Page 2 of Love At the Gates of Hell (The Seven Sinners Trilogy #1)

two

Gideon

Every thief has a code.

A foundation.

A list of rules to make sure everyone comes home. Safe. Sound. Pockets full.

For the Crawford brothers, it was a mantra from their father.

“You keep your head down and the heat out,” he would say, voice marbled from years of drink and smoke.

“You protect each other. You don’t leave a man behind.

And the only thing you gotta concern yourselves with is the target.

It don’t matter what the hell it is—money, jewels, a mint-condition ’71 Chevelle—you bring it home like it’s already yours. ”

Benedetta Russo didn’t fit.

She wasn’t a prize, for one.

She was a deviation from their norm, a job no one would think to hire them for.

“Something’s off,” Luke said.

They were standing in front of a rust-eaten shipping container, the number 091820 in large painted white numbers glaring at them from beneath a dim light on the dock, the doors locked with an iron chain.

It was tucked away among hundreds of other containers, each of them holding whatever goods were being transported in or out of Philadelphia from other ports.

Pier 82 held pretty typical wares, like produce or dry goods.

But this container—this one was special.

Or at least, they hoped.

Gideon grit his teeth, “What, are your Spidey senses tingling?”

Luke smacked at his arm.

“It’s her scent.”

There was a glimmer of excitement behind his brother’s steel-blue eyes, his wire-rimmed frames doing little to hide the red seeping into the whites of them.

Gideon hated that look.

Hated even more how much he’d grown used to it in the past year.

“Retract, Lucas.”

His brother waved a hand. “Calm down, grandma. I’m not even hungry.”

Before Gideon could remind him of the half-drained security guard they’d left behind, Luke approached the doors to the shipping container, his own gloved hands making careful work of the lock. He caught the chain in his fist before it could clatter to the ground.

A tic worked its way through Gideon’s jaw as he watched.

“Simple rescue mission, right?”

“Right,” Luke replied.

“And then we’re done.”

His younger brother lingered by the double doors, his hands gripping at the steel bars. A lot had changed after Chicago. Luke had changed. But when he glanced back at Gideon, his lips curved into a familiar smirk.

“You gotta adapt, brother. Lean into the new.”

If ‘new’ meant this business of becoming glorified private detectives, dealing with panicked mafia dons and clandestine meetings and bulletin boards pinned with strings rivaling that of a goddamn lunatic, Gideon would rather pitch himself into the tumultuous waters of the Delaware.

The call had surprised them both.

He knew they had a reputation among the underground, the other criminal organizations and fronts working the market.

They’d worked alongside a few factions over the years, hired for Luke’s penchant for locks and safes or Gideon’s talent in forgery.

Their plans were known for being meticulous, untouchable.

But the Caruso crime family worked in an area of pilfered goods that Gideon had up until recently been unfamiliar with.

He was a simple guy. A vault of cash. Some valuables. Tangible shit you could trade and sell. The kind of scores that could let him grow old and fat and happy.

Angelo Torretta and his men had very different goals. They worked in parallel.

Up until three days ago.

When Torretta’s only daughter was snatched from her apartment.

A gust of wind rattled the docks and Gideon squared his shoulders.

Benedetta Russo had been living on the wall of their loft for the better part of 72 hours.

A grainy screen capture from the hallway of her three story walk-up in Rittenhouse the night she was taken, a timestamp of when the connection to the security cameras cut out, a print out of her teaching schedule at UPenn, the numbers of two ex-boyfriends, a license plate of a sprinter van found speeding down Locust at 3AM…

Any odds and ends that Torretta thought would be helpful.

Little pieces of a life.

It was the vehicle registration that led them to a shell company that led them to Pier 82.

He thought it would be harder to find her but they’d connected the dots quickly enough.

A relief. Benedetta had been haunting his thoughts, the headshot hanging on the bulletin board a stark reminder of what was at stake if they failed.

She was a future doctorate for fuck’s sake. She volunteered at the library for story hour. She was beautiful and vibrant, with a bright, wide smile and startlingly clear eyes.

Eyes that crept into his dreams.

She was the kind of woman Gideon normally wouldn’t think twice about because she’d never look his way in a million years. Women with that kind of future hardly did.

He sucked in an unsteady breath as the doors creaked open, metal scraping on itself as Luke stood back to secure them.

Gideon hesitated to step forward, his head tilting to the side to inspect the inside.

The interior of the container was dark but even as the moonlight filtered in through the open door and his eyes adjusted, he found no sign of their rescue mission.

He crept closer, hand bracing the rim of the doorway.

Had they fucked up? Gotten it wrong?

He should have seen the attack coming.

But the whip of the chain caught him off guard, his body stumbling back to avoid the impact.

Gideon barely got himself straightened when what he could only describe as some kind of hysterical shout echoed off the metal walls.

It was all he could do to brace himself for impact as a body collided against his. A woman’s body.

Benedetta Russo, in the flesh.

Fully ready to knock him on his ass with what looked to be another thick iron chain shackled to both of her wrists.

“Wait,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Wait, hold on —”

“Get your hands off of me,” she spat out, wriggling in his hold.

She kicked her legs, her heel making contact with his shin and he grunted.

“You know you actually attacked me —”

“I am not letting you just take me again, you’re gonna have to kill me this time—”

There was a crack in her voice even as she thrashed against him.

“Will you just stop for one goddamn minute?” he bit out. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

He braced her back tightly against his chest, somehow managing to keep her arms at her sides despite her best effort.

She had a surprising amount of strength, and more energy than he would have expected.

If she wasn’t barefoot, she might have had a shot at breaking free.

But he had the height and weight difference to keep her steady.

“Do you hear me?” he said, voice rough against her ear. “I am not going to hurt you.”

Her chest was heaving, her hands were clenched at her sides, but she stilled.

“Good,” he said, setting her feet down on the ground. “I’m gonna let you go and you’re going to stop trying to kill me, okay?”

She nodded.

“Can you promise me?” he asked. “No more murder attempts.”

She let out a breath. “No more murder attempts. I promise.”

“Thank you,” Gideon replied, letting her go.

She lurched away from him, unsteady on her feet, as if that show of force was all she had left in her.

She was dressed in what looked like pajamas—a pair of satin sleep shorts and an old, oversized T-shirt with “LEGALIZE MARINARA” emblazoned across the chest, the design something that would make him laugh at any other time.

A more appropriate time.

The difference between the polished headshot and the scene before him was stark.

Her chestnut hair hung in tangled curls around her shoulders, wavy bangs matted to her forehead in the stifling August heat.

Her pale skin was knicked with cuts and bruises.

But even covered in what was clearly a layer of grime and dried blood, he still found her beautiful.

Feral, alarmingly stealthy, and beautiful.

“Well, this is shaping up to be some rescue.”

Gideon turned toward the entrance of the shipping container to find his brother bent over, hands on his knees, laughing his ass off. He leveled Luke with a glare as he straightened the sleeves of his suit jacket. Why couldn’t Benedetta have jump-attacked that idiot instead?

“Rescue?” Benedetta repeated, eyeing them dubiously. Then, “Wait, you two?”

Something about that tone felt like an insult.

“I know you were too busy trying to strangle me with that thing,” he said, gesturing to the chains around her wrists, very much ignoring his brother. “But we’re here to get you home. Your father sent us.”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

He paused. “What?”

A snort of laughter passed through his brother’s nose.

“It’s probably his fault I’m in this thing,” she continued, waving her hand, the chains rattling against each other. “And he hires a vampire to find me? Never mind that I’m—”

But she cut herself off, an irritated groan finishing her sentence.

“Wait, how’d you—” Gideon started.

“He’s all death,” she cut in tartly. “Besides, I know who you are. You’re the Crawford brothers.”

“Seems our reputations precede us,” Luke mused, body leaning against the metal wall.

“Pretty-boy thieves in pretty suits,” she shrugged and that was definitely an insult in her tone.

He was beginning to miss the Benedetta he had imagined when she was still a headshot on his wall.

But they had a job to finish and it was crucial they got the hell out of there.

The pier was patrolled not only by security, but by whoever it was who put Benedetta in this box.

Two swarming entities Gideon would rather avoid if they could.

They’d managed thus far to do this relatively unbothered.

Recent attack not included.

“Well, what are you two waiting for?” she asked, holding her wrists out expectantly.

“Coming right up, princess,” Gideon muttered.