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“Did you find anything else?”
Gia nodded. “Three more emails going back nearly a year, all using different accounts but sent from the same place. I have no idea if Sofia, Elisabetta, or Alessandro actually sent them as I wouldn’t know their whereabouts at the time. I only know the third because of the restaurant, as I said.”
“What do the others say?” I knocked the drink back. It should be sipped, I supposed, but who the fuck cared?
“It’s the middle one that’s the most detailed.” He turned his now-opened laptop screen to me. I read some brief details, including the time and place for the “meeting.” It was our wedding ceremony.
“I can’t wait to rub his face in it, and I don’t want any of them to die slowly. I want to watch.”
I had to read it three times. It was one thing to hope something bad happened to an enemy, even to have a hand in it, but it took someone with a heart made of ice to watch. Who was the man they wanted to suffer? On the surface, it had to refer to him as it mentioned the ceremony and they would hardly use names. “Which discounts Elisabetta,” I said.
“What about Nonna M?” Lucio asked. I glanced at him. She had instructed him to call her that, and there weren’t many that got that honor.
“What do you mean?” Gia asked.
I stiffened. “She’s at the house with Alessandro.”
“On her own?” Gia asked and rose.
I shook my head, but not in denial. “Nonna will be safe,” I decreed, certain of it. “She thinks Alessandro is wonderful and Alessandro—if it is him—needs to think he has fooled the family.” Besides, Alvize and Imelda would be there as well, andRenaldo and his team would be there soon. “What did you get on Clarice?”
Gia leaned over and switched to another tab. “Claire Smith.”
I quickly scanned the unremarkable information I already knew. I had no problem with her reinventing herself to attract wealthy clients. We all put on a front. “Connection?”
“No direct involvement, from what we’ve seen, with Rocco. The point of contact for the dress was Elisabetta, and obviously Clarice would have seen Alessandro at the house when she met Sofia for fittings.”
Lucio shook his head. “I kept separate eyes on Sofia when she left the house, as you know.” I nodded. As my fiancée, she had been at risk, and at one point I had wanted to know what she did all day. It seemed to involve lunch, cocktails, and shopping, with little variation. “Alessandro never left the house.”
I glanced away from the laptop. “With Sofia?”
“At all,” he said quietly.
“How can you be sure?” If he was monitoring Sofia, Alessandro could have left after her.
“Because I monitored the exterior of the property at all times,” Lucio said. “I didn’t want to risk her sneaking out and miss it.”
“Are you saying that Alessandro never once left the property?” He inclined his head. “In how long?”
“For the last two years.”
Since we discovered Rocco was stealing. “How did he mail this diary, then?” Unless he was lying.
“I imagine it was easy to give it to the mailman along with the rest of the mail to be collected. He was a servant. That wouldn’t be questioned.”
I rubbed my head. It was apparent I needed a lot of questions answered, but as I still didn’t trust Alessandro, I couldn’t alert him to my suspicions.
“What are you going to do?” Gia asked after a moment of silence while we all considered our options.
“Can you set a trap?” Lucio asked. “Give him a phone or a laptop?”
I sent him a disbelieving look, but he shrugged. “IP addresses can be hidden, obviously, but if he had proper skill Gia might have taken a little longer to find the emails.”
Gia nodded. “It was simple.”
“Too simple?” I could hope.
Gia played with his glass. “We’ve been blaming Rocco but is that realistic? At the end of the day, he has to know you want to run things your way, uncle, godfather, or not. Whether I succeed him or you do, he’ll have no real power.”
