CHAPTER NINETEEN JAX
I wake to find Lana still asleep beside me, her breathing even and deep in a way that suggests actual rest rather than the fidgety half-consciousness I've been maintaining for the past three hours.
The safe house bedroom is dark except for streetlight filtering through gaps in the curtains, casting stripes across the bed where we ended up after deciding to stop separating protection from attraction.
It's six-thirty now. I have ninety minutes to leave the safe house, drive to The Dominion, and face whatever professional consequences are waiting for me.
Ninety minutes to figure out how to explain that I violated every boundary Elias set, that I slept with the woman I'm supposed to be protecting, that surveillance and intimacy are now entangled in ways I can't separate.
Lana shifts in her sleep, moves closer without waking, her hand finding my chest like even in an unconscious state, she's finding my presence.
The gesture makes something in my chest feel full and compromised.
This is what Elias warned me about—getting too close, losing objectivity, making decisions based on want rather than operational necessity.
I should extract myself. Should leave before she wakes so I don't have to navigate the awkward morning-after conversation while knowing I'm about to face Lucien's assessment of my professional judgment.
But moving feels like abandonment, like proving that last night was just crisis management rather than actual choice.
So I stay and watch her sleep. I memorize the way dawn light is starting to change the quality of shadows in the room, the way her dark hair spreads across the pillow, the small crease between her eyebrows that suggests even in sleep she's processing something difficult.
This is surveillance without cameras—direct observation that feels more intimate than any footage I've reviewed.
At seven, her eyes open. She blinks, orients herself, registers my presence with an expression that moves from confusion to memory to something that might be relief or maybe just acceptance that this actually happened.
"You're still here," she says, her voice rough with sleep.
"I'm still here. But I need to leave soon. Lucien wants to see me at eight."
She sits up and pulls the sheet around herself in a gesture that's more habitual modesty than actual self-consciousness. "To fire you?"
"Possibly. More likely to remind me about professional boundaries I've violated and assess whether I'm compromised beyond operational usefulness.
" I'm already getting out of bed, finding my clothes from last night scattered across the floor.
"He knew I was coming here yesterday. Knew Trask had escalated.
He's probably been tracking my location through Blackwood and knows exactly how long I stayed. "
"That's surveillance."
"That's employment. Lucien monitors his security personnel.
It's standard protocol." I pull on jeans, then my shirt, buttoning it with hands that are steadier than they were last night.
"But showing up to protect you is one thing.
Spending the night is different. That crosses from professional intervention into personal involvement. "
She watches me dress with an expression I can't quite decode. "Do you regret it? Last night?"
The question deserves honesty. "No. But I'm also aware that not regretting it doesn't mean it was strategically sound. We complicated an already complex situation by adding physical intimacy to threat assessment and protection protocols."
"Is that what you're going to tell Lucien? That we complicated the situation?"
"I'm going to tell Lucien that I got personally involved with you and he can decide what that means for my assignment.
" I finish dressing, move to the bed, and crouch down so we're at eye level.
"I don't know what he's going to say. Don't know if he'll pull me off your security or if he'll accept that protection and personal involvement can coexist. But I'm not going to lie to him about what happened. "
"And us? What are we telling ourselves about what happened?"
The question deserves better than operational language or tactical deflection.
"We're telling ourselves that we stopped circling around wanting each other and actually acted on it.
That last night was real, not just crisis response.
That we're going to figure out what this is without overthinking it into something it's not. "
"That's a lot of certainty for someone who just violated professional boundaries."
"It's not certainty. It's commitment to figuring it out." I touch her face, my thumb tracing her cheekbone. "Lana, I don't regret last night. I might regret how it complicates things professionally, but I don't regret you. That has to count for something."
Her hand comes up to cover mine where it rests against her face. "It counts for everything. But I'm also terrified that this only works when there's danger. That once threats are resolved and I'm actually safe, we'll discover surveillance was all we had."
"Then we'll deal with that if it happens. But right now, I need to go face Lucien and find out if I still have a job." I stand and grab my phone from the nightstand. "Brandon will check in. I'll text you after I know what's happening."
"Jax—" She stops, like she's not sure what she wants to say. "Be careful."
"I'll be careful," I promise, then leave before I can find excuses to stay longer.
The ride to The Dominion takes twenty minutes through morning traffic.
The building looks different in daylight—less imposing, more like standard luxury real estate than the shadowy space it becomes after dark.
I pay the driver, head through the employee entrance, take the service elevator to the third floor, knock once on Lucien's office door before entering without waiting for a response.
He's at his desk, dressed in casual clothes, drinking coffee from a mug that says "World's Okay-est Boss" in a font suggesting an ironic gift from someone with a sense of humor. The juxtaposition is jarring—Lucien Armitage, master of The Dominion's operations, drinking from novelty merchandise.
"Sit," he says, not looking up from whatever he's reading on his tablet.
I sit in the chair across from his desk, the same chair where I've received operational briefings and performance assessments for two years.
This feels different. This feels like being called to the principal's office except the principal operates a private club with surveillance capabilities that rival government agencies.
Lucien sets down the tablet and finally looks at me. His expression is neutral, carefully controlled. "Tell me about last night."
"I stayed at the safe house with Lana. Blackwood Security coordinated apartment upgrades remotely. No additional incidents with Trask or Reese." The facts, delivered professionally, omitting the parts that are none of his business except they're absolutely his business given my employment.
"You stayed at the safe house," Lucien repeats. "For security purposes."
"Initially, yes."
"And then?"
"And then it became personal." I hold his gaze.
"I'm not going to lie to you about what happened. I’m supposed to consult, help Brandon with the security set up.
But I also got personally involved in ways that compromise professional objectivity.
I can't walk away from her—she asked for me, and honestly, I don't want to.
But you should know because my judgment is compromised.
If protecting her puts The Dominion at risk, I need you to tell me. "
Lucien leans back in his chair, studies me with the particular attention he brings to assessing whether someone is useful or has become a problem. "You're compromised."
"Yes."
"Can you still function professionally despite the compromise?"
The question has weight I wasn't expecting. He's not immediately firing me or reassigning me. He's assessing whether emotional involvement makes me more or less effective at the actual job.
"I can function professionally. But I can't guarantee I'll make decisions based purely on operational necessity when those decisions affect Lana directly.
" Admitting the truth to Lucien suddenly feels harder than I’d imagined.
"If protecting her requires choosing between Dominion interests and her safety, I'll choose her safety. You need to know that."
"I do know that." He takes a sip of his coffee, sets it down with precision. "The question isn't whether you're compromised. The question is whether your compromise serves my purposes or conflicts with them."
The phrasing makes my stomach tighten. "What purposes?"
"The same purposes that made me assign you to her in the first place." He stands and moves to the window overlooking Miramont's downtown core, the gesture I've seen him make when conversations are about to get more complicated than expected. "Julian Ashford. Do you know the name?"
I run through mental catalogs of Dominion members, patrons, people in Lucien's orbit. The name sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't place it. "No. Should I?"
"He's been a patron here since I started operations. Old money, venture capital, the kind of wealth that doesn't need to advertise itself." Lucien turns from the window. "He's also my oldest friend. We grew up together in The Hollows before either of us had money."
The detail surprises me. Lucien never talks about his past, keeps his personal life separate from Dominion operations with the same precision he brings to everything else. "And he's connected to Lana, how?"
"He's not. Not directly." Lucien returns to his desk, sits down with the careful deliberation of someone choosing words precisely. "But he's connected to Gabriel Pope. Or rather, he was connected to the same networks Gabriel operated in."
"The Glasshouse." I say it as a statement, not a question.