Page 4 of Love At the Gates of Hell (The Seven Sinners Trilogy #1)

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Benny

Benny was back in the shipping container.

There was a thudding sound, a deep and heavy knocking rattling the metal walls and she could hardly lift herself up from the heap she had become on the floor. She felt heavy, like her bones had been filled with lead. No. No, no, no, no, no.

The drugs.

Someone had slipped them back into her system.

Fuck — she had been so close. She had been free.

The knocking was growing more insistent, more rhythmic, a beat that felt familiar but that she couldn’t place. Until she realized it was in time with her own heart, both growing faster, more desperate.

She lurched forward, trying to pull at the chains wrapped around her wrists.

She needed to get out of here. She needed to run.

A red light started to seep through the cracks in the doors, like blood trailing down an open wound. Every inch of Benny was pleading with her to move, to do something . But the more she tried, the harder it became.

Something was holding her here, holding her in place.

The red began to fill the container, every inch of the cold iron glowing.

She knew, intrinsically, that if it reached her, she would be gone forever.

Closer, closer…

She cried out, for something, for anyone.

Her hands pressed into the floor, fingers spread wide, light emanating from her skin.

The doors burst open and a scream pulled itself from her throat just as something grabbed her—

No, not grabbed.

Held.

“Whoa, hey,” a voice said. “Come on, Russo, wake up—”

Benny jolted awake, her eyes blinking open to a bright wash of sunlight filling her vision.

Her heart beat roughly in her chest, a rapid thumping as she tried to orient herself, to quell the impending panic at waking up somewhere she didn’t recognize.

Again. But when her eye sight adjusted to the welcome light filling the bedroom, she found a pair of striking hazel eyes studying her, concern clear in his familiar features.

“Hey, you’re alright,” he said softly. “You’re safe.”

She remembered that voice and the way it vibrated against her skin when he held her in the shipping container. The way he repeated “I am not going to hurt you,” right against the nape of her neck.

It was that Crawford brother. Gideon.

The one she basically tried to murder.

She stiffened, embarrassment washing over her in a warm flush. She must have been having a nightmare. A nightmare loud enough that he heard her. And here he was, his body crowding hers on the bed, hands bracing her shoulders, looking at her like she was a problem he didn’t know how to solve.

Jesus fucking Christ, could she not catch a break?

It was bad enough she got herself taken.

She didn’t need to suddenly become some damsel in distress about it.

“I’m fine,” she managed after a moment, voice curt. “You can let me go now.”

He cleared his throat and pushed himself up from the bed, “Yeah, sure, I guess next time I’ll just let you fall out of the bed.”

“Some knight in shining armor you are.”

Well, he certainly looked like one.

He was more attractive than she expected.

Certainly more so here than in the dull light of the shipping container, her mind too preoccupied with escaping and surviving and generally causing as much damage as she could until she learned she was actually being rescued.

She remembered his suit, much like the one he was wearing now, and a strong jaw even as her fist collided against it.

A strength in his arms as he held her. A roughness to his voice.

But here, in the bright morning sunlight, he was handsome in a way that brought an irritating flush to her skin.

Especially in stark contrast to Benny’s unruly state, her body bruised like an overripe peach.

He was tall, fit— she knew that from experience now, she realized, and there was a slope to his nose she really liked.

“Oh, you have no idea, princess,” he said as he stalked toward the door. Then, with hardly a glance back in her direction he added, “I made coffee. But you’ll have to actually get up to drink it. We don’t do room service here.”

A very small part of her wanted to throw a pillow directly at his pretty, stupid face.

Instead, Benny waited until he was gone and then buried herself beneath the covers.

Coffee was an incredibly good reason to get out of bed.

But she needed a moment. She needed to get her bearings.

It wasn’t the first time in the last couple of days she had woken up somewhere new, but at least this time she wasn’t chained to a radiator or tossed into a shipping container.

The king-sized bed was soft and comfortable and almost too much compared to the last few nights she spent sleeping on the floor.

How long had she been out? How long had it been since she was taken? When she woke in the shipping container, she felt clear headed. The drugs they had been slipping into her food must have worn off. Surely that meant significant time had passed?

Sunlight slipped through the open windows.

Benny could feel the heat of it seeping into her skin.

It was the best remedy she could ask for given the circumstances.

Slowly she pulled back the comforter, her muscles shaking with the effort it took to push herself into a sitting position.

She almost missed that she was dressed in someone else’s clothing, the change taking a moment to register in her very tired brain.

A plain white tee shirt and a pair of gym shorts, both belonging to someone taller, broader.

She could only hazard a guess they belonged to the Crawford she punched in the face.

But they felt soft, and clean.

She felt clean.

The blood and the dirt that had begun to feel like a new layer of skin was gone.

But it only made the bumps and bruises littering her arms and legs all the more evident.

She didn’t have to wonder about their originations— it was the struggle when they pulled her from her bed, how hard she landed when they tossed her into the back of the van, the chains that kept her shackled to the radiator.

Her body suddenly seemed foreign to her, all marked up and tender to the touch.

Gooseflesh broke out across her skin.

She had spent who knew how long drugged up in a tiny, dingy room, her body unable to feel much of anything. Until now. And it was all bubbling right under the surface.

Her bare feet were cold against the hardwood floors, her steps light as she ventured out of the bedroom and down a short hallway, the scent of that fresh coffee beckoning her toward the kitchen.

She raked her fingers through her hair, trying to smooth away what she was sure was a rat’s nest after everything that happened.

What she really needed was a shower, and maybe a toothbrush?

She breathed into the palm of her hand and cringed. Definitely a toothbrush.

But coffee would do. Answers, too.

She just wasn’t sure what kind of answers she’d get from the Crawford brothers.

Not if they were working for her father.

Benny couldn’t recall much after the vampire attacked, her memory muddled as she fell in and out of consciousness, her eyes too heavy to even open.

But she remembered being tucked into the backseat of a car, the low terse voice that pleaded with her to “stay awake, Jesus Christ” and muttered “this is not what I signed up for” as they drove off to wherever she was now.

Certainly not a five star review on that rescue.

“We were wondering when you were gonna wake up.”

She found the one with the glasses, Luke, digging around in a cabinet.

He wore a suit similar to his brother’s, but his shirt was unbuttoned at the collar and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, his suit jacket tossed onto the kitchen counter.

He was lean, almost lanky if it weren’t for the obvious muscle beneath that white dress shirt.

A collection of flash tattoos littered his forearms, the designs nonsensical.

A frying pan with a cracked egg. A skeleton wearing a beret with a mustache.

A pin-up-style mermaid. On his knuckles in an old-style font were the words “BODY” and “SOUL” in black ink.

His dark brown hair was carefully styled and parted down the side. Not a strand out of place.

There was a large butterfly inked at the hollow of his throat, wings spanning wide, the colors a beautiful blend of blues and blacks.

She could see the resemblance between them so clearly.

The dark hair, the similar lines of their jaws, their mouths.

But Gideon looked more clean cut, more buttoned up.

His features darker, Luke’s brighter. And while Luke’s skin had the porcelain pallor that came with being a vampire, Gideon’s skin was tan, sun-kissed. Like he was warmer all around.

Except maybe not in personality.

“How long was I out?” she asked through a yawn.

Something smelled burnt.

She hoped it wasn’t the coffee.

“Oh, lemme see,” he said, glancing down at his watch. “Almost forty-eight hours.”

She reared back.

“Jesus,” she muttered. “My father must be losing his shit.”

He chuckled as he leaned further into the cabinet. After a moment, he shouted, “Gid— I found it!” before looking back to Benny. “He’s been checking in. He’s gonna wanna know you’re awake.”

Benny waved a hand.

“He can wait a little bit longer.”

“I don’t think so,” Gideon replied from behind her, as he crossed the living room from who knows where. He was carrying a tool chest. “You were a simple catch and release, not a babysitting job. We’ll be sending you back to Daddy as soon as we get the word.”

Like she was a goddamn fish.

But she had no interest in being sent to the compound upstate. Her life was here, in Philadelphia. It was not under her father’s overprotective thumb.