THIRTEEN
Benedict told Farq about the office break-in, and the next day, there were two Noida aliens from Serbsec standing guard outside the door. They nearly bit Oz’s head off when he arrived—Farq had clearly not bothered to tell them about the Vetruvian being an ally and not a criminal.
Benedict wasn’t super fond of the dog-like aliens, although he could agree he needed protection. It was one thing for Vito to break into his office and threaten him; it was another thing entirely for the guy’s goons to bust in and try to break into a safe.
A safe that, a week after discovery, Benedict still had no idea how to get into. He and Oz had switched gears, trying to find the combination or a key or a magic password—anything, really; Benedict was pretty desperate at this point—so they could open the damn thing.
“We could just take it out of the wall, take it down to the pros, and have them crack it.”
“We could get a crowbar,” Farq suggested.
“Don’t you think that was the first thing we tried?” Oz said hotly. Benedict didn’t know why, but Farq was clearly grating on the Vetruvian, almost like he resented the guy’s presence or something.
Benedict had asked Farq to hang around the last couple of days, hoping that having a third party present would deter him from acting on his very sinful thoughts about Oz. So far, it was working.
It hadn’t kept him from thinking about what he would do if he and Oz were alone in the office though. Things like backing the Vetruvian up against the wall or bending him over that mahogany desk, never mind the clutter.
It wasn’t the first time Benedict had had thoughts like this. It was the first time in his life he hadn’t been able to quash them. Even when he tried to forcibly distract himself—and Lord knew he had lots of other things he could be thinking about—he inevitably found himself thinking about Oz once more.
Which was even worse than the run-of-the-mill sort of fantasies he’d had about one of the other brothers at the abbey or one of the nuns at the nearby cloister or—Heaven forbid—the local blacksmith, with his work-roughened hands.
Oz was a slave—his property. He owned Oz, which meant that if he tried anything, it was wrong. So wrong. Because he’d never be able to tell if Oz was truly consenting to it or just going along because he felt he didn’t have a choice.
Benedict had only ever had a few partners, mostly clandestine meetings with strangers who had the same proclivities. Even masturbation was sinful, although he didn’t know a soul who had never indulged, and he suspected anyone claiming they had never done such a thing was lying, which was another sin heaped on them. But when he sought out the company of another for the purpose of carnal pleasure, he wanted them to be an enthusiastic party capable of saying yes or walking away if they didn’t want to.
Oz couldn’t say no, not really. Benedict would have absolutely allowed him to say no, but the Vetruvian probably wouldn’t have believed that. And Benedict had never felt quite so possessive of another person, so he wasn’t sure he’d trust himself to be a man of his word either.
Which meant Oz would need to be able to walk away, and he couldn’t . He had nowhere to go. Benedict owned him.
Once or twice, Benedict had toyed with the idea of giving the Vetruvian his freedom, but the truth was, he had no idea how to do it. Did he just say, “You’re free now, go do as you will?”
He suspected he’d need to get some sort of paperwork. Oz would need ID—much like Benedict had needed paperwork to travel from the abbey. And Oz would need money, and the big problem right now was that Benedict wasn’t exactly sure how much money he had. La Chef had a lot of stuff, and he’d always figured she was rich, but …
Maybe she was less rich than he thought. He thought of the tavern owner down the road from the abbey. The man had a big house and cooked good food, but he and his wife rarely traveled, and he knew she mended their clothes, season after season.
They seemed rich, but the closer you looked, the more you saw it was a facade. And that seemed to be the case with his aunt. She’d done a good job fooling everyone into thinking she was loaded, but maybe that was why she hadn’t coughed up whatever she owed Vito. She couldn’t.
Benedict shoved that thought away, because it made his blood run cold. There was no way he was turning The Pub, Gastronomique, and Saveur over to the likes of Vito. He couldn’t, not when he knew there were people depending on those places, tied to them, and Vito would never set them free.
He had to hang on long enough to make things right.
Which brought him back to his current dilemma—trying to figure out what was in the safe. Vito’s goons were clearly after it, whatever it was, which meant Benedict needed to open that safe.
He wished his aunt had left him some kind of clue. Anything, really.
He glanced at the clock. They’d been trying to puzzle this out for days now, and every day around four, they gave up and wandered over to The Pub. It was ten to four now, and Mig was likely drawing their habitual drafts. Even though they hadn’t made any progress, Benedict felt like they deserved the drinks somehow. Maybe simply because they’d survived another day.
He sighed. “I’d like the safe intact.” He wanted to use it again, if he could. He didn’t think they were cheap, and if he stayed in business, he suspected he’d need to lock some stuff up against other marauding gangsters. “The combination has to be around here somewhere.”
Oz made a noise that suggested he didn’t agree, and Farq tapped the side of his head as they passed him. “Maybe it was in here,” he said. “And the old lady took it to the grave with her.”
“Maybe,” Benedict relented as he sauntered toward the door. He really hoped not.
“If it was in the office, I think we would have come up with it by now,” Oz said as they descended the stairs, leaving Farq standing guard at the door. The streets were packed with tourists at almost any hour of the day, which made it a bit difficult to have a conversation as they weaved through the crowd. They’d talk when they got to The Pub.
Sure enough, Mig was waiting with their pints. She lifted a brow at them as they settled onto the barstools. “Hard day at the office, boys?”
“You could say that,” Oz muttered.
“We still can’t crack the safe,” Benedict said, and Mig stared at them like they were stupid.
“Seriously?” she asked. “You haven’t got into it yet?”
“Uh, no?” Oz spat, and Benedict nodded. They’d been talking about how they hadn’t been able to get into the damn thing all week now.
Mig snorted. “I knew you Vetruvians were dense, Ozzie, but I didn’t know y’all were this dense.”
“What—”
She jammed a finger at Benedict. “What’s your birthday?”
He blinked in surprise. “Well?—”
“Oh-two-oh-eight?” she asked sharply, and Benedict frowned. Mig lifted a brow and pounded the combination into the register. “Your aunt used that for all her passwords. Not sure if it was because she liked you so much or if it was the only thing that would stick in her brain.”
“Oh,” Benedict said limply. “ Oh .”
He nearly knocked over his pint in his haste to get out of the bar. He ignored Mig yelling after him, Oz yelping as Benedict nearly knocked him over too. He dashed back to the office, dodging pedestrians all the way, and came to a screeching halt at the top of the stairs, wheezing.
Farq glanced up at him. “Boss?” he asked.
“The code,” Benedict gasped, and Farq jumped to his feet, his face still unsure.
Oz slithered up the stairs a second later. “We’ve got the combination,” he explained to the burly bodyguard, who glanced between the Vetruvian and Benedict, who was still leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath.
“You … do?”
Oz gestured for Farq to move aside, which the alien did. Oz let them back into the office and went straight to the safe, punching the combination into the keypad.
It beeped angrily at them and flashed red. Oz frowned.
“Try it the other way around,” Benedict suggested, reaching over him and hitting the buttons in the reverse order.
He was so busy trying to ignore how he was practically plastered to Oz’s back, his arm brushing the Vetruvian’s that he almost missed the safe beeping and flashing green. The click of the lock was unmistakable, though, and the door sprang open.
“Oh,” Oz said, and Benedict grabbed the door, wrenching it open to reveal …
A bunch of packages wrapped in plain brown paper. Benedict frowned.
“Oh shit ,” Oz said, then slammed the door shut again.