Page 121 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

JOLIE

“ P rincess, fuck, are you okay?” Zach breathed into my ear as he held me.

I groaned. “Yeah. The blood is all Chad’s, but I’m pretty sure I dislocated my fucking shoulder.”

Noah skidded to a stop next to us and dropped to his knees, totally unconcerned with his lingering injury or the puddle of blood that was now soaking through his fancy chinos. He reached out to cup my face in gentle hands. “Oh, Jojo. Shit. I’m so sorry we weren’t here. I’m so fucking sorry.”

I gave him a rueful smile. “Noah, it all happened really fucking fast. I made the decision not to wait for backup because Chad was hurting Hannah. You came as quickly as you could. I know you did.”

Harper screeched from nearby. Bennett loomed over her with an enraged look on his face as Max had her pinned to the floor, straddling her as he zip-tied her hands behind her back.

“Get your dirty Southside hands off me! Bennett!” she wailed.

He ignored her, glancing over to look at me instead. His stoic face broke as he took me in, disheveled and covered in blood. “Angel. Fuck .”

“I’m fine, Bennett,” I croaked. “But someone tell Martinez to divert us to the Boathouse because I need Dom to put my shoulder back in place.”

Max stood up, keeping a booted foot on Harper’s back. “I already texted Dad, Jojo. No doubt he’s calling Martinez as we speak to demand he turn this boat around immediately.”

On cue, the yacht began to list. We were already on the cruise back north toward the Academy, but Martinez was now taking us west toward Olde Town.

Bennett left Harper with Max and strode over to me. He scooped me gingerly into his arms before sitting us on the low couch nearby. He cradled me, and I could feel the slight tremble of his body beneath me.

I leaned into him with my good shoulder, burying my face in his chest. “Shh, Bennett. I’m okay. None of this blood is mine. It’s not like last time.”

“I know, Angel. I just… I can’t look at you like this. It hurts.”

Zach joined us, sliding my legs into his lap before clapping Bennett on the shoulder, an understanding look in those dark eyes.

“I think from now on, you’re not allowed out of our sight, Princess.

None of us are going to handle this well.

We almost just lost you again.” He swallowed, and a tiny tear leaked from his eye.

I sucked in a breath and reached for his hand, wincing as pain shot through my shoulder. “Zach. I know. Please don’t cry. Please. I would never leave you again.”

Noah sat down on the coffee table in front of us, his blood-soaked knees almost knocking into Bennett’s.

He hung his head in his hands. “We need to call this in and get it cleaned up. I can’t believe we just…

let those two on the yacht without asking questions. It almost fucking cost us everything .”

I met Max’s concerned stare. He was rattled, too, but he knew how triggering this was for the guys and was going to let them have their time with me. “I’ve got it, Hargraves,” he said, whipping out his phone. “Silver’s got access to all the onboard cameras, right?”

“Yeah,” Noah muttered, not lifting his head.

“We’ll make sure the evidence of Tier One Barbie’s crimes makes it into the right hands. I say we toss her to the cops in Olde Town and let them deal with her parents.”

I nodded. It was still unlikely that Harper would actually go down for whatever had happened here—accidental homicide, attempted murder—but the Jansens were going to have to spin their wheels for a while to clean this up .

“Have Silver send the tape to Montgomery Star Media,” I added.

That was the thing that made Harper gasp and start shrieking again. “Bennett! You’re going to regret this. Our parents have been making these plans for us for years , and I’m not going to let you ruin our future because you’re blinded by this crass, trashy bitch!”

Bennett acted like she wasn’t even here. “Angel, we’re going to get you fixed up, and then I’m going to tie you to the fucking bed and never let you leave,” he growled in my ear.

“Amen,” Zach added.

I huffed. “Stop that.”

“Three against one,” Noah said with a small smile. “We’ll just fuck you until you’re too sated and exhausted to even think about ever leaving the bed.”

Max sighed audibly as he put his phone to his ear. “Can we table the gang-bang discussion until I’ve had more to fucking drink, Nelson?”

“SONUVABITCH!” I shouted as Dom shoved my shoulder back where it belonged with a lot of force and no finesse.

“That was so good, sweetheart,” Noah cooed. He stood next to me where I sat on a barstool at the counter of our little kitchen because he’d won the roshambo to be the one whose hand I crushed into dust as Dom fixed me.

“Honey, honestly, this is not what I wanted to give you on your birthday,” Dom said with a big sigh.

He popped a kiss on the top of my head, hopefully avoiding the dried blood caked into my hair.

“But thank God you’re okay. I’m having a meeting tomorrow with the security team we put on that boat because this is extremely unacceptable. ”

“Don’t be too hard on them,” I said as I rubbed at my shoulder. “We didn’t expressly forbid any Holywell student from the party.”

“We got cocky,” Bennett muttered. He sat at our little dining table next to his mother, whose enjoyable night with Dom and Laura had been rudely interrupted by our trudging into the apartment covered in varying amounts of blood.

Martinez sat with them, looking tired but also pleased to be excused from babysitting a bunch of drunk college students and back with his… charge .

Bruce had not exactly been thrilled to be receiving a superyacht full of entitled students at his dock, but those students had been even less thrilled when Martinez announced that the ride stopped here and everyone could put their fucking asses on the train back to the City.

The Olde Town cops had been almost bewildered that we’d called them at all, and then had passed a crying, thrashing Harper into their custody before leaving them with the murder weapon and a statement that was generally the truth.

We didn’t have to hide what had happened to Chad Hendrickson—Harper shot him, he fell overboard, and we’d have the security camera video proving this to them shortly.

The cops could deal with Edward Jansen, and then Edward Jansen could deal with Benedict Hendrickson, whose son was now lost to the black depths of the Obsidian because of Edward’s daughter.

A little Tier One civil war was always entertaining.

“Here, sweetie,” Laura said, appearing in front of me to hand me an ice pack.

I took it from her, then she started rubbing at my face and neck with a wet towel, scrubbing the blood away like she would the streaks on the windows of her bookstore.

“I’m sorry your birthday party was ruined.

As much as I’ve worried over the years about how trained for violence Dom and the Shadows have made a grieving girl, tonight I’m thankful for it. ”

“You can say that again,” Zach said, shooting me a strained but sexy smile from his spot on our couch. He and Max—with whom he’d had an armistice for a while now—were collegially cleaning their handguns together at the coffee table.

It was pretty much a Rockwell painting in here.

As Dom moseyed into the kitchen to finish doing the dishes from their earlier dinner, Martinez blew out a frustrated breath. “Of course we couldn’t get through my first yacht voyage without someone being killed on my ship. Not that I’m sorry that little bastard’s gone,” he added, nodding at me.

I wasn’t either. Chad had crossed the line and onto the kill-if-convenient list the moment he laid a hand on Hannah, and he’d only solidified his spot by becoming James Spencer’s hitman.

Mari had shooed us off to Dom’s with the promise that she’d see Hannah safely back to the Academy and watch over her there.

Before we parted, I’d made sure to tell Mari what a capable lieutenant she’d become— because she’d done everything exactly right from the moment we first heard Chad’s disgusting grunts.

Hannah seemed shaken but otherwise just generally pissed off that she’d been taken unaware by Chad when she’d wandered to a quiet part of the boat to film a video for her social media.

“Oh, Bennett,” Mrs. Spencer said suddenly, perking up. “Laura and I made a cake for your lovely girlfriend. And for Noah,” she added, sending Noah a little wink. “Why don’t we end this night on a higher note?”

Bennett squeezed her hand. “Sounds great, Mom.” Then he narrowed his eyes at Martinez, whose soft, smitten stare at Bridgette was… not subtle.

And so, after I’d taken a quick shower and the boys had changed out of their blood-smeared clothes, we all stood around our little kitchen as Laura produced a three-tiered monstrosity of a chocolate cake topped with a mountain of sprinkles.

She’d just begun to light the candles when the doors to our small balcony patio opened, and Frankie breezed into the living room.

We all just stared at him.

“Oh, are we having cake?” he asked casually, strolling into the kitchen and side-eyeing Max oh-so-quickly.

He hopped onto an open barstool and dabbed the sweat from his brow using the hem of his blue tank top—this one had “Reel Big Fish” scrawled across the front—exposing his leanly muscled, tattooed torso.

He glanced around the room again and said, “At least I didn’t miss all the fun tonight. ”

Laura—of all people—was the first to respond. “Frankie, honey, we’ve talked about using the front door.”

My boyfriends, Max, and I slowly shifted our stares to Laura.

“Mom,” Max said slowly. “You’ve been having Frankie Fingers over here?”

Frankie grinned as he accepted the can of strawberry sparkling water Dom handed him without comment. “I like books,” he said with a shrug.

I coughed. Clearly he was doing this while Max was at school or the gym, and I did not know what the fuck kind of game those two were playing with each other but would be getting to the bottom of it in short order.

“That’s true,” Zach said. “Frankie’s partial to smutty shit with, like, vampires and demons. ”

“And dicks,” Frankie added, wagging his pierced eyebrows and determinedly not looking at Max, whose dark stare was boring a hole in the side of Frankie’s face.

Zach rolled his eyes at his uncle before he gave him a stern look. “Where the fuck have you been, man?”

“I was at the Snake Pit, if you must know,” he replied with a withering look. “I can’t chase you four around at all hours of the day. I do occasionally have other business to attend to.”

I raised my hand.

“Yes, Little Knight?”

“The Snake Pit’s still going, even after the demise of Ferrero?” I asked, confused. That was Andrea’s main underground fighting club. A lot of dirty money, no rules, illegal gambling, the works.

Zach cleared his throat. “Yeah, I gave that to Frankie. He likes to blow off steam down there, and it’s still a good place for Enforcer recruitment.”

I shrugged. “Cool.”

It was probably good for Frankie to have hobbies.

Bennett’s mom clapped her hands. “Well, then. Let’s all have some cake, shall we?”

Laura finally lit the candles, and after a rousing round of “Happy Birthday to You,” I inhaled a very large slice of my yellow cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles—that combo a thing that Noah and I had always agreed on.

I leaned into him, our chairs smashed together at the table in the place of honor.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he whispered in my ear while the rest of the group laughed and chatted.

“Happy birthday, Noah,” I murmured back, then I gave him a chocolatey kiss. “Even with the, you know, murder plots and bloody deaths and whatnot, this is still the best birthday I’ve had since our Frozen party.”

“Me too,” he replied, pulling me in for another kiss. “Because we’re together again.”

That night I snuggled up to my birthday twin in my little bunk bed. Max collapsed into his bed below us after growling at Noah to keep it in his pants. Bennett and Zach took Mrs. Spencer home to her cute townhouse a few blocks away and stayed the night there, sending Martinez home in a huff .

Frankie disappeared to who knew where, and Dom and Laura stayed up and cuddled on the couch while watching whatever rom-com Laura had chosen for the night that Dom would gripe about but secretly enjoy.

My heart was full, and I tried to take a moment to bask in the warm feelings of the end of the night, when I had all of my people around me—minus Mari, who I missed a whole lot—and we just had a normal time like a normal family would.

It was time to rid the City of its last cancer—James Spencer and those who continued to prop him up, but it would have to wait another day.

I was at peace with that fact as I fell quickly to sleep in Noah’s arms.