5. Adriano
The meeting should have ended forty-three minutes ago.
Instead, Matteo threatened a shareholder across twelve feet of polished walnut while Nico stared at the quarterly reports like he was reconsidering every life decision that led him here.
Now that almost everyone has gone, I need to find out why.
The air conditioning hums steadily overhead, fighting a losing battle against the late afternoon heat pouring through the glass walls of the conference room. Beyond them, Manhattan glitters in washed gold, all sharp lines and money and people pretending power doesn’t corrupt absolutely.
Inside ISM Holdings, it absolutely does.
I close the acquisition file in front of me before I accidentally crease the paper. “You asked if he wanted to keep his teeth,” I say.
Across the table, Matteo sprawls further into his chair, expensive suit wrinkling beneath him in a way that would probably give our tailor chest pain. One ankle hooks over his knee as he spins a pen lazily through his fingers. “I implied consequences.”
Nico turns a page without looking up. “You asked if his security team was fast enough to stop you.”
“That’s still technically a question.”
Near the windows, two junior associates suddenly become deeply invested in their laptops.
I pinch the bridge of my nose briefly. “Why?”
Matteo’s jaw shifts. Not dramatic. Most people would miss it.
I’ve spent most of my life learning the exact difference between Matteo joking and Matteo deciding violence might genuinely improve a situation.
“He made Claire cry.”
The room stills for half a second.
Not because Matteo raised his voice.
Because he didn’t.
Nico finally looks up from the reports spread across the table. “And?”
Matteo tosses the broken pen onto the walnut surface with a sharp clatter. “And he spent twenty minutes talking over her presentation like she was too stupid to understand her own numbers.”
Claire had built the Singapore projections herself. I know because I’d reviewed them with her at nearly one in the morning three nights ago while Matteo complained from the sofa in his office about spreadsheets being “emotionally hostile.”
“She corrected him twice,” Matteo continues. “Politely.”
“And?” Nico repeats.
Matteo leans forward now, forearms braced against his knees. “Then he called her sweetheart.”
Ah.
That explained the mood.
Across the room, one of the associates quietly closes her laptop like she’s trying not to exist.
I lean back slightly in my chair, loosening my cuff buttons one at a time while Matteo glares at the far wall like the shareholder is still standing there.
Most people underestimated Matteo because he gave them permission to.
They see charm, recklessness, a man who jokes too much and takes very little seriously.
They miss how quickly Matteo noticed discomfort in a room.
Especially from women.
Nico sets the reports down with deliberate care, aligning the edges once against the table before releasing them.
Most people missed the signs when Nico was angry, too.
I never have.
“Did Claire leave?” Nico asks.
Matteo nods once. “Bathroom. Probably to murder him herself.”
“Reasonable.”
The corner of my mouth almost moves before I stop it.
Matteo points at Nico immediately. “See? Thank you.”
“I didn’t say you were right.”
“You didn’t say I was wrong either.”
“Threatening investors creates paperwork,” I say.
“That sounds like an Adriano problem.”
“It becomes a Nico problem when the board starts panicking.”
Matteo shrugs, restless again already, fingers tapping once against the armrest. “Then maybe shareholders should stop talking to women like they’re decorative.”
Silence settles briefly after that.
Not uncomfortable.
Just heavy with the kind of understanding that didn’t need explaining between the three of us anymore.
Nico reaches for the acquisition file beside him. “What’s the damage?”
Finally. Something useful. I slide the folder across the table, watching Matteo sit up straighter despite himself. “Three shell companies started quietly purchasing minority shares six months ago,” I say. “Small amounts. Spread deliberately thin.”
Nico scans the figures quickly. “You think someone’s building a position.”
“I know they are.”
Matteo’s expression sharpens instantly, humor dropping away so fast it almost changes his face.
That was the other thing people misunderstood about him.
Chaos was often camouflage.
“Hostile?” he asks.
“Eventually.”
I reach for the cold espresso near my elbow and grimace slightly after the first sip. Bitter now. I drink it anyway.
“They’re probing going for a voting structure first. Looking for operational weaknesses and response times.” I tap the final page. “Whoever’s behind it understands patience.”
Matteo scoffs softly. “Cute.”
“Don’t underestimate patience,” I say. “People willing to move slowly are usually the dangerous ones.”
Outside the conference room, assistants move briskly through the corridor carrying laptops and coffee cups and a hundred problems that ultimately became mine if they grew large enough.
Most violence happened quietly.
Money was worse than bullets that way.
Nico closes the file carefully. “Find out who’s behind it.”
“I’m already working on it.”
“I know.”
Simple.
Absolute.
Trust like that should probably feel heavier than it does after all these years.
Instead, it feels inevitable.
Matteo pushes to his feet first, unable to stay seated once the room grows too serious for too long. He wanders toward the espresso machine against the wall, stares at it for a second, then apparently decides caffeine isn’t the answer to whatever’s wrong with him today.
“Good,” he says. “Glad we solved capitalism. Can I go threaten someone else now?”
“No,” Nico and I say simultaneously.
He looks offended. “You’re both deeply repressive.”
“You threatened a shareholder before noon.”
“He called Claire sweetheart.”
Nico rubs a hand slowly across his jaw, hiding what looks suspiciously like amusement. “Go home, Matteo.”
“For the record,” Matteo says, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair, “Claire cried because she was angry, not because she was weak.”
Then he disappears out the conference room doors, leaving behind the faint scent of expensive cologne and impending legal complications.
The room feels quieter immediately.
One of the associates exhales like she’s been holding her breath for twenty minutes.
Nico watches the closed doors for a second before looking back at me. “You okay?”
The question catches me slightly off guard. Not because Nico never asks. Because he notices when to. “I’m fine.”
“You’ve said that three times today.”
I glance down at the spreadsheets again, though I’ve already memorized half the numbers on the page. “It remains true.”
Nico studies me across the table with the kind of perception that makes lying inefficient.
Then, thankfully, he lets it go.
“For now,” he says instead. “Go home. You’ve been here since six.”
“Not all of us can work part-time hours.”
“I’m married. I like my house.”
A quiet snort escapes before I can stop it.
Nico looks smug immediately.
I regret giving him that satisfaction.
“Isabella threatening mutiny?” I ask.
“She sent me a picture of Letty eating ice cream for dinner at Matteo’s yesterday.”
“That sounds accurate.”
“She captioned it: your brothers are feral.”
“She’s not wrong.”
Nico stands, collecting the files into neat stacks. Unlike Matteo, he somehow managed to spend ten hours in meetings without looking remotely disheveled.
“Casey settling in okay?”
The question lands oddly.
Not because of what he asks.
Because I answer too quickly in my own head before speaking at all.
Fine.
Professional.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
“She’s good with Letty,” I say finally.
Nico’s expression doesn’t change, but something knowing flickers briefly in his eyes. “That’s not what I asked.”
I lean back slightly in the chair, loosening my tie for the first time all day. “She’s professional.”
“Hmm.”
“She keeps her distance.”
“Hmm.”
“She leaves the room the second she’s no longer needed.”
That gets his full attention. I realize the mistake half a second too late.
Nico leans back against the edge of the table slowly, arms folded across his chest. “And that bothers you?”
“No.”
Immediate.
Too immediate.
Nico’s mouth twitches. “You answered too fast.”
I hold his gaze flatly. “Go home, Nico.”
His grin is brief but deeply irritating. “See you tomorrow, Adi.”
I wait until the conference room doors close behind him before looking at the reports spread across the table.
But instead of shell companies and voting structures, what comes to mind is Casey stepping back every single time a conversation ends. Like she’s already halfway out the door before anyone can ask her to stay.
I stare at the figures in front of me for a full minute before realizing I haven’t absorbed a single number.
By the time I get home, my patience is thin enough that even the sight of paperwork left on the entry table irritates me as I drop my keys into the bowl.
I loosen my tie as I walk through the house, the place is quieter than usual, the last of the evening sun stretching across the hardwood floors in long bands of gold, and for a moment, I assume Casey and Letty are still out.
Then I hear Letty laughing somewhere beyond the kitchen.
Not the shrieking chaos Matteo usually encourages. Softer than that. Easy.
The sound pulls me toward the open patio doors before I consciously decide to follow it.
Halfway there, a receipt catches my eye.
It sits folded neatly beneath the fruit bowl with a short, handwritten note clipped to the front in careful, precise handwriting I already recognize as Casey’s.
Craft supplies, replacement lunchbox, children’s cough medicine. Letty said the purple one was important.
Beneath it is the total.
And underneath that:
Paid.
I stop beside the counter, reading it twice even though I absorb the information immediately the first time.