Page 10 of Love At the Gates of Hell (The Seven Sinners Trilogy #1)

six

Gideon

Gideon had lost his mind.

That was the only explanation he had for agreeing to bring Benedetta back to the loft. For agreeing to help look into the people responsible for her abduction. For agreeing to keep her safe.

He wasn’t a bodyguard.

He certainly wasn’t a private detective.

Gideon Crawford was a professional thief. One of the goddamn best.

But double the original offer— it was a lot of money. Early retirement kind of money. Even if the timeline in which this job would be over was to be determined. It was an offer that seemed insane to pass up.

Gideon shook his head, refocusing on the laptop in front of him.

An article about last night’s break-in at Penn was on the screen in front of him.

Torretta had told the truth when he said no one was hurt, but he certainly downplayed the level of destruction.

The small classroom that a handful of PhD candidates in Benedetta’s cohort were sharing had been ransacked.

Furniture destroyed, computers trashed, windows broken.

It was a low blow.

They had to know she wouldn’t go back to campus but they destroyed it anyway. Another safe haven gone after what they did to her apartment.

His eyes drifted toward Benedetta.

She was sitting in the window seat on the far side of the living room, her socked feet kicked up and resting on the wall, a book propped up in her lap.

It was that old, dusty thing that Luke brought back from Harker’s the other night, the book that helped his brother prove his theory about Benedetta.

A History of Witchcraft. She was muttering something under her breath, a pen laced through her fingers, as she flipped back and forth through a couple of pages.

He debated sharing the article with her, to show her what happened.

But then he wasn’t all that interested in seeing a repeat of the horror that had flickered across her features when her father broke the news.

A lock of hair fell into her face and she brushed it back, tucking the strand into her braid.

She looked like the Benedetta he had imagined, foolishly, before he knew what she was capable of.

The wanna-be professor. The nerdy, quiet academic her father had described her as.

He supposed that version of her might be in there, somewhere, along with the violence and attitude and impressive vocabulary of curse words in Italian he’d overheard during one final heated argument with her father the day before.

Her attempts at persuading her father that she didn’t “need two overgrown babysitters” hadn’t gone well.

There was an over-accentuated conversation in Italian (that Gideon didn’t understand) filled with lots of hand gestures (that he did) before Benedetta finally agreed that she would stay with the Crawford brothers.

But only on the condition that her father tell her as soon as he found out who had betrayed them.

“Jesus, who wrote this?” she grumbled.

“Are you angry at the very old book?” Luke asked.

His brother was laying on the leather sofa, body stiff and still like a corpse, his eyes closed and his hands clasped against his chest. He typically slept during the day.

Or at least, well into it. Stumbling into his bed from wherever he went during the night.

Which wasn’t unlike his life before his transformation.

Only that Gideon no longer joined his nights out, nor did he want to know the details.

“I’m not angry,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. “I’m just wondering how this got through peer review with not a single footnote. The amount of general assumptions and proselytizing in this is ridiculous.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Luke said through a thick yawn. “I think the guy is probably long dead.”

“Well, his spirit lives on in most men in academia,” Benedetta sighed. She shifted so that her legs were hanging over the side of the ledge, her palms resting on either side of her. “Where’d you find this, anyway?”

“A friend,” was all Luke said. “An old friend with an old library.”

“Cryptic,” she noted. “Cool. That’s gonna make this house arrest real fun.”

Gideon’s fingers flexed over his keyboard.

“You can always take your father up on one of his numerous offers,” he said.“Let us get back to our lives while you hide away in some safe house.”

“And deny you the pleasure of my company?” she said, a glimmer behind her eyes. “Absolutely not, Crawford. Not when you’ve spent so much time with my pretty picture up on the wall over there.”

The pin board was still hanging on the wall beside his punching bag, her Penn headshot smack dab in the center of it.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t taken it down yet, why he let it still follow him around the loft.

Maybe it was also why he had said yes so quickly to Torretta’s offer.

His own curiosity at who she was, beyond the headshot and volunteer work and mean right hook.

As much as she tried to come off as some spoiled mafia princess, there was something more there.

Something he’d seen behind her eyes when she first came to, her eyes raking over him in the morning light steeping into the bedroom.

Like she was assessing how much she could trust him.

Well, if this was going to work, he was going to have to get her there and fast.

“You hungry?” Luke asked suddenly.

Gideon let out a huff of breath, glad for the interruption.

“You don’t eat,” he replied.

“Some things just don’t leave you,” Luke said. “Like the craving for a half-and-half milkshake from Betty’s.”

“How do you even—” But Gideon cut himself off, actually not wanting to know the answer to the question percolating in his brain. “You know what, never mind.”

“Besides, we’ve been cooped up in here all day.” Luke pulled himself up to a sitting position, his head peeking at Benedetta over the back of the sofa. “How do you feel about milkshakes?”

“Very strongly,” she said. “But I’m a mint chocolate chip girl, myself.”

Luke smiled widely. “Oh, I think you and I are going to get along great.”

They approached the turn for Betty’s, a ’50s train-car diner with metal paneling and neon accents a couple of blocks from the loft.

It took up prime real estate on a full corner, and Gideon knew the owner had been holding out for years from one of the city developers.

But it had the best coffee in the neighborhood and waitresses that at least eavesdropped respectfully, so it had gotten a lot of service from the Crawford brothers.

The tiny parking lot was quiet. It was just after the dinner rush, and they quickly found a spot in the front.

He couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled in his throat as Luke sprinted from the car, his suit jacket covering his head like he was dashing through a downpour, his hands enveloped in leather gloves to protect the rest of his exposed skin.

It felt foolish to drive a couple of blocks in the city, but between Luke’s general issue with the still lingering daylight and trying to keep Benedetta off the streets as much as possible, it seemed the only way.

God forbid Luke order take-out.

“You know a very large umbrella would probably look more distinguished,” Benedetta said as she climbed the few stairs to the entrance. “I thought he was going to ram into that one biker back at the bar yesterday.”

“He doesn’t typically handle the daytime stuff,” Gideon replied as he followed her, his hand reaching for the door before she could grab it. “But you’re special.”

Benedetta didn’t respond to his sarcasm, a glare settling on her features instead as she ducked under his arm to head inside. Gideon followed, immediately getting hit with the smell of fresh coffee and pie. Maybe he was hungrier than he thought.

“Hiya, boys,” one of the waitresses called from behind the counter. He could never remember her name. “Sit anywhere ya like, and I’ll bring over some coffee.”

“None for me, Jackie,” Luke said, shaking his head as he chose a booth with the blinds drawn.

“Milkshake?” she questioned, with a knowing smile.

“Can you bring me the extra?”

“Sure thing, honey.”

Gideon’s eyes scanned Betty’s. There was a mother with her young daughter in a booth on the opposite end of the diner and an older man sitting at the counter, face buried in a newspaper and a mug of coffee steaming in his hand.

A television was mounted on the wall behind the counter, the news playing with captions.

“Regulars?” Benedetta asked as she slid in on one side of the booth.

“Often enough,” Gideon said as he settled in across from her.

“Usually the night shift,” Luke added with a smile as he plopped down next to Gideon, jostling him slightly as he got himself comfortable.

Jackie returned with menus and two cups of black coffee.

“I’ll be back in a second with the shake,” she said. “You take your time.”

Gideon’s usual order was a turkey club and fries.

He didn’t plan on deviating from that so he didn’t bother opening his menu.

Instead, he watched as Benedetta opened hers, her eyes scanning the dozen pages, her fingers tapping on the Formica tabletop.

She was wearing a band T-shirt and worn-in jeans that hugged every curve of her long legs, and he knew that if he ever passed by her in the wild, he’d never be able to guess what she was really capable of.

It was hard to wrap his head around. The secrets people kept.

The way he’d been unearthing so many of them since Luke turned and his whole perspective on the world changed overnight.

“We should talk about this little arrangement of ours,” he said, clearing his throat. “Figure some shit out.”

Benedetta looked up curiously as she folded her arms on the table in front of her. “Like what?” she asked primly, her brows raised.

“You should take stock of what Cleo grabbed from your place,” he said. “We have no idea how long this is going to take and if you need something, you should let us know.”