Page 98 of Little Dove

“Leo?” Sienna repeats in shock. “You mean Leonardo? Our father?”

Gia nods, stunned, and maybe a little shaken. “But that’s not all. I think I just figured out how she got into meetings with my father without anyone knowing.”

“How,topolina?” Nico asks patiently, though the look on his face says he’s feeling anything but.

“This part in her next entry.Leo took me in his office today. He was so pent up, so full of rage and the need to release it. I’m still sore, but it was unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.” Gia pauses and scrunches up her nose. “Uh, I’m going to skip the rest of that. She goes into detail about my father that I don’t need to know.” Some of us chuckle with amusement and agreement. “He sent me back out with the flick of the little black horse, and I closed off the other end with a quick turn of the sconce. Why do men do things so obviously? One wrong move by the wrong person and that little secret will make them vulnerable. Not like our home. No, it will be as grand and impenetrable as I can make it. I may hate Vito, but his walls are the protection I need to build my own empire, one that will eventually surpass them all. First, though, I need to keep Seamus from noticing that we’re missing a good portion of our latest sale. I may have to make another sooner than planned to make up the difference. I’ll figure it out like I always do.”

“Is she talking about the passages you mentioned before, Gia?” Nico asks, taking the journal and handing it to Sofia before wrapping his arms around her again.

Gia shakes her head. “No. I know all those passageways, and Father only had one that went into his office. It came out behind a large painting of our grandfather. It’s raised off the floor so you have to step into it. Father wouldn’t have wanted it to be visibleor easily accessible. Everyone thinks of a passage entrance being a full-sized door, not one halfway up the wall.”

“So what did she mean about the black horse?” I ask.

Gia flinches, and her eyes look haunted. Nico instantly picks her up, placing her in his lap as he quietly soothes her. I feel awful that I’ve caused her some kind of pain, but Rori takes my hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. Finally, Gia says, “I’m alright, Nico. It’s just, when I was young, about six or seven, I was called into my father’s office and he yelled at me for daring to spill my drink on the carpet that morning at breakfast. He conveniently forgot that the only reason I spilled it was because Marco hit me so hard I went flying. He was a bully even then. Anyway, after Father finished yelling at me, he told me to stand in the corner near the window and wait for him to finish while he decided on my punishment. I was shaking. I remember standing there, trying not to cry, and hurting from Marco beating on me not long before. I don’t know how long I stood there, but after about fifteen minutes, I got bored, so I was looking at all the things on my father’s little table near the window. It had papers, a crystal decanter, and a few glasses, but it also had a black horse sculpture that fascinated me. I knew I wasn’t supposed to touch it, but I reached out anyway, and Father saw me. He beat me so badly that my nanny had to come and carry me to get a few bones reset. I never looked at it again.”

My eyes widen in horror, and I see the same on Sienna’s face, while Rori and Sofia both look very angry.

“It’s alright,topolina,” Nico soothes her, rocking her. “He will pay for everything he’s put you through, I’ll ensure it.”

Gia shudders out a breath. “I know. It’s just hard to think about, but it makes sense now why he didn’t want me to touch it. If I had, I might have revealed the passage that your mother mentions, and he wouldn’t want that secret revealed to anyone.If my brothers knew about it, they would have bragged about it at some point.”

“So where would the entrance from the outside be if it’s not something internal?” Sienna wonders.

“That would have to be at a hidden part of the house,” Alonzo remarks. “I mean, you’re not going to just walk out the side of a house where anyone can see. He would have to know it’s at a blind spot in the cameras, as well as not visible from anywhere else in the house.”

“There’s only one spot like that,” Gia replies. “Father’s office is in the middle of the lower floor, but toward the back. At the back of the house is a small alcove; it has a bench that sometimes people will sit on, but we always thought it was only there for looks. It has a little statue dedicated to his first wife. We assumed that he had it made to appease her family, but he never wanted to see it. No one really goes back there. Oh, and there’s a little path that leads into the woods that the guards would use. I think it leads to a road behind the property that’s not well travelled.”

“That would explain how Nico’s mother got in without being seen. Do you remember if there was anything there that resembles a sconce, Gia?” Pietro asks her gently.

Gia nods. “There’s one above the bench. You can squeeze behind the bench to get to it, but it’s about a head taller than me.”

“Is there a chance your father would have locked that off?” Nico asks her.

Gia shrugs. “It’s possible, but if he doesn’t want to use the passages because Marco and Sebastian know how to get into them, then that would be the way he would get out.”

“You lot have so many passages in your houses,” Aurelio says in annoyance. “Have to worry about random walls opening. You watch too many Hollywood movies.”

I laugh, because that is exactly my thought too.

“Hold on,” Sofia interrupts. Her eyes lift from the diary and she says simply, “She wasn’t just fucking Leonardo, she was fucking Giovanni too. And according to her journal, she met up with him at a place that no one but the two of them knew about.”

The mood instantly shifts. “Any locations?” Aurelio demands.

Sofia holds up a finger for him to wait, and I can practically hear Alonzo growling in annoyance and impatience. I’m so invested right now. This is like a movie. Finally, she nods. “She mentions an apartment that Giovanni had built in secret. He took her to it from his office through a tunnel underneath his house. He found out about her and Leonardo and wanted in on the action, and she paid him off to keep him quiet.”

“Looks like the rat was right,” Alonzo huffs. “We need to figure out where that house is.”

Sofia keeps reading and then she laughs. “Oh, your mother was planning in case this was ever found, Nico. She wrote down coordinates in the corner of the page.” She reads them out, and I look to see Aurelio and Urso both on their phones.

“Son of a fucking bitch,” Urso bites out. He looks up at us. “That fucker has been right under our noses all along.” He reads off an address. “It’s just over the border of your territory, Nico, in one of the apartment buildings there, but the actual house is on the other side. He built that fucking thing right on the line and then burrowed into your territory like a fucking rat.”

“It must be hidden in a way that no one can find it or hear anyone in there,” Sienna agrees. “Behind a false wall or something. But he wouldn’t have only one way in and out through his house. He’d want an escape route, right?”

“You mean another secret exit,” Aurelio grumbles. “Mother of God, I hope after this I never have to deal with this again. Secret agent bullshit.”

“What’s on the other side of the apartment?” I ask. “Going into the territory?”

“That whole block is apartments,” Urso answers.

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