AFTERGLOW

PUNISHMENT

*CHAPTER 5 — PUNISHMENT*

She came in at 8 AM. Red dress again. Two coffees. No apology yet.

Jax looked at her once and knew she wasn't going to give it easily.

"Good. You're learning to be on time," he said. "Because you're staying late tonight."

"How late?"

"Until you finish."

He pressed a button under his desk. The side wall — that she thought was just wood paneling — clicked and slid open. A small archive room. No windows. Boxes. Files. A single desk and chair.

"What is that?"

"My mother's storage. And mine. Everything I kept from high school. Everything my mom left. I haven't unpacked it in 6 years."

He stood, walked to her desk, took her coffee and set it down.

"Your punishment for yesterday is not a spanking or yelling, Lena. You don't get to be a martyr. You get to sit in there and organize it. Alphabetically. Every note you wrote me, every photo, every report card. You will touch everything you made me carry."

Her throat went tight. "Jax—"

"And when you find her photo — there's more than one — you will put them on the shelf. Face-up. And you will write one page about what you said yesterday and why it was wrong. Not to me. To her."

"That's—"

"Cruel? Like talking about a dead woman you never met to hurt her son?" He leaned down, hands on her desk again. Calm voice, lethal. "You wanted to know about my parents. Now you will."

He opened the archive door for her. Light flickered on. Cold.

"You get a lunch break at 1. 20 minutes. You don't leave that room until it's done. If you try to leave the building, security will call me. And I will come get you."

Lena looked at the boxes. At him.

"And if I do it?"

"Then tomorrow you get your desk outside my office. Like a normal assistant. You earn distance."

She picked up her coffee with both hands.

"Fine."

She walked into the small room. He didn't follow.

At 12:30, he checked the camera. She was on the floor, box open, holding a photo of a woman — Elena — young, laughing, holding a little boy who was clearly Jax, missing a tooth.

Lena was crying silently, wiping her face with her sleeve, not performing for anyone.

At 6 PM, he brought her dinner himself. Set it down inside without a word. She had 4 boxes done. Neat piles. Her one-page letter half-written.

At 11:42 PM, she knocked on his office door. Eyes red. Hands dusty.

"Done."

He looked up from his laptop. The archive behind her — spotless. Photos lined up. Her boxes labeled in her messy high school handwriting.

She placed a folded page on his desk.

He read it. Two sentences.

_I'm sorry I used your mom to hurt you. You loved her and I tried to make you ashamed of that. I'm so sorry, Elena._

It wasn't to him. It was to her. Exactly what he asked.

He folded it, put it in his pocket.

"Good girl."

She shivered at that, hated that she did.

"Your desk is outside tomorrow," he said. "Go home. To your apartment. 42B."

She turned to go.

"And Lena? You still owe me a real apology to my face. But you can give it to me tomorrow. When you've slept."