CHAPTER FOUR LANA #3
Back in my apartment, I do what I've been doing every afternoon for five months: nothing productive. I sit on my couch with a book I won't read. I stare at my phone and don't call anyone. I count the hours until I can take my sleeping pill and escape into unconsciousness.
Except today, I can't sit still.
I get up. Pace the small living room. Return to my bedroom and open the closet where Gabriel's aesthetic still dictates half my wardrobe. I pull out dresses I haven't worn since he died—the ones he chose for important dinners, calculated to project wealth and taste and appropriate femininity.
Wear whatever makes you feel powerful.
Lucien's text echoes. I hold up a black cocktail dress Gabriel insisted I buy for a museum gala. It's beautiful—structured, expensive, elegant. And it makes me feel like Gabriel's wife, which is exactly the opposite of powerful.
I shove it back into the closet and pull out another option: deep burgundy, simpler cut, something I chose myself during one of those Tuesday afternoons Gabriel interrogated me about. He'd hated it. Said burgundy made me look like I was trying too hard.
I hold it up to the light. It's not trying too hard. It's just trying.
I hang it on the outside of the closet door. Friday's armor is chosen.
The rest of the week passes in the kind of rhythm that looks normal from outside.
Wednesday: foundation work, grant review, phone calls with potential attorneys.
Thursday: therapy check-in with Dr. Cross via video call because she had a scheduling conflict.
She asks how I'm doing. I say fine. She sees through it but doesn't push, just reminds me we have our regular session tomorrow.
Friday arrives with rain. Not the violent storm that killed Gabriel, just persistent September drizzle that makes the city look smudged. I dress for therapy in jeans and a sweater, comfortable clothes that signal I'm off-duty from performing.
Dr. Cross's office is in The Crest, occupying the third floor of a renovated brownstone. The waiting room is designed to feel calming—soft lighting, neutral colors, and a white noise machine that masks whatever's being discussed behind Dr. Cross's closed door.
I sit in the chair closest to the door because Gabriel trained me to always know my exits, and five months of therapy hasn't untrained that particular survival instinct.
At exactly 2 PM, Dr. Cross opens her door. She's in her late forties, graying hair worn in a practical bob, and glasses that make her look both stern and kind. "Lana. Come in."
Her office is familiar territory now. The same chair I always sit in—leather, comfortable, positioned to face her without feeling interrogated. The same box of tissues on the side table that I've needed more often than I'd like. The same view of the street where rain is turning everything gray.
"How have you been?" she asks, settling into her chair with a notepad she rarely writes in but always brings.
"Complicated." I pull my knees up, wrap my arms around them—a posture she's told me indicates I'm protecting myself. "I went to an art exhibition last week. Dark romance, trauma recovery, themes of confinement and liberation. It was... a lot."
"Tell me about it."
So I do. I describe Vera Molina's work, the photograph of the terrace, the way my memory fractured when I looked at The Drop. I tell her about Elias Voss asking what I saw and somehow making honesty feel possible. About fleeing through the emergency exit because staying felt dangerous.
Dr. Cross listens without interrupting, her face revealing nothing. When I finish, she asks, "What made it feel dangerous?"
"Being seen. Being understood. Someone looking at my reaction to that photograph and recognizing what it meant.
" I press my forehead to my knees. "Gabriel spent five years making sure no one really saw me.
And now I'm in this club where I feel constantly visible, constantly assessed, and I can't tell if that's healing or just recreating familiar trauma with better lighting. "
"The Dominion," she says. "You've mentioned it before. The exclusive club where this Lucien Armitage invited you."
"Yes."
"And you're going back. To a dinner tonight."
"Yes."
"Why?"
It's the question I've been avoiding. "Because staying home feels like disappearing. Because uncomfortable is at least honest. Because maybe if I keep exposing myself to situations where I have to be present, eventually I'll remember how."
"Or?" Dr. Cross prompts gently.
"Or I'll break trying."
She sets down her notepad, leans forward slightly.
"Lana, we've talked about the difference between challenging yourself and punishing yourself.
Exposure therapy works when you're gradually building tolerance to manageable discomfort.
But what you're describing—going to a club where you feel constantly watched, attending events that trigger your trauma, seeking out situations that make you feel the way Gabriel made you feel—that's not building tolerance. That's seeking out pain."
"What if pain is the only thing that makes me feel real?"
The words surprise both of us. I didn't plan to say them. They just emerged, honest and terrible.
Dr. Cross doesn't look shocked. She looks sad. "Pain makes you feel something. That's different from feeling real. Your nervous system is so used to threat that safety feels like numbness. So you're creating artificial threat to feel alive again."
"So what do I do? Stay in my apartment forever? Only go to work and therapy and nowhere else?"
"You find middle ground. You challenge yourself in ways that don't replicate your trauma." She pauses. "Tell me about Lucien Armitage. What do you know about him?"
"Rich, successful. Owns The Dominion. Interested in me for reasons I don't fully understand.
" I think about his texts, his calculated invitations, the way he curated that exhibition specifically to resonate with my history.
"He's manipulative. But transparent about it, which makes it feel less dangerous somehow. "
"Does it? Or does transparency just make the manipulation more seductive?"
I don't have an answer for that.
We spend the rest of the session discussing boundaries, safety planning, what it would look like to attend tonight's dinner while maintaining emotional distance.
By the end, I have a plan: arrive on time, stay for exactly two hours, leave if I feel triggered, text Solange halfway through to check in.
"And Lana?" Dr. Cross says as I'm leaving, "Consider why you're drawn to spaces where you feel watched. We've talked about Gabriel's surveillance, how it made you feel trapped but also visible. Make sure you're not confusing being seen with being controlled."
I promise I'll think about it.
The rain has stopped by the time I leave her office.
I walk the ten blocks back to my apartment, letting the damp air clear my head.
At home, I have two hours before the car arrives.
I shower, dry my hair, apply makeup with more care than usual.
The burgundy dress fits perfectly—neither too loose nor too constrained, just enough structure to feel intentional.
I study myself in the bathroom mirror. The woman looking back is not the widow from Gabriel's funeral. She's not Mrs. Pope performing for society photographers. She's someone else entirely—someone I'm still learning to recognize.
At 6:43 PM, my phone buzzes. Text from the driver: Arriving in two minutes.
I grab my clutch—ID, phone, lipstick, emergency cash—and head downstairs. The town car is waiting, same driver as before. He opens the rear door without speaking. I slide into leather seats that smell like money and decision.
"The Dominion?" I ask, even though I know the answer.
"Mr. Armitage's private residence," the driver says. "Twenty minutes."
My stomach drops. I assumed the dinner would be at The Dominion, in that controlled environment where I know the exits and can be a patron instead of guest. But Lucien's private residence is different. More intimate. More vulnerable.
More dangerous.
I pull out my phone. Text Solange: Dinner is at Lucien's home, not The Dominion. Still going. Will check in at 8.
Her response: Be careful Lana. Remember you can leave anytime. You don't owe him anything.
I know I can leave. That's what I keep telling myself as the car winds through increasingly expensive neighborhoods, from The Margin's comfortable anonymity to The Crest's ostentatious wealth. The buildings get taller, the streets get cleaner, and the distance from my actual life gets wider.
Finally, we stop in front of a building that looks more like a museum than a residence. Pre-war architecture, limestone facade, doorman in uniform who nods as I exit the car.
"Ms. Pope," the doorman says. "Mr. Armitage is expecting you. Penthouse level."
Of course it's the penthouse.
The elevator is all brass and mirrors. I watch my reflection multiply as we ascend—one Lana becoming many Lanas, all of them wearing burgundy, all of them wondering what they're walking into.
The elevator opens directly into the penthouse. No hallway, no transition. Just immediate entry into Lucien Armitage's private world.
And he's waiting for me, drink in hand, smile perfectly calibrated. "Lana. You came. And you wore burgundy. Excellent choice."
Behind him, floor-to-ceiling windows show the city sprawling below. And beyond the windows, seven other guests I don't recognize, all holding drinks, all looking at me like I'm the evening's entertainment they've been anticipating.
I step out of the elevator into Lucien's domain, and the doors close behind me with a soft click that sounds too much like a trap being sprung.