Page 58 of Little Rabbit

“I only ever saw her once, maybe twice when she was alive,” Gia admits. “Giovanni wouldn’t let her out very often. I think she spent most of her time locked away, because my mother never spoke of her either. I don’t think they talked much, if at all.”

“Or, maybe they did that to keep people from being suspicious, in case whatever was happening with your mother ever was found out,” Lazaro suggests gently. “And someone who’s shut in for so long, and suffered constant abuse, she would be someone overlooked when doing something like this.”

“You think the aunt was the one who came up with this?” I ask, my mind spinning as it tries to make some kind of connection to that new information.

“It’s possible,” Lazaro shrugs. “Who was married first?”

“Leonardo married first, and Giovanni married a couple months later,” Nico answers. “As the oldest, Leonardo would have had to go first, and from what I know, the marriages were arranged.”

“I remember Father talking about how he only married my mother for the connection to her family in Italy,” Gia says sadly. “I don’t know about his first wife, but I have to think that it was the same.”

“The first wife was the only daughter of another connection based out of Chicago,” Aurelio explains. “But I don’t think much came out of that marriage since she died so young. Her family had her buried with her mother back in Chicago, from the records. The connections were broken.”

“Sounds to me like they knew that it wasn’t an accident or natural causes,” Dante remarks. “And Leonardo would have had to find another wife fast.”

“His father was Don at the time, so I imagine he pulled some strings and wove a story to ensure there wasn’t any backlash,” Nico suggests.

“Who did Giovanni marry?” Alonzo asks.

“He married Bianca Conti,” Nico answers. “She was the youngest of the three sisters, and the only one not married. The family is well known in California, with ties here and in Italy, but is a small player.”

I nod. “Yes, and since then the son has taken over, Bruno Conti. He’s far more cautious than his father, especially after an embarrassing defeat at our hands when he tried to be stupid when he was younger. Papa made an example of him.” I leave out the gory details for Gia’s sake, but my expression lets them know that he didn’t end up in one piece.

“Wait, isn’t the Conti fortune based on shipping and smuggling?” Alonzo asks, perking up. I nod. “It would make sense that Bianca would be the one who possibly organized this. And that means if she had female children, she would have had the knowledge of how to do it. It would make sense that she would tell Gia’s mother about it once she knew she could trust her.”

“Risky, considering who they were both married to, but you have to admire them,” Lazaro remarks. “Clearly it worked though, since Sienna, and possibly two more were able to be taken out.”

“I’m still unsure how they did that without them getting suspicious,” Dante frowns. “I mean, if it was always a girl, wouldn’t they have started to question why it was always girls?”

“No,” Gia says with a shake of her head. “They would have either figured good riddance, or maybe they thought the women killed them because they knew how mad they would get. At least, that’s what makes sense to me. The men in my family really hate women, including their wives.”

“But surely they would have realized the benefit of having daughters for marriages, considering their own,” Lazaro argues.

“Maybe as they got older, but they had sons,” Gia reminds him. “And my brothers and cousins would have been the ones to bring the women in and bind the people they wanted. And honestly, they would want the upper hand. They would have people coming to them for marriages or requests for power or whatever they wanted. Not them having to go to someone else to work something out that would benefit them.”

“And they probably wouldn’t have wanted to risk a daughter spilling secrets,” I add with a scowl. “Gia, I’m sorry, but your family really are pieces of shit.”

Gia gives me a dry smile. “Yeah, I know. Honestly, none of this surprises me. But it does make me wonder how I didn’t get smuggled out.” Her smile turns sad, and I see the pain in her eyes.

Nico holds her tight. “Do not think like that, topolina. Doing that will cause you unnecessary pain. Perhaps your mother desperately wanted to keep you around, or maybe they tried and somehow the plan went awry. But you’re here now, and you never have to worry about such a thing again.”

“I think it’s more the latter than the former,” she sighs. “My mother was always angry with me, and never had much to do with me. Maybe she was scared to, but honestly, I think she resented me. My father was very unhappy she had a girl, and he blamed her for sullying the line with me more than once. My brothers also made her life a nightmare about it, telling her she should have killed me when I was born. I was so little, but I remember it clearly. Honestly, when she died, it was very sad, but I didn’t grieve overly much. I didn’t know her well, and honestly, I think she gave up by the end. It’s probably how Marco was able to kill her without her knowing. Or maybe she didn’t care.”

“Marco killed her?” Nico asks, staring down at her. “It’s always been thought your father killed her.”

She nods. “Honestly, it was probably on Father’s orders that Marco killed her. My father didn’t even try to hide the fact that she was dead. I heard him praising Marco for doing it, and for doing it so cleanly. He was grooming him even then for the underboss position. He killed her by snapping her neck. Father didn’t want any of her dirty blood getting anything messed up,” she finishes bitterly. Nico murmurs something to her, stroking her side comfortingly.

The room feels heavy from a lot of information flying. “We need to get things back under control, and we need to distract them from their searches,” I say briskly. “After all, the more they have to fight against us, the less chance they can throw resources at finding the other women. Aurelio, we need your men to work double time on this.”

“I just got back a note from my guy,” Aurelio replies. “He’s been able to confirm one woman, but the other he’s still trying to figure out. These two girls were much better hidden than Sienna, which tracks if their mother is the aunt, because she would know more tricks than Gia and Sienna’s. Anyway, the other woman’s name is Amara Smith, but she’s recently changed her last name, which made her harder to find. She was abandoned as an infant at a fire station, so she went into the system. Smith was the typical last name given to infants who were abandoned. She’s recently changed it to Amara Stanley, and opened up a hair salon in a small town in Arizona. He has no other information other than that right now because most of her records were sealed or destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” I repeat.

“Fire in a records office in Arizona when she was about eighteen. Which is right when she would have aged out of the system,” Aurelio answers. “Her records don’t appear to be digitized, so when she aged out, it appears she disappeared off the map. She reappeared when she was twenty-five and registered for a driver’s license. After that, she disappeared again.”

“You think she’s living off the grid?” Alonzo wonders.

“Could be, but something tells me that it’s more she’s cautious,” Aurelio answers. “But again, my guy only just found her, so there’s more he’ll have to dig up. Once he gets going he’ll have plenty.”

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