The meeting had been cancelled. And for the first time in months, he found himself with an unexpectedly free afternoon ahead of him, a coffee growing cold in his hands and absolutely no intention of touching the mountain of paperwork waiting in his office.

So when he spotted an ant crossing the floor, he raised an eyebrow and followed it, somewhat confused when he noticed more behind it.

A trail.

There had never been ants in this house. He paid a ridiculous amount of money to keep nature outside the walls of his home.

The line crossed the hallway and eventually made its way up the stairs to the second floor. Renzo found himself following it, feeling increasingly ridiculous as he went.

At the end of the hallway, on the right, the ants disappeared beneath a door he knew very well.

Your room.

Renzo stopped, tension settling into his shoulders.

For several seconds he simply stared at the door. Part of him considered turning around and forgetting the whole thing. The room was one of the few spaces in the mansion that truly belonged to Raeema and, while Renzo had never been particularly good at respecting boundaries when he thought something was wrong, he wasn't exactly eager to start searching through their things over a ridiculous suspicion.

Then one of the ants emerged dragging a breadcrumb.

Renzo closed his eyes for a second.

What the fuck...?

"...Fantastic."

The next second he opened the door.

He ignored the unmade bed and the clutter, focusing only on the intrusive trail crossing the room toward a gap in the floorboards.

A familiar sense of unease stirred inside him, one that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his life ever since you walked through the mansion's front door.

He set the coffee down on the desk and crouched, pulling up the loose board and moving it aside.

The compartment was filled with food.

Cookies, currently under attack thanks to a poorly sealed container. Protein bars. Bottled water. Juice boxes. Candy. Packaged sandwiches.

Enough for it to stop looking like a joke and start looking like something far more troubling.

Renzo rested his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor.

When he'd brought you home, he'd spent more nights than he'd ever admit reading things he'd never expected to need. Trauma. Orphanages. Adoption. Behaviors that survived long after the danger itself had disappeared.

He wasn't an expert in any of it, but he knew exactly what hidden food usually meant.

And that was precisely the part he didn't like.

The sound of footsteps in the hallway made him lift his head just before the door opened.

Renzo looked at you for several seconds before vaguely gesturing toward the floor.

"Kid..."

His voice sounded calm. Too calm.

"I know we barely know each other."

He stood, pulled the desk chair out and sat down.

"But I'm fairly certain hiding food beneath your floorboards isn't part of anyone's personality."

His fingers tapped once against the armrest.

"How long have you been doing that?"