Page 116 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JOLIE
“ D rink this, baby girl,” Zach said as he handed me a steaming mug of coffee. “You need to recharge.”
“I am perfectly fine,” I retorted as I accepted the mug.
I was on the living room couch with Bennett, snuggled tightly into his side, while the other two had just finished puttering around the kitchen to throw together some breakfast. We were all clean and dressed in our Sunday loungewear, and Zach had snapped at each of us at least once for giving him “pity eyes.”
“Sure you are, Princess,” Zach replied, smirking at me as he flopped onto the couch next to me. “Thoroughly used, but perfectly fine.”
Noah slid a tray of bagels onto the table before dropping into one of our cushy armchairs. He smiled fondly at me as he sipped on his own coffee. “Boy am I glad I left Bennett downstairs to bother Kara while I came back to check on you two.”
Bennett scowled, though he was currently rubbing sweet little circles on my thigh with his thumb. “Yes, at least one of us was doing something productive while the three of you were fucking . A lot of shit went down last night, and we have to be on top of it.”
“You saying Noah and I fucking our girl through two orgasms together wasn’t productive?” Zach quipped.
Bennett normally would’ve shot him a withering glare for that, but instead he only glanced at Zach over the top of my head with a patient sort of look.
Zach huffed, losing his cocky smirk to glare back at Bennett. “I said to cut that shit out. I’m not that fucking breakable. I’m happy my mom’s dead because now Princess is that much safer. And I’ve had fifteen years to mourn my dad. I’m fine .”
I reached for his hand and tucked it into mine, then I redirected Bennett before he could argue. “What did you find out from Kara? They made it in time to the ship carrying the trafficking victims, right?”
“They did,” Bennett replied. “Max and I downloaded the details we were able to find in Andrea’s records while we were locked in the office, and Kara got on the road with her team immediately.
They apparently also called the Coast Guard, so the shitty merc team Andrea had meeting the boat in Port Santo Carlo didn’t stand a chance. ”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d known before we went to bed last night that our team had likely left with enough time to catch the boat before it was unloaded and those poor people disappeared into a nightmare, but I’d wanted to hear confirmation that everything went according to plan.
“And everyone they rescued from the boat is okay?”
Bennett cleared his throat. “Twenty-nine girls and four boys, all between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. Scared, malnourished, and a little roughed up, but yes, everyone is okay. Kara and Julie had the foresight to bring a mostly female team, and apparently that went a long way toward making the victims feel safer.”
I whipped out my phone and typed out a text to Zepp. “I’m going to make sure Knight is funding anything and everything they need. Housing, school, jobs, travel back home if they have a safe family to return to….”
Noah’s affectionate smile appeared over the top of his coffee cup. “It’s being taken care of, sweetheart, but a message from the boss never hurts to make sure things are moving along… efficiently.”
Bennett squeezed my thigh and pressed a soft kiss to the top of my head, then he continued, “Silver and Marcus stayed up last night to sort through the rest of the documents we dropped off with them. They’ve contacted the Feds and the European authorities with the names of Andrea’s most prolific buyers of stolen artifacts. ”
Zach hummed. “Good. I suppose cutting off that supply of cash to Ferrero no longer really matters, but I enjoy knowing those greedy bastards are all probably about to get raided. That’ll ruin someone’s Sunday golf game.”
“Unfortunately, Andrea didn’t have the names of the buyers for this latest shipment,” Bennett added.
“She used a ‘broker’ with a codename, but Kara tells me that Julie managed to get a real first name and the contact information of the broker out of the guy in charge of the merc team receiving the boat.” He shuddered against me.
“She says Julie’s been spending a little too much time with Frankie lately. ”
I wrinkled my nose and saw Noah do the same, while Zach just chuckled. “Frankie is an excellent teacher, believe it or not.”
“I believe it,” I muttered, remembering Zach’s skill with a scalpel. “So do Donavan’s balls.”
Zach grinned, shooting me a sexy wink that told me he, too, was probably reminiscing about our first time together, before he looked at Bennett. “Did we call in the skin broker or are we sending our own team?”
“Kara said it’s up to the boss but that the team would very much like to take this one in house.”
“In house it is,” I said, grabbing my phone to add that to my instructions to Zepp.
“One last thing, Angel,” Bennett said. I pulled my gaze from my phone and looked up into his intense mossy green eyes.
“Andrea hadn’t taken a weapons shipment since the day we blew apart her Enforcer team, but apparently, she’d finally assembled enough of one to schedule another run. Dom’s going to take that one.”
My smile was grim. “Yeah. That’ll be cathartic for him, I suppose.”
I leaned back into the couch cushions, my hands on Bennett and Zach and my eyes on Noah as we sat in silence for a few minutes, each of us contemplating the true end of the Ferrero empire.
Now there was only one Family remaining that stood against me, and it had always been the toughest nut to crack.
My phone buzzed in my lap, and I swiped to answer on speakerphone when I saw it was Zepp calling.
“Hey, boss lady,” he drawled before the crack of a soda can sounded. “I’ve got some news for your boy Ferrero. ”
“Oh yeah?” I replied. “Where’s Marcus?”
Zepp snorted. “The little fucker’s taking a nap. You lot kept him super busy last night, and Silver threw him out of the command center for the day anyway. She’s pissed at him for keeping some very handy tech from the rest of the team.”
Noah chuckled. “Those two are still… working out the kinks.”
“What’s the news for Zach?” I asked.
The clicking of his keyboard sounded through the phone, then Zepp said, “The office of the Ferrero liaison was contacted this morning.”
“That means Marcus got an email,” Zach supplied.
“Right,” Zepp said. “The email was from your mom’s lawyer, Ferrero. It appears you were still her Heir, so what’s left of the Ferrero Family jewels is now yours.”
Zach’s eyes widened before he blew out a breath, sagging back into the couch. “I guess I’m not surprised. She thought I’d come back eventually.”
“And so, we await your instructions, oh Head of Ferrero,” Zepp said, and I could envision the mocking flourish of his hand.
Zach looked at me, a dark brow raised in question. “What do you think, baby girl?”
“It’s up to you, Zach,” I said gently. “Sell what you don’t want. Keep what you do.”
He was thoughtful. “Zepp, have it all moved under the Ferrero arm of Knight for now. And have all the shitty people who are current tenants of Ferrero Tower notified that they have thirty days to get the fuck out. I want to do something useful with that thing, like Noah’s doing with his.”
“I will leave detailed instructions for Marcus when he wakes up,” Zepp replied with a devious chuckle, his fingers flying over the keys again. “He’ll be so thrilled with his to-do list.”
“Tell him I’ll give him another raise if he can manage to do it without bitching,” Zach said. “And everything’s cleaned up in the Ferrero penthouse and the press release is ready to go tomorrow?”
He paused his loud typing. “It is. Your cleanup crew is the most professional I’ve ever seen, and Jojo’s lawyers got on top of the statement to both the law enforcement and the public when Silver woke them up this morning at about four a.m. ”
I winced, making a mental note that pretty much everyone on my team deserved a muffin basket and a raise after this weekend.
“And Zepp?” Bennett rumbled next to me.
“Yes, Spencer?”
“Has there been any further progress on our project?”
He sighed. “No. Your dad’s tech team is good. I’m starting to think we should just try to buy them off instead of attempting to slip in the way we are.”
“Won’t work,” Bennett said in his unaffected monotone. “I’m sure there are threats to their lives or their families hanging over their heads that aren’t worth any amount of money to them.”
“We’ll figure it out, Bennett,” I said with a comforting squeeze of his hand.
“That’s the spirit, team,” Zepp said with faux exuberance. “Alright, I’m out. Don’t bother me this afternoon unless it’s an emergency—the Knicks are playing.”
He signed off before any of us could comment on his shitty taste in basketball teams.
It only took about sixty seconds from the moment our press release went live at eight o’clock Monday morning for the student phones in the Academy’s dining hall to start lighting up.
One by one they looked at their screens, then eyes widened, jaws dropped, and their wary stares hit our table, where the boys and I sat with Mari and the rest of our friends, casually enjoying our breakfast like it was just the beginning of another stimulating week at Holywell.
“Ah, I see the news is out,” Mari said lightly. She picked up her own phone and began to scroll. “Let’s just see what the great minds at Knight have come up with for this latest little incident, shall we?”
Mari was up-to-date on the gory details and had apparently taken Francisco to the spa again yesterday afternoon to distract him from any “weird feelings he may have about the death of his shitty sister.” Zach did try to assure her that Frankie didn’t have feelings in the traditional sense of the word, but she’d waved him off like he didn’t know what he was talking about .
“Andrea Ferrero had a heart attack?” Hannah Langford asked, shooting a very dubious look down the table in our direction.
“Stress,” Zach replied with a shrug. “Things hadn’t been going particularly well for her since Jolie Knight returned from the grave.”
“Uh-huh,” Hannah said slowly. Her shrewd emerald gaze darted around the table to look at the others—John Tyler, Devin, Raiford, and her friend Nick Ruiz, whose Tier Two family’s boutique fitness empire was now majority owned by Noah’s arm of Knight.
Not a one of them looked up from their plates, uninterested in asking any further questions.
Hannah’s stare returned to Zach. “Well, then—my condolences, Ferrero.”
“Appreciated but not necessary, Langford.”
Mari hummed in amusement. “‘Zachary Ferrero, the new head of the Ferrero Family, requests privacy at this time. A closed service will be held for Mrs. Ferrero that will be limited to friends and relatives only.’ Que listos, my friends.”
The chatter throughout the hall began to intensify to its normal level.
From the equal mix of shocked, pitying looks that were being sent Zach’s way and the terrified ones being sent at me, it appeared the student body was about evenly split on whether they believed the story, or they thought I’d finally killed the bitch.
I kept an easy smile affixed to my face—a thing that came much easier to me these days now that I had all three pieces of my heart back with me. My classmates could speculate all they wanted about my murderous tendencies.
That thought made me chuckle, and I turned to the table across the way to glance at Harper, Chad, and their dwindling group of cronies, letting a touch of psycho slip into my smile.
Chad was furiously texting someone, his square jaw grinding in irritation, while Harper did her best to sneer in my direction.
But even she couldn’t keep the tremble out of her hand, her healing wrist now wrapped in a soft splint.
That’s right, Jansen. Fuck around and find out.
Again .
“I see that, Angel,” Bennett said, his chiding tone more amused than serious. “Stop making crazy eyes at the sheep. If they still don’t know not to fuck with you, then they’ll deserve what they get.”
His voice was loud enough to carry across the way, and Harper’s scandalized gasp at being called “the sheep” by her beloved was the cherry on top of my already stellar mood after vanquishing my enemy and being lovingly double teamed by two of my sexy boyfriends.
“Change of subject,” Zach announced. “I don’t think we should let all of the… stuff we have going on distract us from the fact that we are coming up on a couple of important birthdays.”
I caught Noah’s blue-eyed stare from across the table, and my whole body warmed at the memories I now welcomed with open arms instead of trying to smother because they once brought me so much pain. I smiled from ear to ear as I whispered, “Hey, birthday twin.”
“Hey yourself, birthday twin,” he replied, his own sunshine smile lighting up the entire damn room. “Wanna have a joint party, for old time’s sake?”
Noah’s birthday was March 31st; mine was April 1st—this coming Friday and Saturday, respectively. When we were growing up, sometimes our parents—or our nannies—would split the labor and throw us a single birthday party.
I’d never minded sharing the spotlight, and neither had Noah—even when I’d insisted on picking the theme.
He’d always let me.
“Only if you’ll dress up as Kristoff again so I can be Elsa,” I replied, teasing him.
His grin only grew wider, but I saw the emotion hit him suddenly. He wiped his misty eyes under his glasses. “Our last party together. God, you made us watch Frozen so many times that year.”
Bennett gave me such a warm, fond smile that even I had to blink back tears. Zach clapped Noah on the shoulder, giving us both an excited grin. “Excellent. I think we can throw together a little something by this weekend. Mari?”
She tittered excitedly. “Sí, not a problem at all. I presume budget is not an issue?”
I frowned. “I mean, no, but you don’t need to do anything big deal.”
Everyone at the table laughed like I’d told a funny joke. “You’ve been living on the Southside too long, chica,” Mari said. “You are the richest person in this City! Luckily Max knows how to dream bigger. I’ve already texted him, and he has suggested a yacht.”
“What?” Max, what the fuck… .
“Who here has a yacht we can use?” she inquired around the table.
Five hands went up, including Noah’s.
“Really, though?” I asked. “That is not a little something?—”
“Not another word out of you, chica. Noah, you’re with me, yes?”
His smile for me was extremely smug and a little naughty before he turned to Mari. “I’m with you, Mari. I’ll procure us a birthday boat.”