CHAPTER EIGHT LANA #2
The power is intoxicating and terrifying in equal measure.
Gabriel's surveillance was discovery. Finding cameras I didn't know existed, realizing I'd been watched for months or years without consent.
This is an invitation. Jax showed me where every camera is, gave me control over when they record, and made me administrator of my own monitoring.
The difference should matter. It does matter.
But it also normalizes surveillance in ways that feel dangerous.
I test the system. Disable the living room camera. The feed goes dark. Re-enable it. The image returns. Expand the entrance camera to full screen. I can see my apartment door from the hallway, clear view of anyone who approaches.
Then I do something I probably shouldn't: I access the archive, pull up footage from this morning when Jax was here installing the cameras.
The earliest footage is from 9:14 AM—twenty-seven minutes after he arrived.
The entrance camera must have been his first installation.
The feed shows him in my living room, setting up the second camera.
He's wearing dark jeans and a jacket, carrying equipment that looks professional.
His movements are methodical, careful. Installing, testing angles, adjusting placement.
I switch between feeds as they come online. The kitchen camera captures him working near the back door at 9:38 AM. The hallway camera starts recording at 9:52 AM.
At 10:03 AM, the hallway feed shows him pause near the path that leads to my bedroom.
The door was open—I forgot to close it this morning.
He looks toward it for maybe five seconds, and I can see the decision happening in his posture.
The way he shifts his weight, considers entering, then turns away and returns to his work.
He respected the boundary. Bedroom off-limits, and he honored that even when I wasn't there to enforce it.
The final camera—another angle in the living room—comes online at 10:17 AM. Then I see him testing each feed systematically, checking angles, making final adjustments. At 10:31 AM, he gathers his equipment and leaves through the entrance, locking the door behind him.
I close the archive and set down my phone. The gesture shouldn't mean as much as it does. Respecting boundaries is basic human decency, not extraordinary behavior. But after five years with Gabriel, basic decency feels revolutionary.
My stomach reminds me I haven't eaten since the soup I barely touched at lunch. I make dinner—scrambled eggs and toast, the kind of meal that requires minimal effort and even less thought. I eat standing at my kitchen counter while watching the evening light change angles through my windows.
The apartment feels different with cameras. Smaller, maybe. Or more contained. Like I'm performing even when I'm alone, aware that my aloneness is monitored aloneness.
I finish eating, wash my single plate and fork, dry them, and put them away.
The routine is meditative. Gabriel used to mock my insistence on cleaning immediately—said it was compulsive, that I needed to relax more.
What he meant was that my small acts of control threatened his larger acts of control.
Every dish I washed when he wanted me sitting beside him was rebellion disguised as housekeeping.
At 7:30 PM, I receive a text from a number I don't recognize: Ms. Pope, this is Mira Keaton.
Confirming our Thursday appointment at 9 AM.
My office is at 1247 Crest Boulevard, 14th floor.
Please bring any documentation related to Gabriel's estate—will, trust documents, financial records if you have them. Looking forward to meeting you.
I text back confirmation, then spend the next hour gathering what documents I have.
The will itself, bank statements from the estate account, property deeds.
Most of the financial records are still with Malcolm Fielding, which means I'll need to request copies before someone decides I shouldn't have access.
By 8 PM, I have an attorney meeting scheduled, a recording device being configured tomorrow, and a plan for Thursday that feels almost adequate.
Almost.
Because the gaps in my memory about Gabriel's death remain. And if Ezra has found evidence—witnesses, forensics, anything that contradicts the official ruling of accidental death—then all the preparation in the world won't save me from the truth.
I take my sleeping pill earlier than usual, desperate for unconsciousness.
But sleep doesn't come easily. I lie in bed counting ceiling fan rotations, trying not to think about tomorrow's meeting with Jax, about the fact that he'll be in my apartment again, about the way his admission that I make him want to be present instead of absent made something in my chest respond with recognition I'm not ready to name.
At 11:47 PM, my phone buzzes. Text from Jax: Can't sleep either?
The message startles me. How does he know I'm awake?
Then I realize: the cameras inside my apartment. He can see through the living room feed that my lights are still on, or check the entrance camera to see if I've moved recently. He's monitoring me in real-time.
The rational response is fury. Demanding he explain why he's watching my apartment at midnight, what gives him the right to check whether I'm sleeping.
Instead, I text back: Counting rotations. You?
Working on tomorrow's prep. Reviewing Ezra's background, mapping Marconi's, testing the recording device.
You don't sleep much.
Sleep requires turning off the surveillance feeds. I'm not good at that.
The admission is vulnerable in ways I'm learning to recognize. He's telling me he can't stop watching, can't disconnect from the monitoring even when he's off duty. That the surveillance has become compulsive rather than professional.
That sounds exhausting, I type.
It is. But it's also the only thing that makes the emptiness bearable.
I sit up in bed, staring at my phone. We're having a conversation at midnight about emptiness and surveillance and the ways we both use control to manage hollowness. This is intimacy disguised as text messages. Confession packaged as casual exchange.
The emptiness doesn't go away when you're watching someone? I ask.
It becomes purposeful instead of meaningless. Directed instead of diffuse.
That's not the same as filled.
No. But it's better than empty.
I understand that logic. Have been living in it since Gabriel died. Filling my days with foundation work and therapy appointments and carefully structured routines because structure is the only thing standing between functioning and falling apart.
Tomorrow, I type. 10 AM. We'll configure the device and you'll tell me how to act normal while wearing a wire.
It's not a performance. It's preparation.
Same thing, sometimes.
Maybe. But this time you're choosing to prepare instead of being forced to perform. That difference matters.
He's right. The difference does matter. Every choice I make that isn't dictated by fear or obligation is a reclamation of agency Gabriel spent five years dismantling.
Goodnight, Jax, I text. Try to sleep. The surveillance feeds will still be there tomorrow.
Goodnight, Lana. And thank you.
For what?
For not running. For letting me help. For being the first person in two years who made watching feel like connection instead of isolation.
I don't respond to that. Don't know how to respond. Just set down my phone and lie back down, staring at the ceiling fan that continues its rotations whether I count them or not.
Sleep comes eventually. I dream about cameras and recordings and a version of myself who knows whether she killed Gabriel or tried to save him.
In the dream, the answer is clear. When I wake at 6:23 AM, the clarity evaporates, leaving only the same uncertain fragments I've been carrying for five months.
The sleeping pill I took barely worked—I remember waking three times, checking my phone, confirming Jax hadn't sent more midnight texts about emptiness and surveillance.
By 7 AM, I've showered, dressed in jeans and a sweater that signal casual but intentional, and made coffee strong enough to compensate for fractured sleep.
The apartment feels different in morning light with cameras watching.
I'm aware of my movements in ways I wasn't yesterday—the act of pretending to have a sense of normalcy even in private space.
At 8:15, I text Solange: Meeting with Jax this morning to prep for Thursday. Will be at the office by noon.
Her response: Be careful. And I mean that in every possible way.
I know what she means. Be careful about letting him into my apartment again. Be careful about the intimacy of preparation. Be careful, period.
What she doesn't know is that we're already past careful. Midnight texts about emptiness and watching, admissions that I make him want to be present instead of absent—we've crossed boundaries faster than either of us intended, and I haven't told her any of it.
At 9:47, my phone buzzes. Jax: Thirteen minutes out. Need anything before I arrive?
I type back: Just coffee. Already made.
Perfect. See you soon.
I spend the next thirteen minutes doing unnecessary tidying—straightening couch cushions, wiping down the already-clean kitchen counter, checking my appearance in the bathroom mirror like I'm preparing for a date instead of a tactical briefing.
The performance is absurd. He's seen me through cameras.
He knows what my apartment looks like. This preparation is vanity disguised as hospitality.
At exactly 10 AM, there's a knock on my door.