CHAPTER SIX LANA #2
"To challenge the estate. He's being polite about it, but that's what's happening.
Malcolm Fielding texted about irregularities this morning.
Now Ezra wants lunch to discuss 'sensitive matters.
'" I set down my phone before I throw it.
"They think I manipulated Gabriel. Or they're going to claim I did. "
Solange's expression hardens. "Can they do that? Contest the will?"
"Anyone can contest anything with enough money and lawyers.
Whether they'll win is different." I think about the will Gabriel had drawn up two years into our marriage, the one that left everything to me with no contingencies, no conditions.
He'd presented it like a gift. I want you taken care of if anything happens to me.
What he meant was: I want you so financially dependent that leaving becomes impossible.
The irony is that his insurance policy became my escape route.
"You need a lawyer," Solange says. "Not Malcolm—he was Gabriel's attorney. Someone who represents you, not the estate."
"I know." I pull out my phone again, start searching for estate attorneys in Miramont. The task feels overwhelming. Every decision since Gabriel died has felt like walking through fog—I can see a few feet ahead, but the destination remains unclear.
My phone buzzes with a text. Unknown number: Thursday, 1 PM. Marconi's. Looking forward to our conversation. — Ezra
Marconi's. Gabriel's favorite restaurant. The place he took clients when he wanted to impress them with old-money sophistication and new-money excess. Ezra choosing that location is intentional. A reminder that Gabriel's world was his first, that I'm the interloper who benefited from tragedy.
I show Solange the text. She reads it, then meets my eyes. "You're not going alone."
"I have to. If I bring someone, it looks like I'm afraid of him."
"You should be afraid of him. He's challenging your legal right to Gabriel's estate. That means he's prepared to fight dirty." She pulls up something on her computer. "I'm coming with you. I'll sit at a different table, close enough to intervene if needed. You won't even know I'm there."
"Solange—"
"This isn't negotiable. You walked into that marriage alone.
You're not walking through the aftermath alone.
" Her voice is firm. "Besides, remember those encrypted files you gave me?
The ones from Gabriel's hard drive? I've been working through them, and they connect to accounts that don't match the estate records.
If Ezra wants to talk about irregularities, I have questions about where Gabriel's money was actually going. "
I nod slowly. After the inheritance was awarded, I'd found Gabriel's personal hard drive hidden in his office—encrypted files I couldn't access myself. Solange had the technical expertise to crack them, so I'd handed everything over. "Have you found something?"
"More than something." She closes her laptop. "Gabriel was moving serious money, Lana. Accounts in his name that never appeared in the estate inventory. Transfers to shell corporations. Payments from entities I still can't fully identify."
My stomach tightens. "What kind of payments?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out. But whatever he was involved in, it required the kind of secrecy people maintain when exposure would destroy them.
" She opens the laptop again and pulls up several screens, shows me financial records that mean nothing to me—numbers and account names that blur together.
"I've tracked three separate networks so far.
One connects to a private intelligence firm.
Another links to offshore holdings. The third connects to something called The Glasshouse. Ever heard of it?"
I shake my head.
"Neither had I until I found it in Gabriel's encrypted emails. Meetings, transactions, codenames. He was deep into something, Lana. Something that involved people powerful enough to make problems disappear."
The room feels smaller suddenly. Colder. "Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because Ezra challenging the estate isn't just about money—it's about controlling what gets revealed.
If you fight him in court, there's discovery, subpoenas, and financial records examined publicly.
Whatever Gabriel was hiding comes out into the open.
Ezra can't allow that." She leans forward.
"And because you need to understand who Gabriel really was.
What he was involved in. It doesn't change what happened that night on the terrace, but it gives you context. "
"Context," I repeat, the word hollow.
"You've been carrying the weight of that night alone—wondering if you pushed him, if you're guilty of something you can't even remember clearly.
But Gabriel wasn't just an abusive husband, Lana.
He was involved in things that made him paranoid, unstable, and dangerous.
The man who grabbed you on that terrace, who was screaming at you in the rain?
He wasn't just angry about your marriage.
He was spiraling because of whatever mess he'd gotten himself into. "
Her words settle over me like a weight. "So what are you saying? That I'm not responsible?"
"I'm saying you need to stop torturing yourself over a man who was toxic in ways you didn't even know about.
Whether you pushed him or tried to pull him back—either way, you were defending yourself against someone who'd become a threat.
" She squeezes my hand. "Gabriel's death was the consequence of his own choices. Not yours."
I want to believe her. Want to accept that the gaps in my memory don't make me a murderer. But the uncertainty remains, replaying the same fragments: rain, terrace, his hands on my shoulders, mine on his chest, the fall, the void where my memory should be.
We spend the rest of the morning working, but my focus is fractured. By 2 PM, I can't pretend productivity anymore. I tell Solange I need air, need to walk, need to be anywhere but this office with these revelations.
Outside, the afternoon is clear and cool, September turning toward October.
I walk without destination, letting muscle memory carry me through The Margin's familiar streets.
The neighborhood is changing—gentrification creeping in block by block, old warehouses becoming lofts, corner stores becoming artisan coffee shops.
Soon even this refuge will become too expensive for people like me who need to disappear.
I'm so lost in thought that I don't notice the man following me until I've walked six blocks.
He's good at it. Stays far enough back that casual observation would miss him. But Gabriel trained me to notice surveillance, to catalog faces and patterns. The man is maybe forty, wearing dark clothes that blend into the crowd, moving with the practiced ease of someone who's done this before.
My pulse spikes. I turn left at the next corner, testing whether he follows.
He does.
I increase my pace, not running but walking with purpose toward the busier commercial street ahead.
More people, more witnesses, harder to corner someone.
The training Gabriel beat into me through five years of monitoring my movements, questioning my routes, demanding explanations for every deviation from routine takes over.
Where were you? Why did you take that street instead of the main route? Who did you talk to?
I reach the commercial street, duck into a coffee shop that's crowded enough to provide cover. Order something I don't want and find a seat near the window where I can watch the entrance. The man walks past, doesn't enter, and continues down the street like he's just another pedestrian.
Maybe he was. Maybe my paranoia is manufacturing threats. Maybe five months of guilt and uncertainty have made me see danger where none exists.
But the sensation persists. Someone is watching. Someone followed me from the office. And whether it's Ezra's investigators or something else, I'm being hunted in ways I don't fully understand yet.
My phone buzzes. Text from unknown number: Are you alright?
I stare at the message. Unknown number, but the phrasing is specific. Are you alright? Not "How are you?" Not "Everything okay?" The question is targeted, immediate, like someone saw something that concerned them.
I type back: Who is this?
The response is immediate: Jax. You changed direction suddenly six blocks ago. Then entered a coffee shop you've never visited before. That suggests either spontaneity or evasion. Which is it?
My chest constricts. He's been watching my movements. Tracking my location. Monitoring my patterns closely enough to know this coffee shop isn't part of my routine.
Fury should be the appropriate response. Demand he explain how he's tracking me, what right he has to watch my movements outside The Dominion.
Instead, I type: Someone was following me. Man, forty, dark clothes, professional. Lost him when I came inside.
Three dots appear, indicating he's typing. Then: Stay there. I'm twelve minutes away.
The smart move is to leave. Walk out of this coffee shop and disappear into the crowd before Jax arrives, before his protection becomes another cage I can't escape. Preserve the independence I've been fighting for since Gabriel died.
He arrives in eleven minutes. I know because I'm counting, the same way I count ceiling fan rotations and heartbeats and the cost of every decision. He enters the coffee shop scanning the space with the practiced efficiency of someone trained to assess threats, and his eyes find me immediately.
The relief I feel is disproportionate to the situation. Dangerous, even. This man has been watching me, tracking my movements, monitoring my patterns closely enough to know when I deviate from routine. I should be terrified.
I'm not.
Jax crosses to my table but doesn't sit. "Show me where you first noticed him."