PC <> Arduino Leonardo MASTER <> Arduino Leonardo SLAVES - question

You may be able to use pins 2 and 3 (or any other digital I/O pins) for 'software I2C' but it will be slower than the hardware I2C.

You might be able to use the SPI hardware to have one Arduino control the other three. This would allow the three slave units to use their I2C hardware for the I/O Expansion devices.