9. Adriano
By the time the house settles into something resembling quiet again, I’m already working.
That in itself isn’t unusual. Structure, information, and control have always been the most efficient way to keep everything where it belongs, and under normal circumstances, the steady rhythm of it is enough to quiet whatever doesn’t need my attention.
Today, it isn’t. I feel unsettled and I don’t like it. Christmas has come and gone in the blink of an eye, the days racing past quicker and quicker.
The file open on my desk isn’t new. In fact, it’s one I’ve already seen in part before, pulled as a matter of routine when Casey first came into my orbit.
I make it a point to know the people who exist in close proximity to my daughter’s life, and Jasper Cole had been a name I recognized even before that.
Not personally, but enough. When he made a move to approach Casey at the skating rink, he put himself squarely in my crosshairs.
He may not have done anything outwardly untoward, but his presence and the fact that he’d had someone find Casey and then flew here from L.A.
to stalk her means he’s a threat. Which is why the file I have now is more than twice the size.
I could have asked Casey but I have a feeling she’ll downplay it as nothing more than an intense ex.
Family money. Wealth and power he was born into. The kind of man who appears in the same circles often enough to be known without ever being relevant.
At the time, there’d been nothing in his file that warranted further attention beyond confirmation that he was exactly what he appeared to be—successful, well-connected, unremarkable in any way that would intersect with my world.
Our paths don’t cross. His domain is L.A. and California; mine is New York.
That assessment no longer stands. Now he’s firmly on my radar and that’s not something most people want.
Nico might be the fixer of the family, the leader, and Matteo the face, but I’m the one who will take your life and twist it until you wish you’d never been born without even leaving my desk.
The art of ruining someone without them even seeing it happen is my gift.
I scroll through the updated report slowly, not skimming this time but reading with intent, letting the new information settle into place against what I already know. Always looking for the angle or the piece that doesn’t fit.
There it is.
A primary residence listed under his name in Los Angeles, not New York—Beverly Hills, from the address, the kind of property that signals established wealth rather than recent success.
Large footprint, private grounds, recent renovations.
The images attached are consistent with someone settled, not passing through.
I pull up the extended details without hesitation.
Shared occupancy.
A second name is attached to the property, tied to utilities and insurance records that stretch back long enough to establish permanence.
There’s also a dependent listed.
Five months old.
I pause there, my attention narrowing slightly as the timeline aligns in a way that doesn’t sit well. Which means he didn’t come to New York because he had nothing keeping him in Los Angeles.
He came with a purpose.
I lean back slowly, considering that.
A man with a partner and a newborn doesn’t cross the country repeatedly unless something is pulling him hard enough to justify it in his own mind.
Or unless he doesn’t see a reason not to.
Neither possibility is acceptable.
My jaw tightens slightly as the implications rearrange themselves.
That isn’t a man trying to reconcile with an ex. That’s a man who never closed one situation before starting another, which explains far more about his behavior than anything else in the report.
It also raises a question I don’t particularly like the direction of. Because from the outside, there are only a limited number of ways that kind of situation overlaps.
And one of them reflects poorly on Casey.
I lean back slightly in my chair, the movement slow, deliberate, as I consider that possibility with more attention than it should warrant.
Casey doesn’t present as someone careless or callous. Nothing about her says other woman.
Everything about her—her boundaries, her awareness, the way she moves through a space with my daughter—suggests loyalty and trust, not impulsiveness or dishonesty. That doesn’t align with the idea that she would willingly place herself in the middle of something like that.
And yet—
I’ve been wrong about people before. Casey was very flirty with me at Thanksgiving dinner, very forward. The thought settles in, unwelcome but not one I can dismiss without more information. What I saw at the market doesn’t suggest a woman trying to maintain contact.
It suggests someone who has already drawn a line firmly in the sand.
The way she repositioned Letty without thinking, the way she disengaged without escalating the situation, the fact that she left immediately rather than engaging further—all of it points in one direction.
She wasn’t inviting that interaction.
Which leaves me with a different problem.
He didn’t respect that.
My attention drops back to the file, scanning again, this time for patterns rather than facts, looking for the kind of details that don’t sit cleanly on paper but tend to surface when you know where to look.
There are gaps. Not large enough to raise immediate flags, but enough to suggest that what I’m seeing isn’t the full picture. In my experience, it rarely is.
I lean back and run my hands down my face, tiredness settling in at the edges of my brain. Christmas was hectic, and while I adore seeing my daughter’s face light up with the magic of it all, it’s a stark reminder that her mother will never get to share it with her.
Yet it wasn’t her presence I missed at our family dinner, which Matteo hosted at our old family home—it was Casey. She’d spent Christmas Day with her college friends Iris and Brianna, getting back late the following night.
Casey has become part of my inner circle because of Izzy, but she’s also my employee, and I need to protect her.
With that thought, I make a decision. I pick up my phone and make a call.
“I want a deeper look at Jasper Cole,” I say when it connects, my tone even but leaving no room for interpretation. “Not the public version. Everything.”
There’s a brief pause on the other end, followed by Rossi’s immediate acknowledgment. “Of course.”
“And find out who he’s been speaking to recently,” I add. “Particularly in the last two weeks.”
“Understood. Any reason?”
“He’s harassing Casey and doing it in front of my daughter.”
Rossi sucks in a breath, already knowing how seriously I take my daughter’s safety, but he doesn’t realize this is as much about Casey as Letty now. And I sure as hell won’t be telling him. I can barely acknowledge it myself.
“I’ll handle it personally.”
I end the call and set the phone down, my gaze drifting back to the screen for a moment before I close the file entirely.
There’s nothing else I can extract from it right now.
The rest will come.
Letty’s bedroom looks like a hostage negotiation that has gone wrong.
I pause in the doorway for a second, taking in the open suitcase on the bed, the one I packed with her twice last night with deliberate efficiency, now completely undone.
Clothes are spread across the comforter, some folded, most not, with a growing pile forming on the floor that suggests she’s decided to start again without a clear plan.
She’s in the middle of it, kneeling on the rug, her attention fixed on a selection of items she’s rearranging for what appears to be the third time.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Packing,” she replies, as if that should be obvious.
“That was already done.”
She glances at the suitcase, then back at what she’s holding, considering that information without accepting it. “I needed to check you packed my mermaid costume,” she says.
“You’ve unpacked everything. And what do you need a mermaid costume for? We’re going to the cabin.”
“I might need different things, just in case.”
“For what?”
“For the snow.”
“That’s what the original selection was for.”
She pauses again, clearly aware that this is a logical problem she hasn’t solved yet, then reaches for a sweater that wasn’t part of the original arrangement and adds it to the case.
“That stays,” I say, stepping further into the room.
She looks at me, then at the sweater, then very deliberately places it on top of everything else.
Behind her, I hear Nico somewhere in the hallway, already entertained by a situation he has no intention of helping with.
“You’re making this harder than it needs to be,” I tell her, moving to the bed and lifting a pair of boots out of the suitcase before setting them back where they belong.
“I’m making it better,” she counters.
“It was already perfectly sufficient.”
“But, Daddy, what if I neeeeeds it.”
There’s a pause as I consider that and know I can’t employ logic to this situation because she’s not thinking with logic.
She reaches for something else, hesitates, then adds it anyway, watching me out of the corner of her eye like she’s testing how far she can push the line.
Under normal circumstances, this would be resolved quickly.
Direction given, compliance achieved, the process complete.
My daughter is mostly easy to negotiate with, but occasionally I see the stubbornness of her mother come out and it makes me grit my teeth.
My wife was the most stubborn woman I ever met, well, until Isabella.
I could argue but this feels like one of those fights not worth having. Instead, I find myself adjusting—repeating instructions, removing items, allowing others that make no sense to me but make her happy.
It isn’t difficult.
It’s just… slower.
Less precise.
And for reasons I don’t immediately examine, it irritates me more than it should. “You’re taking too long,” I say.
“I’m thinking,” she replies, without looking up.