CHAPTER FIVE JAX #3
"What do you see when you watch me?"
The question is loaded, dangerous, and exactly the kind of honesty I should deflect. But something about the way she asks it—like she genuinely wants to know, like the answer matters—makes deflection feel like cowardice.
"I see someone who's very good at pretending to be okay for other people," I say. "And I see how much that costs."
Her breath catches, barely audible. Then she's moving past me, back down the hallway, returning to the party where she'll resume the performance I just named.
I stand in the panic room for another thirty seconds, counting heartbeats until my pulse returns to normal. One hundred and seventeen beats.
When I return to the main living area, the gathering has thinned.
The venture capitalist left while I was showing Lana the panic room.
The married couple is making their final goodbyes, all air kisses and promises to lunch soon that neither party means.
Only the art dealer remains, still talking to someone about market trends and emerging artists.
Lana is back at the windows, coffee cup in hand, looking like she never left. The performance resumed seamlessly. But I can see the shift in her posture—shoulders slightly more rigid, grip on the cup tighter than necessary. Our conversation affected her.
Good. It affected me too.
Lucien catches my eye from across the room and nods once. Acknowledgment. Approval. Whatever happened in that panic room met his expectations. Or maybe exceeded them. With Lucien, it's impossible to know which outcome he actually wanted.
By 10:45, the last guests have departed. The catering staff is cleaning up in efficient near-invisibility, and Lucien is pouring himself another scotch. Lana is still at the windows, but her coffee cup is empty now. She's just standing there, looking at the city like it might provide answers.
"Jax," Lucien says. "Walk Ms. Pope to her car."
It's not a request.
Lana turns from the window. "That's not necessary. I'm sure you have other responsibilities."
"My responsibility tonight is making sure guests feel secure." I gesture toward the elevator. "It's late. The building is secure, but I'd rather confirm safe departure than assume it."
She looks like she wants to argue. Then something in her expression shifts—resignation, maybe, or just exhaustion—and she nods. "Thank you."
We say goodbyes to Lucien that feel more formal than they should, given what I know about his manipulation, and what she must suspect about his interest. Then we're in the elevator, descending through thirty floors of silence that feels heavier than any surveillance feed I've ever monitored.
At the twentieth floor, she speaks. "That was kind. What you said about the performance."
"It wasn't kind. It was honest."
"Same thing, sometimes." She's looking at the elevator's brass panel, not at me. "Most people don't notice. Or they notice and pretend they don't because noticing would require acknowledging something uncomfortable."
"I'm paid to notice uncomfortable things."
"Is that what I am? An uncomfortable thing?"
The elevator reaches the lobby before I have to answer. The doors open onto marble floors and the night doorman who nods respectfully as we pass. Outside, the town car is waiting. Same driver, same precision timing.
I open the rear door. Lana pauses before getting in at turns to face me. "Will I see you again? At The Dominion?"
"I'm there most evenings."
"But I won't see you. Will I?" Her eyes are sharp despite the exhaustion. "You're the one behind the cameras. In some kind of control room I can't access. Watching."
My pulse kicks up. She's guessing. Or she's deduced it. Either way, she's figured out more than she should have.
"Security requires observation," I say carefully.
"That's not a denial." She studies my face like she's memorizing it. "I knew someone was watching. I could feel it. The cameras are too well-placed to be random. Too focused. Someone's been paying very close attention."
I should deflect. Should maintain professional distance. Should not confirm surveillance that crosses boundaries I'm barely maintaining.
Instead, I say: "Someone has been paying attention, yes."
"Why?"
"Because Lucien asked me to. Because you're a patron he's invested in. Because..." I stop. Regroup. "Because watching is easier than acting, and I've gotten very good at easy."
Her expression does something complicated. "And now? After tonight?"
"Now I know watching isn't enough." The admission costs me. "But I don't know what comes next. What action looks like instead of observation."
She nods like I've confirmed something she already suspected. Then she's sliding into the car, and the driver is closing the door, and I'm standing on the pavement watching taillights disappear into Miramont's late-night traffic.
My phone buzzes. Text from Lucien: Come back up.
I take the elevator to the penthouse. The catering staff has finished, the space restored to its usual pristine state. Lucien is at the windows where Lana stood, scotch in hand, looking down at the city.
"Well?" he says without turning around.
"Well what?"
"You showed her the panic room. Had a conversation. Made an impression." He takes a sip of scotch. "What did you learn?"
"She's smarter than the surveillance suggested. More aware. She knows I've been watching."
"Of course she knows. Women like Lana Pope don't survive marriages to men like Gabriel without developing excellent threat assessment." He turns from the window. "The question is whether she's afraid of being watched or intrigued by it."
"Does it matter?"
"Everything matters. Fear means she'll run. Intrigue means she'll engage." He crosses to where I'm standing. "I need her engaged, Jax. Not running. Which means I need you to be very careful about how you proceed."
"Proceed with what?"
"With whatever this is becoming." He gestures between where I'm standing and the window where she stood. "You're invested. She's interested. That creates opportunity—or catastrophe. I'm hoping for the former."
"What opportunity?"
Lucien smiles. "Lana Pope is being hunted. She doesn't know it yet, but Gabriel's brother is moving pieces into position. Legal challenges to the estate. Quiet investigations into her past. He wants her discredited, displaced, possibly worse."
My chest constricts. "You're sure?"
"I'm always sure. Ezra Pope has been making inquiries.
Hiring investigators. Building a case that Lana was unstable, dangerous, possibly responsible for Gabriel's death.
" He finishes his scotch. "If she's going to survive what's coming, she'll need protection.
Real protection, not just surveillance."
"Why tell me this?"
"Because you're the one who'll be protecting her.
Not officially—I can't authorize bodyguard services without raising questions.
But unofficially, discreetly, the way you've been watching her already.
" He sets down his glass. "The difference is that now you'll be watching for specific threats, not just monitoring movement. "
This is the assignment I've been waiting for without knowing I wanted it. Permission to stop pretending the surveillance is professional. Acknowledgment that what I've been doing crosses boundaries but serves a purpose.
"What are the parameters?" I ask.
"Keep her safe. Keep her unaware that she needs keeping safe. If Ezra or his proxies make a move, intercept before it reaches her." He pauses. "And Jax? This stays between us. Lana doesn't know about the threat yet. I'd prefer to keep it that way until necessary."
"You want me to protect her without telling her she's in danger."
"I want you to protect her while she still believes she has agency.
The moment she knows she's being hunted, she'll either run or fight.
Both outcomes create exposure I'd rather avoid.
" His expression hardens. "Can you do this?
Watch her, protect her, keep her safe—all without crossing the line into the kind of possession that destroys what you're trying to preserve? "
It's the question I've been asking myself for two weeks. The hollow place in my chest where purpose used to be is screaming yes, take the assignment, make her your responsibility, fill the emptiness with something that matters.
But a part of me that sounds like what would be Elias’s warning: You think you're protecting her. You're not. You're just afraid to lose another thing you worship.
"I can do it," I say.
Lucien studies me for a long moment. Then: "Good. Start tomorrow. I want a full security assessment of her apartment, her routines, her vulnerabilities. If Ezra's investigators are watching her, I want you watching them. Understood?"
"Understood."
"One more thing." He walks to the bar, pours another scotch even though he's already had several. "If this becomes personal—and I suspect it already has—remember that personal attachments create blind spots. Don't let your feelings compromise her safety."
"I won't."
"You say that now." He raises his glass in a mock toast. "But feeling things for someone you're assigned to protect has a way of distorting judgment. Just ask Elias. He's spent years trying to atone for loving Mara more than he loved the missions."
The comparison lands like a punch. Elias and Mara. Elias chose her over everything—walked away from the work, retired years earlier than anyone expected, restructured his entire life around protecting her happiness instead of protecting the city. He didn't regret it. But he also never came back.
Lucien is warning me that loving someone you're supposed to protect means eventually choosing between the work and the woman. And Elias chose the woman.
He's also telling me he thinks it's inevitable that I will.
I leave the penthouse at 11:30, take the elevator down through floors of expensive real estate and expensive lives. Exit onto streets that are quieter now, the city winding down toward whatever passes for sleep in Miramont.
My apartment is seventeen minutes away by foot. I count the blocks, count my steps, count anything that keeps me from thinking about the fact that I just accepted an assignment to protect a woman I'm already obsessed with.
But thinking is inevitable. By the time I reach my building—older construction, nowhere near The Crest's luxury but solid and secure—I've already planned tomorrow's surveillance.
Her apartment first, mapping vulnerabilities and blind spots.
Then her office at the foundation, checking for weaknesses in security.
Then her routines: subway routes, walking patterns, the therapy appointments I know she keeps but haven't confirmed the location of yet.
I'm not protecting her. I'm building a cage around her, made of my attention.
And the worst part is that I don't want to stop.
Inside my apartment, I pour water I don't drink and stand at my window looking out at a city full of people who aren't her.
My phone is in my hand before I consciously decide to reach for it.
I pull up the interface I shouldn't have—access to her building's outdated camera system that I breached a week ago, the night I followed her home.
The system was embarrassingly vulnerable.
No encryption, basic infrastructure, the kind of security that exists to deter casual criminals but fails against anyone with penetration tools and intelligence training.
Overseas work taught me how to identify and exploit these weaknesses.
I told myself I'd never use those skills for personal surveillance.
I used them anyway.
The camera in the third-floor hallway shows her door. Closed. Light visible underneath. She's home, she’s safe. For tonight, at least, she's safe.
I'm crossing lines I swore I wouldn't cross. And I can't seem to stop.
I watch that closed door for forty-three minutes before forcing myself to close the app. Force myself to shower, to attempt sleep, to pretend I'm not already in too deep to surface.
But I know the truth. I have known it since she looked at Camera 12 two weeks ago and saw me watching.
I'm not protecting Lana Pope.
I'm claiming her.
And I have no idea if that's going to save her or destroy us both.