Page 117 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
NOAH
“ M arcus, I don’t care that it’s Tuesday morning and I have class in half an hour.
I will drive my Ferrari down to the tower and punch you in your annoyingly fucking punchable face if you do not stop calling me for every little goddamn thing and acting like we don’t have people for this. Bother Rocky, for fuck’s sake.”
I suppressed my amused smile at Zach’s tirade.
I knew firsthand the stressors of assuming an entire Family empire, but I’d laid the groundwork and had made small moves for years before Jolie returned to steal my heart and the rest of Hargraves for me.
Zach had it all dropped in his lap forty-eight hours ago, and it appeared Marcus was enjoying ruffling his feathers about all the big important decisions that needed to be made by the new head of the Ferrero Family.
Zach hung up his phone with an annoyed jab of his finger before glancing at me where I lounged on our leather couch, lazily scrolling through my own messages.
“Oh, I’m glad you think this is funny,” he groused as he shoved his tablet into his messenger bag.
Apparently, I hadn’t hidden my amusement after all.
“Running the Family is just sooo easy for you.”
I shrugged. “Purge the shitty people and keep the good ones. It mostly runs itself. You’ve only got the dregs to sift through anyway. Our girl sorted the rest for you already. ”
“True,” he said with a wistful grin, no doubt thinking of our avenging angel. “She’s the best.”
Bennett strode into the room, his brown hair perfectly styled and his suit pressed to perfection, as usual. “She is,” he agreed. “And she will have our balls if we’re not downstairs to get her from her dorm in time for a full breakfast.”
A loud buzzing sounded from his pocket, and his jaw tensed.
“How many is that?” I asked.
“Eleven,” he replied tersely, clearly at his wit’s end. “And five from that bitch Elise, like he thought I’d somehow take her call but not his.”
Zach dropped onto the couch next to me, throwing his head back onto the cushion and pinching his brow as he muttered, “Let’s just satisfy his burning curiosity. Then he can sit and think about the writing on his own wall.”
I nodded at Bennett. “Might as well. You up for it?”
He bristled. “I’m not afraid of my fucking father.
I just no longer care to speak to him about anything, ever.
” His phone began vibrating in his hand again, and he rolled his eyes to the vaulted ceiling of our dorm living room.
“Fine,” he grumbled before answering the phone with a furious swipe of his thumb.
“Bennett Spencer!” the voice of James Spencer barked through the phone’s speaker.
“Father,” Bennett drawled, bored.
“I don’t know what you and that little bitch think you’re playing at. Andrea Ferrero did not just happen to drop dead of a heart attack on the same night the Knight whore was spotted at her fucking gala!”
“It is an interesting coincidence, isn’t it, Father? You know, Zach’s right here, if you want me to pass along your condolences.”
He sputtered, “You—you children cannot just go around murdering the heads of the Four Families!”
“Scared, Father?” Bennett asked smoothly, a tiny smile quirking at his lips.
“Is that a threat , son?” James spat.
“It’s a promise, Father. It was you who taught me that we should do anything to protect our Family, the murder of members of the other Families expressly included.”
“ Bennett — ”
“And Jolie Knight is the center of my Family, Father. It no longer includes you, and if you’re a threat to my Family, I will remove you from the board. Stop fucking calling me.”
He hung up the phone. Zach and I watched warily as he slid it gingerly into the pocket of his suit jacket before straightening his spine and rolling his shoulders with a calming breath.
Then he glanced down at us, a relaxed, almost placid look on his face.
“What are you two getting Angel for her birthday? Her birthstone is diamond, and I’m thinking of returning a nice little chunk of Alastia to her as a necklace. ”
I couldn’t help the huge grin that spread across my face. Bennett had finally freed himself from his intrinsic need to please his father, and I was so damn proud of him.
For a few days, we were able to just be college students again.
College students who were now running three of the Four Families and very behind on our homework.
Zach was able to transition the bulk of Ferrero into the capable hands we already had within Knight, and after Frankie assisted in running off the most unsavory people still attached to businesses he wanted to keep, everything began to hum right along.
Zach even talked Rocky into overseeing security at the Euphoria Club, and he’d promptly booted the slimiest clientele off the list and handpicked a crop of new bouncers.
My dad attempted to call me twice after the news of Andrea’s death broke, and unlike Bennett, I didn’t feel the need to clue him in about our role in it. He was still in Thailand, and Silver dropped me a note midweek, informing me that he’d actually called my mom and asked her for a loan.
She undoubtedly laughed in his face and then yelled at him for losing his entire empire to his son and Jolie Knight.
Our Jojo seemed mostly content. Getting back into the grind of class, homework, and crew practice was always good for her, as was getting thoroughly fucked by whichever one of us was lucky enough to end up in her bed on a particular night and brave enough to be subjected to Mari’s scathing annoyance regarding the “shrieking sex noises” the next morning.
But as the end of the week approached, I could tell that her begrudging excitement for our birthday party had been infected by her growing frustration that we’d still made no progress on crippling Spencer once and for all.
Bennett was starting to get moody about it, too, but we were used to his shit.
Spencer was flagging but remained stubbornly resilient, the white-collar conglomerate of banks, hedge funds, private equity, and venture capital groups able to hold strong, diversify, and bring on outside money that was insulated from City politics and still unaware of how terrified they should be of Jolie Knight.
Silver, Zepp, Marcus, and their entire team had prepared a nice package for James Spencer, but we needed a way to deliver it.
But now it was Saturday night, and we were all going to put aside our schoolwork, work-work, and nefarious plans to have some goddamn fun for my twentieth and Jojo’s nineteenth birthday.
“This is not a little something!” Jolie barked at the three of us as she gestured wildly at the three-hundred-foot, three-story superyacht currently parked at the docks of the Academy’s boathouse.
“What do you mean, sweetheart?” I asked innocently as I dragged her along the dock by our intertwined hands. “You don’t like the Contessa? She was always my dad’s favorite.”
“Didn’t we take this one on vacation once in like, fourth grade?” Zach asked as he and Bennett trailed along behind us.
I chuckled. “No, that was the Silver Lion. Dad only took his favorite yacht out for his stable of mistresses, and we were not invited on those trips.”
“Lovely,” Jojo muttered as she craned her neck to take in the full breadth of the Contessa. “I’m thrilled we’re having our birthday party on Peter’s fuckboat, Noah.”
“I had it thoroughly sanitized,” I replied, before I said, with a little more bite, “Relax and enjoy the night for me, please, sweet girl.”
She let out a tiny moan and relaxed against my side, which got a knowing snicker out of Zach and a scoff from Bennett.
“Ahoy, mateys!”
Our attention was pulled to the top of the boarding ladder at the entrance to the Contessa, where a line of students waiting to board had formed as they went through our security—comprised tonight of some of the younger members of the Shadows or the Knight Enforcer squad .
Max waved excitedly at us, and I narrowed my eyes in his direction. “What the fuck is he wearing?”
The asshole had on what looked like a sailor outfit, complete with tiny shorts, a navy scarf, and a ridiculous white hat. He also had several handguns strapped to his body and was twirling a knife through his fingers.
Jojo elbowed me before she waved back at him. “It’s very nautical, Noah. You and Zach tried to get me to wear a fucking bikini to this thing.”
We had. The spring night air was warmer than usual, and we wanted to stare at that tight body all night long, but Jojo had rolled her eyes at us, then Bennett had put his big possessive foot down, anyway.
She compromised with her little denim shorts that showed off her long legs and a cropped T-shirt that revealed the top of her toned stomach. The three of us were in designer jeans and dress shirts, or a too-tight white V-neck if your name was Zach Ferrero.
We left our shoes along the dock with the dozens of others already abandoned there, and I led us past the line to board—obviously, since this was my fucking boat—before we all clambered onto the main deck.
Max smirked at me, clapping me on the shoulder like we were good buddies because ugh , we fucking were now. “This thing is sick , Nigel. Martinez already gave me the tour. It’d be so killer if I could use this for my graduation party. Bruce would totally let us park it at the Boathouse.”
Jojo gave him a fond smile, hugging him as she cooed, “Anything you want, Maxy.” She tossed a look at me over her shoulder. “Right, Noah?”
Zach snorted, and I returned her look with my most charming smile. “Of course, sweetheart.”
Max could have the Silver Lion.