Page 25 of Love At the Gates of Hell (The Seven Sinners Trilogy #1)

fifteen

Benny

The sun had begun to set, the pinks and oranges of the sky filtering in through the windows of the loft.

The county map had been tacked up beside the pin board that still featured Benny’s face, a large black cross crudely drawn in the center of the pentacle to mark the spot of the ritual.

They had been in the loft the entire day, going through old texts Harker brought from his library, trying to decipher as many details as they could about the ritual.

The man from the quarry had created just as many new questions with his answers.

She could still feel an inkling of him inside her and the fervor in which he served whoever it was responsible for her abduction. His Master. It was a level of devotion she could find impressive.

If not for the whole demon worship aspect of it all.

She hiked her leg up onto the seat of her stool and rested her chin on her knee as she carefully flipped through the pages of her family grimoire.

The book was over a hundred years old, preserved with a spell to protect its pages from age or destruction.

It marked multiple generations of Russo witches, nearly all of them Stregas, and all of them dead.

Except for Benny.

It was a lonely existence. Her father could never understand what it was like. To be alone with your magic. How could she not crave the sisterhood of a coven?

Benny ran her fingers across the pages, following the different handwritings, and she wondered if this had happened before, if one of her ancestors had suffered the same fate that the Crawford brothers had saved her from. Momentarily , she reminded herself.

But most of the deaths recorded in the appendix were brutal, quick, and random.

She lingered over her mother’s name, the date written beside it in fifteen year old Benny’s handwriting. A loopy, delicate scribble. The grimoire had become her sole responsibility following her mother’s death. Marking Sophia’s passing had been her first ink spilled in the pages.

“Anything?” Imani asked from her beside her.

Benny glanced over her shoulder as Imani stretched in her seat, long limbs raising above her head.

Her long, dark brown hair was in twists, half of it tied up in a messy knot, the rest tossed over one side of her shoulder as she poured over an old manuscript Harker brought with him.

Imani had modeled her way through culinary school, using the money from her photoshoots to pay for supplies and tuition.

She was infamous for coming to dinner dates or Friday esbats with Benny and Olivia still in her photoshoot make-up and hair.

The bakery she opened two years ago was hardly as glamorous.

Not that Imani needed to be all dolled up.

She was naturally stunning, all high cheek bones and pouty lips and midnight black skin.

Even now, bare faced in a sundress, she was beautiful.

Which both helped and hindered her more direct way of communicating, luring people in with her beauty and terrifying them with her attitude.

Benny loved it. Had from the moment she sat down beside Imani in a Women’s Studies class freshman year.

“I don’t think so,” she sighed. “Just a bunch of depressing family history. You?”

While Olivia was pouring over JSTOR articles for any signs of the “stone heart of the sun” problem, the others were trying to understand what level of sacrifice the ritual called for— how much of Benny’s blood did Hal Moran need?

It was something Benny had been trying to tune out.

“Nothing I’d particularly like to share,” she said, tapping long fingers against the counter.

“Sounds promising,” Benny grumbled.

“Benny, love, you know as well as I do what a ritual like this calls for,” Harker said gently from across the kitchen island.

He was right.

Any kind of out they were looking for was likely for naught.

“Then why the transfusions?” Cleo asked from her perch on the kitchen counter.

“I’m sure keeping Benny captive wasn’t cheap. So, why not profit?,” Luke shrugged. “Hey, Olivia, can you pass the naan?”

“How do you eat?” Olivia asked even as she passed the tinfoil wrapped package. She looked at Benny with a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry, is that rude? I just… I mean, you’re—”

“Dead?” Luke grinned before shoving an entire slice of garlic naan in his mouth.

“Blood is our only essential,” Harker said. “But we all imbibe from time to time.”

“I haven’t been dead long enough to not miss food,” Luke said.

The island was scattered with takeout containers from an Indian place down the block.

But Benny had lost her appetite, trying not to think of the amount of blood she’d lost while taken, trying not to worry about whose hands it might be in.

She had never seen firsthand what Strega blood did to a vampire, but she had heard the stories.

Knowing her blood might be on some black market, fueling that kind of violence?

Making her abductor thousands of dollars?

She suddenly felt a little sick.

“I just have so many questions,” Olivia said, fascinated. “That I, of course, will not ask. But I will think about them. Just so you know.”

“Some of us will hear them,” Imani said dryly.

“I admire your self-control,” Luke said. “Benny here can probably answer every single one. She put me through a hell of a round of Vampire Jeopardy the other night.”

“You still never told me if you can fly or not,” Benny replied, relieved for the distraction.

“Neither did you,” Luke retorted.

“I’m not sure you could handle the extent of what we can do,” Imani said with a gleam behind her honey brown eyes.

Luke seemed extremely excited by that statement.

“You should both come to the shop,” Harker said to Olivia and Imani.

“Like in the old freaky library part?” Olivia said, perking up in her stool.

Perhaps Benny’s condensed storytelling on the events of the last week had simplified a thing or two.

She hadn’t even mentioned what happened with Gideon in the kitchen.

Too many sets of supernatural ears. Honestly, Benny still didn’t know how to feel about it.

About him. About how badly she had wanted him in that moment.

How hard it had been to fall asleep, thinking of him just a room away.

Harker sighed. “We can’t think of a better name?”

“You’ve leaned in too hard, buddy,” Gideon said, before he took a swig of his beer. He was standing to Benny’s other side, hip resting against the counter, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. “Liven up the joint and it might get a new nickname.”

“Oh, oh,” Olivia said suddenly as her fingers flew across the keys of Gideon’s laptop. “I think I found it. The ruby. It’s here in town. I knew it sounded familiar, but I wanted to check just to be sure, and I was, of course, correct.”

Benny couldn’t help her smile, she knew her friend was the right person to call.

The only daughter of Chinese immigrants, Benny met Olivia during freshman orientation, the two of them assigned to the same pod.

They had bonded quickly when they realized they were both in the same major.

Benny could see the power in her almost immediately.

And when Olivia learned that her assigned roommate was a secret kleptomaniac who snatched things with a reckless abandon, including Olivia’s underwear, Benny let her crash in her single until they could find a double together the following year.

Benny was even there when Olivia broke the news to her parents that the Dr. before her name would be in Feminist Studies and not medicine. They applied to Penn’s program together.

“The 25th anniversary Penn Museum Fundraising Gala will be taking place September 5th at eight o’clock in the evening at the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia,” Olivia read off the screen as she tucked her hair behind her ears.

“Bid on unique and extraordinary blah blah blah during our silent auction—oh wow, is that an Aston Martin? Okay, sorry, hold on, yeah, here it is.”

Olivia took a bite of her food before continuing.

“On display during the gala will be some of the world’s most famous jewels. Although they are not up for auction, they are available to view throughout the evening—”

Luke groaned. “So a fucking goldmine.”

“Focus, Lucas,” Gideon said, smacking his brother’s shoulder.

“The Heart of Fire,” Olivia said, sighing. “I can’t believe it. This thing is apparently cursed, you know that, right? Like dozens of royals have turned up dead after wearing it.”

Harker huffed a breath of laughter. “Likely cursed by the people it was stolen from.”

Imani’s lips twitched.

“How much time do we have?” Cleo asked.

“It’s cutting it close to the blood moon,” Luke said, leaning back against the counter.

Gideon shrugged. “We’ve pulled off bigger scores on shorter timelines.”

“What’s bigger than a priceless cursed stone?” Benny asked as she peered up at him.

“We only had 72 hours to find you, princess,” Gideon said with a smug smile.

She fought back a smile of her own, her skin warming.

“The security at the Ritz is a joke,” Luke said. “We can run this one quick. Harker, you have connections there, don’t you?”

“A few,” Harker nodded. “One I’ve been meaning to see, actually.”

“The bartender?” Cleo asked, her eyes lighting up.

The demon hunter grinned, his canines looking extra sharp. “Perhaps, love.”

“What do you think, Gid?” Luke asked. “A repeat of Vegas?”

“I’d prefer to not get shot this time,” Gideon huffed. “But that could work. We probably need a few extra hands, though, if we want to run a surround.”

There was jargon here that seemed unique to Gideon and Luke.

“Is this heist talk?” she asked, raising her brows as the others descended into ideas and plans in the background. “You gonna start another pin board to add to the collection up there?”

“Getting excited, Russo?” he countered.

“Just trying to see if the Crawfords live up to their reputations,” she shrugged.

“Still worried your father isn’t getting his money’s worth?”

Somehow the conversation had become just the two of them, Gideon leaning down toward her, palms pressed against the edge of the counter.

There was a heat behind his gaze. Maybe she was just imagining it but there was an edge to his smile that made her want to squirm in her seat.

Her tongue ran across her bottom lip as she turned away from him, focusing instead on the grimoire open in front of her.

“I’m exceptionally hard to please,” she said primly.

“Don’t I know it, princess,” he said, voice ghosting against her ear before he straightened.

She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, fighting the shiver that crept into her skin.

She had to find a way to get in control of whatever these feelings were.

They were sharing walls for God’s sake. With a vampire.

There was nothing good that could come of anything her body was itching for.

“And what about the demon wannabe?” Olivia asked, continuing a conversation Benny hadn’t been paying attention to. “Won’t he also be after the ruby?”

“Of course,” Luke said. “The question is before the gala or after.”

“Not before,” Gideon said, shaking his head. “Security will be heaviest during transport. If this guy knows what he’s doing, it’s gonna be right after. ”

Luke blew out a breath he didn’t have.

“So during,” he said, looking at his brother with a wicked grin.

“During,” Gideon nodded.

Cleo let out a little “ Yes ,” under her breath, looking giddy at the prospect.

“St. James loves an excuse to flex that BFA,” Luke said.

“You would too if you were as good as me, Lucas,” the red head replied.

“And if we see him?”

Suddenly all eyes were on Benny.

“Is there a chance we could… run into each other?” she asked, fingers tapping against the cover of the grimoire. “What happens then?”

“What do you want to happen?” Gideon asked.

Benny tugged on her bottom lip with her fingers as her knee bounced on the stool.

She knew the answer.

She knew exactly what she wanted to happen.

Gideon seemed to know too, his eyes darkening.

“I want him dead,” she said.