Page 45 of Little Deer
“If it was Leonardo, then he’s trying to find the women,” Aurelio says grimly. “We need to check on them, make sure no one has gotten into the passages.”
“Dante and Nico have the feeds,” I remind them.
“Text Sofia and find out,” Papa orders Aurelio. “If Rori is with them, then at least they have Hades as a guard.” Aurelio nods, grabbing his phone. “The rest of you, spread out, and search the house. Every fucking room. We got the main group, but I don’t trust that some of them didn’t slip back. Massimo, Alonzo, you take the north and east side. Urso, you and Zeno take the south and west sides. Aurelio, you and I are going to take the main areas, including the staff quarters and the kitchen. No stone left unturned. Go.”
Alonzo and I peel off, hurrying up the stairs. Neither of us speaks, moving in sync the way we have for years, until we splitoff, one of us taking each wing. The sooner we get through the rooms and halls, the sooner we can declare it cleared.
I take the north wing. Mostly just spare rooms that aren’t being used, and some storage, but it’s also the perfect place for someone to hide. If they want to wait it out, then I’ll find them.
I clear my fifteenth room, and that’s when I hear it, just before entering the sixteenth, the smallest of sounds. So faint that if I weren’t listening, I would never have noticed. The barest of scuffs of a foot sliding across the floor, of clothes rustling with small movements.
Fuck. Someone is up here.
Grim determination has me thinking quickly on my feet. I move to the door, open it, look in like I’m checking it out, and then pull back out and shut the door. I move down to the next one, open and close the door, do it with a few more, and then make my way back on silent feet. I send a quick message on my phone to let everyone know that we have one that got through, and then wait.
I don’t mind waiting. Patience has always been a strong suit of mine, and when it comes to things like this, I have an infinite well. I focus on listening and sensing everything around me. I keep to the shadows outside the room, making sure that he won’t spot me when he eventually emerges.
It takes another ten minutes before the door finally opens, not even a squeak of sound. One breath. Then another. Finally, I hear him breathe out softly, like he’s relieved, and he slips out into the hallway, his shoes crossing the marble floor with a slight scuffing sound.
I wait, keep my breathing low, even, and steady. I don’t even twitch when he walks right by me, even looking at me when his head scans around, but not registering me. At least, not until it’s too late. I’m on him before he can run, overtaking him, even as he struggles, bucks and kicks.
“Fuck,” the man hisses when I get my arm around his neck, and he claws at me, wiggling and trying to thrust his head back to smash into my face. I lean back quickly, feeling the graze of his hair against my nose and cheek, but I just tighten my grip.
Finally, he goes limp, and I’m breathing hard as I lower him to the floor. I search him, pulling the gun, knives, and ammunition in his pockets. He has nothing that identifies him, so I grab one of his knives and slice through the shirt he’s wearing, looking at the tattoos on his body. His back, chest, and arms are covered, but nothing stands out as something that would tie him to a family or organization. The low light here isn’t enough to say for sure, so I make quick work of tying him up with his belt, and sending the message to send someone up to get him.
If we can’t get information out of the one that Alonzo and Urso grabbed, then this one might be our ticket. He’s not a pro, so he’s not an assassin, but how the hell did he get up here without someone noticing him? This is one of the farthest parts of the house. It’s a problem to sort after I search through the rest of the rooms on this floor.
It doesn’t take me long to clear them, but I still can’t stop the feeling that I’m missing something. Or maybe someone. It’s an uneasy feeling. Is this guy just the decoy? Is the real spy actually still in here, hiding and waiting for me to reveal myself? Now they know they can wait?
Franco comes and grabs our spy, but Tino is with him, and I indicate for him to follow me. He nods and we head back down the hall on silent feet, listening. I just know there is someone else here. My neck itches. I want to warn Alonzo, but I’m sure he’s already felt it too. If there’s one in here, then there’s a good chance that there was a second team that was in the second area.
It’s not until we get back to the end of the hall that I finally hear it. The soft curse, the sound of things moving around, andsomeone moving as well. I look at Tino, who nods and moves himself to the other side of the door. Neither of us moves as we listen a little more, to make sure that there isn’t a team of people in there.
I wait until I hear them moving one more thing, this one sounding larger and heavier, before I kick open the door, gun up as I charge inside.
The room is only lit by a low lamp in the corner, though it was off when I first looked in here, and the man in the corner is trying to shift the tall dresser near the back of the room. He’s dressed in all black, with a dark mustache over his lip. His eyes widen when he sees us, clearly not expecting us to come back.
It doesn’t take much to subdue him. The element of surprise works in our favor, and I have Tino take him out and drag him down to the basement to be with the other one.
I work my way through the rest of the wing, and finally meet up with Alonzo at the top of the stairs where the wings separate. “Didn’t find anything in my area, but sounds like you did.”
I nod. “He was looking for something, moving shit around in that room. I want to know what it was.”
Alonzo frowns. “How the fuck did he get up here? How did either of them get up here without being spotted?”
“Yeah, exactly. Let’s go have a look.” We head back to the room, and I don’t turn on the light, trying to look at it from the spy’s perspective. The room is a decent size, with a bed, the dresser they were moving, and a small sitting area in front of the marble fireplace. Other than that, there isn’t anything overly different or odd about it. Nothing else out of place, and nothing that would suggest it was used for anything other than a spare room.
“He was moving this,” I tell Alonzo as we move to the dresser. Alonzo grabs the dresser and moves it away from the wall with ease—giant bastard—and sets it aside. I roll my eyes at him,and I inspect the wall. Shadows from the lamp crawl, but I see nothing obvious. I run my hands over it, but again nothing. I move along to the fireplace, inspecting it. It’s standard.
“Maybe there’s another secret space in here somewhere,” Alonzo suggests looking around. “Or there’s another entrance into the passageways. And who knows where Nico put the pad for that in here.”
“You think he was trying to get into the passageways to get to the women?”
“What else could it be?”
“It was Giovanni’s side that got access last time, so it has to be his men trying again then? They would be the only ones to know about the passages.” I frown at that. “They must have figured that we would change everything to make sure they couldn’t get back in, so why would they try again?”
“Maybe they’re not trying to get in yet? If Orlando had all the information on us and the passages from that fucker Tomasso, then maybe he’s just trying to have someone find a way in that we wouldn’t look for and then once they figure that out, Orlando and his men try to hack their way in. If they managed to get up here unseen, then that means they would have time to figure it out without any of us ever knowing. How often are any of us up here?”
