Chapter 30
30
LAZARO
The minute I enter the hidden office space, I immediately look for Amara. I see her standing near the desk, looking at the wall in front of her with a puzzled expression. I move to her quickly, side-stepping Sofia and Rori, and pull her up into my arms. “Are you alright, colombina ?” I ask, looking down at her.
She nods and looks up at me. “I’m fine. A little surprised to find all this, and the girls probably think I’m crazy but?—”
“I think you’re a genius,” Rori corrects firmly. “Not one of us noticed what you did.”
“Did you know this was here?” Pietro asks Nico, who moves close to the desk and looks over it, a grim expression on his face, and a hardness in his eyes.
“No,” Nico bites out, rifling through the papers. “My mother had her secrets, and I always wondered how she managed to hide what she did so well, but now we know. I had the house completely searched after her and my father’s death, but nothing was found.” He looks over at me and then at Amara, who’s still suspended in my arms. “Put her down,” he demands. I open my mouth to blast him for thinking he can order me to do anything, but Pietro gives me a hard look, so I comply, though I don’t let her go. I keep her back against me, my arm around her shoulder protectively. “How did you find this place?” Nico asks Amara bluntly.
I feel Amara tremble, and I hold her a little tighter. I shoot Nico a warning look, but he completely ignores me. “I-I was by the cabinet, and at my angle, I could see the wall wasn’t straight,” Amara tells him nervously.
Nico narrows his eyes. “You figured out this was here because of a warped wall?” he asks doubtfully. “I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Nico,” I warn him in a low tone. One that makes it clear if he doesn’t show her some respect, we’re going to have a problem.
“I-I just, it bothered me that every other surface in this house is so perfectly straight and immaculate and this room wasn’t,” Amara whispers, easing back against me like she wants to be away from Nico. My anger builds, but I manage to keep myself in check. “It just seemed wrong. And then Massimo saw it too and when I stood by the door, I realized that the wall was angled some instead of straight like at the back. I saw the shelf near the door and it reminded me of one that was in the bunker that we hid out in. I found the lever under it and the wall behind the shelf opened. Massimo is the one who got it open and went in first.”
“You did amazingly, colombina ,” I assure her.
Nico stares at Amara for another long minute, almost like he’s not sure if he should believe her, but before I can snarl at him, he nods and turns back to the papers on the desk. “Dante, collect everything and bring it back to my office.” Then he strides out of the room. Gia rushes after him, and everyone watches him go before turning to Dante.
His lips are set into a thin line. “He’ll explain it when we get to his office,” he tells us simply. “Right now, we need to get as many things out of here as possible.” He looks at Papa. “If you can get a clear picture of that mural, we’re going to need it.”
“What’s it showing?” Pietro asked, peering at the mural closely.
“Routes,” Dante answers. “The ones she used to betray Nico and peddle her and her lover’s secret business.” He scoops up the papers and journals on the desk. Sofia is already pulling out the drawers and taking other things out of them to hand to him.
I glance at Alessio and we both know exactly what’s being implied, but until Nico shares it, we’re going to have to keep speculating. I focus back on Amara, turning her back around and cupping her face in my hand. Her eyes are bright and worried. “I didn’t mean to piss him off,” she whispers.
“He’s not upset with you, colombina ,” I soothe. “Nico is a prick on a good day, and this surprised him.”
“He made it sound like he blamed me for finding it. Or that he doesn’t trust that I found it. I didn’t mean to upset him,” she worries.
“Amara,” Papa says calmly, his tone gentle. Amara turns to look up at him. “Don’t fear, cara mia . You have done nothing wrong, but when a man who is used to controlling everything realizes that he might have missed something major, they can lash out even when they don’t mean to. You have nothing to worry about where Nico is concerned.” Then he gives her a wide smile. “You are a smart girl, cara mia , and I am excited to have you in the family. Perhaps my grandchildren will inherit your brains instead of my son’s, yes?”
I flip him off, making him laugh. Amara blushes but gives him a small smile. “With that brain, I say she should come and work with me,” Urso suggests with a grin. “I need someone else with actual brains around.”
“Fuck off,” I growl at him. “She’s not working with your ugly ass day in and day out. Her brains would leak out if subjected to you that long.” Urso flips me off this time, then gets back to gathering things.
“I request that you check over our home when we return, cara mia ,” Pietro adds with a warm smile. “See if there are any hidden places that we don’t know about.”
Amara’s blush deepens. “I’m not really all that good at this kind of thing,” she tells him shyly. “I just like puzzles, but often it’s not anything. I got lucky this time.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Massimo corrects, giving her a stern look. “I never once noticed the wall, and neither did anyone else when they were working to clean the room and build the salon. You may have just turned the tide for us in a few ways, little sister, so no, this is no small thing.”
I give him a grateful look and Amara smiles a little more. Alright, we’re making progress, but I’ll be speaking to Nico to let him know that he made a mistake in frightening her. I’ve killed men for less, and while I won’t kill him, I have no problem in making sure he understands that he will never do that again.
The next half hour is all of us, including the women, grabbing everything we can, moving it out of the room and to Nico’s office. He’s nowhere to be found, so I have to assume he’s off with Gia somewhere. Probably for the best. Maybe she can mellow his ass out.
When we finally have the room emptied, I stay back with Massimo, Dante, Sofia, Papa, Pietro, and Amara to close the space. “Can you show me where the lever is that you found, Amara?” Dante asks. She takes him over to show him, and he shakes his head in disbelief. “I still don’t know how it’s never been found. Even if the lever is hidden, someone must have tried to grab that shelf and take it off at some point.”
“It had a fire extinguisher just sitting there, so maybe they just figured that’s what it was for,” she suggests. “Keeps it up and out of the way.”
“Yes, but if they grabbed the wood, surely they would have felt the hole.”
Amara shrugs. “Maybe, but from the sounds of things, no one was ever in here other than to put things in storage before they made it into the salon. So maybe no one really ever thought of it.”
“My wonder is how no one spotted Nico’s mother coming down here,” Pietro remarks. “This space was used, and it was used often if all that information we found is to be believed.”
“His mother was a drunk and pill popper, so she stumbled around the house a lot,” Dante explains. “If she came down this way, no one would look twice. They would think she was trying to find a place to pass out, or that she was going to sleep with one of the soldiers. If they found her in here, they’d have just called Nico or his father and had them come to get her and put her to bed.”
“The information that I saw in there was not the work of a drug addict or a drunk,” Papa says with a firm shake of his head.
“She certainly had her lucid moments,” Dante agrees. “But over time they were fewer and farther between. Trust me, she was all of those things, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she was also doing that routine to throw people off her trail.”
“Makes me wonder if there are any other rooms like this hidden around here,” Papa says, glancing around quickly.
“Nico will probably have us search the whole place,” Dante nods. “But not until this business with the other families is sorted. He won’t want to risk the men finding out about these and spilling secrets.” Then he looks at Amara. “We might need your help with that.”
Amara jerks in surprise. “Ah, I’m not really that good at this stuff,” she protests weakly. “And this place is so big it would take me months, even years.”
“Then you can teach us what to look for that you noticed,” Dante answers simply. Amara doesn’t look convinced but gives a slow nod.
I have no intention of allowing her to stay here to do this, but I leave that unsaid for now. Nico and Dante can figure this shit out on their own without my woman.
“Well, I say we get to Nico’s office and see what he can tell us,” Pietro suggests briskly. “You and Sofia as well,” he adds, looking at Amara and my sister.
Amara takes my hand and squeezes it tight. I can feel her nerves. I lean down to press a kiss to the top of her head. As everyone files out, I keep Amara at the back with me. “Are you okay, colombina ?” I ask her softly. “This is a lot, but I’m so proud of you.”
“It’s…this whole thing is a lot, Lazaro,” she whispers back, looking up at me with wide eyes. “Since I got here, it’s been one giant emotional rollercoaster after another.”
I stop us just outside Nico’s office and tell the others we’ll be right in. Papa gives me a concerned look but leaves us be. The others go inside and shut the door. I pull Amara down the hall, away from the guards, and to a window seat that’s tucked around the corner before the stairs that head up to the next floor. I sit down, and pull her into my lap. She curls into me, gripping my shirt tight. “I know it has been, Amara. I would like nothing more than to take you away from it all and give you time to settle, but we don’t have that luxury right now. Soon, though, I promise. For now, just know I’m here for you, and all you need to do is lean on me and I’ll help you keep going.”
She’s quiet for a minute, then she leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to my mouth. “You know, I’m really lucky you found me, Lazaro,” she whispers when she pulls away. “If I had to do this with anyone else, I don’t think I’d be able to survive it. It would probably break me.”
I smile at her. “I’d have found you eventually, colombina . You are the other part of me, and a man searches the world for that until his dying breath.”
“I believe you.” She sighs, pressing her forehead to mine. “I’m just overwhelmed today with everything. I had a moment with the girls earlier, and told them everything that happened to me. I’m feeling raw and vulnerable, but then I was working on Rori and Sofia’s hair and I started to calm down. I wanted you, but it was nice to have time with them and Massimo and just be normal for a little while.”
My heart clenches at the thought of her sharing her secrets with the women, but the rational part of me knows that it’s best it happened when I wasn’t there. I’d have lost my shit about it and probably done something stupid like kick them all out to comfort her. “Your strength never ceases to amaze me, Amara. Are you feeling better now?”
“I think I’m just nervous about what that room means. I know it’s not going to be anything good, but up until now, other than knowing that my family is after me to marry me off for power and they’re trying to take this place out too, I don’t think I really thought about the other parts of this life. About what things might mean, and I’m just being hit with so much all at once it’s shaking me.”
“Then let me hold and steady you. If it gets to be too much, hold on to me, and I’ll help you.”
She presses her mouth back to mine. “You’re making me fall so hard for you, Lazaro. It terrifies and excites me.”
Elation fills me, and I hold her tighter. “I have already fallen for you, colombina . I did the minute I saw you. You were so sassy, so strong. You took no shit from me, and you trusted me when you had no reason to. We will make this work, Amara. You and I, we’re going to be so strong that our grandchildren will envy us.”
She giggles. “That’s a ways off, but I hope we can make it happen eventually.” She kisses me again, then pulls away. “Alright, let’s get in there. I want to know what’s going on.”
I help her to her feet, take her hand, and pull her back down the hall, feeling decidedly lighter.
When we walk into the office, everyone looks at us, and I arch a brow at them. “What?”
“We were waiting for you,” Alonzo says impatiently.
I glare at him. “I needed to talk to Amara, but we’re here now,” I tell him simply, my tone hard. “What do we know?”
“We’ve only started going through the documents,” Alessio chimes in. “So grab a stack and start reading, but Nico said he would give us a bit of history on this too.” I release Amara and step forward to take some papers from Dante’s desk. Glancing at them, they look to be just random notes. Nico sits behind the desk, Gia in his lap, her face full of concern as she watches him.
“My mother was a drunk, and she liked to pop pills to help her cope. She and my father had no love lost between them, though maybe at one time she loved him. Either way, she decided to fuck him over and slept with many men, uncaring if he found out, aside from one that I learned about later. She was so focused on her husband she forgot about her son.” He gives a sharp smile. “Especially once I became Don and started really paying attention. By then she was so into her act and her betrayal that I think she thought I would just brush her off like my father did.”
“Clearly, you didn’t,” Pietro states. “And this is when you found out about whatever all this is?”
Nico nods. “I found out that she was wrapped up in an affair with Seamus Gallo, and the two of them cooked up an entire pipeline to get their sex trafficking ring through our territory and out into the rest of the States without anyone ever being the wiser.”
Silence roars. “Your mother and Seamus Gallo?” Alessio repeats slowly, whistling low. “I thought for sure you were going to say Ivan or Leonardo.”
Nico shrugs. “Could be she screwed around with them too, but the only one I found out about was Gallo.”
“That’s why you set the Irish and Russians against each other,” I say, watching him as the pieces start to fall into place. “You wanted Seamus out of the way, but you didn’t want anyone to know it was you because if you did, then you’d have to tell them why you were going after him.”
Nico inclines his head. “If I declared war on Seamus right away, especially as such a new Don, it would have ended in me losing important ground that I couldn’t afford. Not if I wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t to be messed with. So I killed my mother, shut down their operation, and let Seamus believe that my mother took the blame on her own. I spread the rumor that I killed her and my father so I could take my place here, but I sent Seamus a picture of her body and a warning. Since then, he’s mostly stayed out of my way while I worked on positioning myself to destroy him.”
“I’ll give you points for being clever and not rushing into anything idiotic,” Pietro tells him. “But if you killed her and dismantled her operation, this discovery shouldn’t be such a problem for you.”
“The problem is the mural,” Nico says tightly. “I shut down the operation in my territory but?—”
“That map was of the entire city,” Massimo finishes, straightening. “You’re saying that they were running their pipeline through the entire city, not just your territory.” Nico nods once, jaw hardening. Gia rubs at his chest soothingly, and he grips her hand in his, holding it tight. “And because of that, you think that the trafficking might still be happening now. Do you remember the exact route they had before? Is there anything different?”
“I’d need to look closer at the map,” Nico says.
“I sent it to everyone,” Papa says after a moment.
I pull out my phone, looking at it carefully. The map itself is remarkably detailed, right down to neighborhoods and different landmarks. This is something developed over a very long time. There are multiple lines crossing over it, along with a few marks that look like stars or circles, though I can’t quite tell from the image, even if I zoom in. One thing is certain though, there are multiple lines extending throughout the entire city, and through every territory.
“Can I see?” Amara whispers. I hand her my phone, before turning my attention back to the others.
“That isn’t an operation that happened overnight, that was years of work,” I state grimly. “And that means if it’s still going, they have figured out how to keep it off the radar.”
“What gets me is that they were all willing to work together to do this,” Pietro says with a deep frown. “Especially over different territories.”
“Maybe they don’t know about it,” Urso suggests. “If you look at the map, you can see that it avoids the major areas of each territory, sticking to the outskirts. Even in Gallo and Armani territory.”
“They wouldn’t want to chance getting caught,” I agree. “Especially something as big as this. The question is, did Leonardo and Ivan know about this?”
“Maybe we can find something in all this,” Zeno says, waving the papers in his hand around.
“Um, sorry,” Amara says nervously, making us all look at her. “I just, I just was looking at the map again, and there’s four small dots that look out of place. They’re not drawn on, they almost look like they’re poked in.” She hands me back the phone and points at them. “And if I’m looking at it right, that’s one per territory, right?”
“I thought those were just pixilated spots, or dust,” Massimo says. “But you’re right, Amara.”
“Do you see anything else, cara mia ?” Pietro asks her.
She hesitates. “Go ahead, colombina ,” I encourage her. “Don’t worry, just say whatever you’re thinking.”
“Well, it’s just that if you zoom the map all the way out, you can kind of make out that the paths make a kind of pattern. They’re all close to major landmarks that would be near the water, or a major highway.”
“That would make sense,” Alessio agrees with a quick nod. “The ports and the highways are the easiest ways to get in and out of the city with the people they’re trafficking. Good catch, Amara.” He gives her a warm smile, mirrored by Sienna.
“They’re also in areas that wouldn’t be patrolled by the police much,” Rori chimes in, looking at the image on Alessio’s phone over his shoulder. “Police in any city focus on the high crime areas, and they send out the majority of their officers there. Others do patrols in areas that aren’t considered as high risk, and are done at set intervals. All someone would have to do is watch or have an in with the ones on those runs to know what they are. You can move people through quickly and know exactly how much time you have to get it done. On the other hand, you can also create a distraction at one of the points so that the cops are busy with it and give you more time if you need it.”
“And you know this from your cop family?” Nico asks her sarcastically. He ignores Gia when she scolds him.
Before Rori can answer, Alonzo snaps, “Do not disrespect her, Nico, or we are going to have a problem. Her history has nothing to do with her here and now. This is information we can use.” Rori looks at him with an odd expression, like she’s pissed he dared to speak up, but also grateful he did. Alonzo never once looks at her.
Nico doesn’t reply to that, but he looks at Rori and waves at her to continue. She rolls her eyes. “Yes, I did learn that from watching my family. Like I said, my family also work for the Belovs and they know every way to keep the other cops away from them. A lot of them know the score and just turn a blind eye, but the ones that are out to change the world, they make sure they’re kept busy elsewhere. Gives the Belovs the chance to move their products without detection, and the cops get a big buy-off payment in their account. I’m sure you do something of the same here, even if it’s not that blatant,” she adds pointedly. Then she looks around the room. “Just like the rest of you.”
No one disagrees with her.
“How do you know those areas wouldn’t be patrolled well here specifically?” Alonzo asks her.
“I studied the city before I came here,” she shrugs. “If I couldn’t get in here to get to Sienna, then I was going to make sure I knew this city and the cops well so I could avoid them. If my name comes up in searches, it will set off alarm bells, and someone is going to contact my family. I don’t need that hassle. As far as they are concerned, I took some much-needed time off, and I’m travelling somewhere far away from here. Nothing different than normal.”
Alonzo frowns at that, but says nothing.
“I want to know what those dots are,” Sienna interjects. “I mean, Amara is right, now that you look at them. But the picture isn’t clear enough in those areas to overlap them on a map.” She jumps to her feet. “Let’s go back and look at the map.”
Alessio gets to his feet. “Good idea, coniglietta .”
“I’ll go with you,” Massimo offers. “I want another look too.” The three of them take their leave.
“I don’t think you’re going to find anything in amongst most of these papers,” Sofia suddenly says, her eyes looking critically at everything in front of her. “Other than how they moved people through, or when. Most of this is simply keeping records and counting money. And from what I’ve seen so far, that money was substantial. So where did it go?” She looks at Nico. “And is it still there?”
Nico’s scowl deepens. “I closed out all the accounts we were able to find, but if she hid this, then she hid that money too.”
“Urso, Aurelio,” Pietro orders.
“Already on it,” Urso calls. “I’ve got a message out to our team to start digging. From the look of all this paper though, I’d have to say she probably marked the account down somewhere.”
“What we need to do is get this all digitized and run a scan on it,” Aurelio says. He looks at Nico and Dante. “Your men have anything we can use?”
“I’ll see to it they do,” Dante answers, pulling out his phone. “Just give me the specs you need. If we don’t already have it, I’ll rush order it.”
Suddenly, Amara stands up, drawing our attention. She’s focused on the oldest trunk that was placed in front of the desk. “What is it, colombina ?” I ask her, moving to crouch down beside her when she kneels in front of it, running her hand over it.
“This trunk, it’s been opened far more than the others ever were,” Amara tells me absently. “See how worn the edges are? The others are nearly pristine, even with age. Those were rarely opened. The lock on this is old and scratched up way more than the others. And there are older and newer marks on it, see?” She points to a few scratches, one deeper and the other lighter. “This is an old metal lock, and you can see that the older ones are corroded, but there are a few that aren’t, or aren’t as much, which suggests that they were made later than the others. But none of these kinds of scratches are on the other two.”
“Maybe the others are just full, and she didn’t need to open them?” Zeno suggests. “They were all heavy when we pulled them in.”
“Yes, but you would think that if the others were full and she was just moving things to the others, then they would also show wear and tear,” Rori agrees, moving to kneel next to Amara. “The other thing that you’re not noticing is that the other trunk and the suitcase have the Armani symbol on them. This one, it has the Esposito one.”
“How the fuck do you know about those?” Nico demands.
“I did my fucking homework,” Rori snaps at him. “It’s public record that your mother was Esposito’s sister. His only sister, at that. That means this trunk is one she had when she was living at home and brought with her. If she ever had anything that she wanted to keep safe, it’s going to be in here.” We hear a snick and I start, realizing that she’s already picked the lock. “There,” she announces triumphantly.
Everyone gathers around as Amara and Rori both open the trunk. It’s musty smelling, and full of dust, but it’s full of an assortment of things. Notebooks, spare papers, trinkets and jewellery. We start emptying the case.
Nothing really sticks out, but it definitely all feels personal. “Love letters and notes from Seamus,” I say as I look at the stack of old, yellowed letters. I read a couple of them. “Nothing of substance though. Most of it is Seamus telling her that he can’t wait to see her soon, and some explicit things he plans to do when he does.” I shoot Nico a wry smile. “Seems your mother and that Irish fucker were into some kinky shit.”
Nico doesn’t react to that. Instead, he says, “She must have loved him somewhat if she kept all this.”
“The letters date over many years, so I would say that this went on for a very long time,” I agree, quickly going through the stack before setting them aside. “We’ll add this to the stack to be scanned. Maybe they shared some things in there that can help us.”
A loud click sounds, and I look down to see Amara pulling up on the side of the trunk, and a hidden drawer slides out with a plain, black leather notebook sitting inside.
“Little sister, you need to come and work for me,” Urso exclaims excitedly. “Holy shit, you have a magic mind. How did you find that?”
“I just went to push up away from the trunk and I felt a slight depression in the wood,” Amara says in embarrassment. “When I looked at it, I could see the outline of a circle, and I just pushed down on it. That was completely an accident, I swear.”
She grabs the diary and hands it to Nico when I help her to her feet. He takes it and opens it, scanning the first page. He stills. “It’s a diary,” he finally says carefully.
Before he can say anything else, the door opens again, and Sienna announces excitedly, “Amara, you were right. They were pinholes.”
“I can’t figure out what they’re for,” Alessio says with an annoyed sigh. “Massimo either. We don’t know the city well enough.”
“I’ll have a look,” Dante says. “Did you get pictures of the holes with the areas behind them?”
Massimo hands his phone to him. He narrows his eyes as he looks at the pictures. “They look like they’re right over the houses of each family, but not quite. They’re just off, and just enough that at a glance, you might think they are, but if you look at them straight on, they definitely aren’t.”
“Meet up spots?” I suggest.
Dante nods. “That would make sense. Or they’re hideouts. And one of those just might be where Giovanni, Leonardo, and Seamus are now hiding. I don’t have any of these as known hideout locations for any of them.”
“We need to check them out,” Pietro says briskly. “Massimo, take some of our men. They’ll see Nico’s men coming and know instantly, and could go further into hiding. We need stealth.”
“I’ll need Lazaro or Alonzo with me if we want that level of stealth,” Massimo states.
“I’ll go,” I offer, anxious to see what we’ll find. I look at Amara. “You’ll be alright?”
She nods quickly. “I’ll be fine, and I’ll stay with my guards, but please be careful.”
“Always, colombina ,” I promise. I lift her up to kiss her hard, before I set her on her feet. “Let us know of any new developments,” I order before we turn to leave.
Excitement hums through my blood. We might just get lucky, and we can finally make some moves in this bloody war.