involve invasion of privacy."
"I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Gabriel watched you to control. To catch mistakes, document failures, build cases for why you needed correction." She leans forward. "Does Jax do that? Use the surveillance to criticize you, to manage your behavior, to make you feel like you're failing?"
I think about the cameras with admin access. The transparency. The way Jax explains his monitoring instead of hiding it. The fact that I can disable every feed whenever I want and he's never questioned that power.
"No," I admit. "He doesn't use it that way."
"Then the methodology might look identical, but the dynamic is completely different." She refills both our glasses even though we've barely made a dent in the first glass. "Gabriel's surveillance was about possession. Jax's surveillance is about—what did he call it?"
"Protection. Threat assessment. Giving me agency over my own monitoring."
"Right. So the question isn't whether surveillance is happening. The question is whether you have power in therelationship or whether the surveillance removes your power." She holds my gaze. "Do you feel powerless with Jax?"
The honest answer requires examination I've been avoiding. "No. I feel seen. Which is different from feeling controlled. But I'm not sure if that difference is real or if I'm just better at rationalizing what I want."
"What do you want?"
The question is direct, and deflection would be pointless. "I want him. I want the way he looks at me like I'm someone worth protecting instead of someone who needs managing. I want the feeling of being monitored by someone who notices my strengths instead of my failures." I drain half my glass, needing the courage alcohol provides. "I want to stop acting like I am recovering and just be honest about how broken I still am. And somehow Jax makes that feel possible instead of shameful."
Solange absorbs this, and I watch her calculate whether to support my terrible judgment or talk me out of it. "You know this is complicated timing, right? You're being threatened by Ezra. You're carrying five months of guilt about Gabriel's death. You're rebuilding your entire sense of self after years of systematic dismantling. Adding a relationship—especially one with someone who spies on you—might not be the wisest choice."
"I know. Jax knows. We talked about it after the kiss." I set down my glass before I drink it too fast. "We agreed to wait until the legal situation resolves. Until I'm not dependent on his protection for survival. Then we can revisit whether this is real or just proximity and adrenaline."
