Page 43 of The Art of Ruin

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.

The lunchbox comes back to me first. Letty dropped hers in the preschool parking lot yesterday and reacted like the world had personally betrayed her because the cartoon cat on the front apparently “understood her emotionally.” Casey had handled it before I arrived, somehow redirecting the entire disaster into a conversation about stickers and glitter pens by the time I got there.

I hadn’t thought about the fact she must have replaced it with her own money.

The cough medicine bothers me more.

Letty woke up congested this morning, insisting she was “perfectly healthy” between coughs dramatic enough to suggest otherwise. Casey had mentioned stopping at the pharmacy after pickup.

Again, her money.

The amount itself is irrelevant. I could spend ten times that before breakfast and never notice the difference. What bothers me is the principle of it. Casey works for me. She takes care of my daughter. If Letty needs something, I provide it.

That’s how this works.

Except Casey seems determined to behave as though accepting anything beyond the strict boundaries of her job comes with consequences she doesn’t trust.

The thought settles uncomfortably somewhere in the back of my mind as voices drift in from outside.

I move toward the patio doors quietly enough that neither of them notices me at first.

The evening air still carries warmth from the day, the scent of chlorine from the pool mixing with freshly cut grass. Letty is sprawled across the outdoor rug with crayons scattered around her while Casey sits cross-legged beside her wearing one of Letty’s plastic tiaras crookedly on her head.

“Dragons do not wear pink glitter crowns,” Casey says with complete seriousness.

“Yes, they do.”