Page 129 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series
EPILOGUE
JOLIE - ABOUT TWO YEARS LATER
“ T hat’s it, Princess,” Zach rasped into my ear, his rough cheek scraping along the side of my neck. “Fucking come for me.”
“Zach, ugh, shit,” I whimpered as he thrust furiously between my thighs, my leg hiked up over his hip and my back smashed against the door in Noah’s office. “You’re going to be late for the lineup.”
He chuckled. “Like they’d start graduation without four of the Academy’s trustees.”
On cue, a fist pounded on the office door. “Hurry the fuck up in there, you two,” Bennett growled. “Do not mess up Angel’s dress, you fucking animal. Or her hair.”
Noah’s muttering was barely audible over Zach’s heavy breathing in my ear. “Losing battle, dude. Let’s not act like we weren’t already running late because you decided to ambush Jojo in the shower earlier.”
The memory of Bennett slipping into my shower this morning, then bending me over and fucking me into the wall pushed me over the edge, and I screamed Zach’s name for the entire administrative wing of Holywell Hall to hear as my climax rocked through my body.
“Yeah, that’s fucking right, baby girl,” he said with a groan.
He slowed as he finished, all the while taking my lips in a sweet, gentle kiss.
“Finally,” Bennett huffed from outside .
I snickered. Zach’s decision to drag me into Noah’s office and fuck me up against the door ten minutes before graduation began was not that surprising, though it was going to put us even further behind than we already were.
Noah had only wanted to swing by his office to grab his favorite tie, but the quiet hallway, locked door, and my flimsy dress had apparently been too big a temptation for my rules-breaking-est boyfriend.
After cleaning me up like a gentleman, Zach righted my dress and zipped his graduation robe back into place. He picked his cap up off the floor and stuck it back on his head, and he still somehow made it look lazy and disheveled. He smirked at my perusal of him as he adjusted his tassel.
We opened the door and stepped into the hall, and we found Bennett and Noah both looking very dapper in their caps and gowns. Noah shot me a knowing smile, while Bennett rolled his eyes.
“Nice going, Ferrero,” Bennett groused. “She’s got that just-been-fucked flush, and your beard burn is clear as day on her neck.”
I snuck into Bennett’s arms and pulled him in for a kiss, and he melted into me without any more fussing.
“Relax, Bennett,” I said with a big smile.
I fluffed my hair around my shoulders to hide the aftermath of Zach’s rough cheek against my pale skin.
“See? Good as new. Now we need to move, unless Noah also needs his graduation present before you guys walk that stage?” I tossed Noah a coy smile.
He grinned. “Absolutely not. I want mine later. In your bed. For several hours. These idiots need to learn some patience.”
None of my boyfriends were really that patient, but Noah certainly had the most… discipline.
The other two grumbled while I smoothed my pale pink dress. I was feeling very girly and emotional today, so my dress color suited my mood.
I turned to beam at the three of them. “Let’s go get you boys graduated.”
I waved at Mari from my seat at the front of the dining hall, which had been cleared of its banquet tables and instead filled with rows of folding chairs facing a small stage at the front of the room. Mari, as an “A” last name, was first in line on the little stairs to the side.
“I’m gonna miss her and Carmen being on campus all the time,” Max pouted from his seat next to me.
I elbowed him. “You still have me , your loving sister.”
He grinned. “You mean my loving roommate .”
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help the little grin that tugged at my lips.
Max would move in with me next year for my senior year—his junior—at Holywell.
I’d stayed true to Mari and remained her roommate for three glorious years.
But with my boyfriends finally graduating and clearing out of the A Dorm penthouse, I was taking it over, and Max would join me.
It wasn’t quite our shared bunk room back at our apartment over the bookstore, but I was actually looking forward to living with my brother again.
Though we were going to need to have a discussion about the entertaining I was certain he’d be doing in his room.
“I hope you’re excited for me to be all in your business about keeping your grades up,” I added.
“Ugh, why?” he moaned. “You basically run this place. You’d never keep my degree from me.”
That was not exactly true, but as a trustee, I did have a lot of sway over the things that went on at Holywell, including the expansion of the scholarship program, the overhaul of the admissions criteria to move beyond a student’s last name and how much money their family had, and, of course, the hiring of the new dean.
I watched as Dean Foley toddled up to the stage to begin his opening remarks.
He was a tiny man with a hunched back, wispy white hair, and a mind as sharp as his smile.
He was not from the City, so he didn’t give one iota of a fuck about anyone’s family name.
Our previous dean, Harper’s mom, had gotten the boot at the end of my freshman year due to the many scandals plaguing the Jansen family.
They left the City shortly after the fall of Spencer, and the last I’d heard, they’d run off to New York to beg for a role in Edward Jansen’s second-cousin’s investment firm.
They’d also stuck Harper in some small, isolated women’s college upstate to finish her degree.
Dom nudged me from my other side where he sat with Laura. “I can’t believe in one short year, I’ll be watching you cross that stage. ”
“Don’t get all sentimental on me, old man,” I whispered.
He laughed. “I mean, I’m not sure I was convinced either of my children would graduate college back when we’d planned to ditch the City with your inheritance. Our days were going to be surf lessons and seafood.”
I hummed. “Are you disappointed they aren’t?”
“No, honey,” he replied, reaching over to squeeze my hand. “You’ve made this place something great, and you have the loves of your life. In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined you so happy.”
I felt a tear well up, but I blinked it away. Too early in the ceremony for that shit.
“And we’re just overrun with sons!” Laura added, leaning around Dom to smile at me and Max. “It’s good for Dom. It keeps him young.”
Dom grumbled something about getting enough testosterone at the gym already, then the dean began to announce the names of our graduates.
Mari stepped across the stage first, moving effortlessly in her towering Mary Jane heels. She waved at us as she received her diploma, then turned to look back over at the line of students waiting to graduate. She blew a kiss at Carmen, who beamed and waved excitedly.
As Mari exited the stage, she sent a polite nod to the chairs somewhere behind us, where I presumed her parents had found seats.
Mari’s relationship with her parents was on the mend, but they still had a long road ahead.
As Knight flourished in the months following the end of the rule of the Four Families, she did decide to bring the Anzaldua hotel empire into our fold.
She’d stepped into the role of co-CEO with her mother, and they had a polite and functional business relationship.
Unfortunately, Mari’s parents still couldn’t manage to completely hide their disapproval of Mari’s public relationship with Carmen, so for now, polite and functional was all it would be.
I’d made it my mission for Carmen to start her junior year of college at Holywell instead of continuing at her Spanish university.
It only took a partial scholarship and a personal phone call from yours truly to her parents, but I would’ve flown across the ocean and kidnapped her myself if I’d had to.
Zach had even offered to plan it all out, the psycho.
The two of them were still very much in love and would be moving into Mari’s apartment in Knight Tower after graduation. Mari would continue her work in our hospitality group, and Carmen would be starting her job on Silver’s team after interning with her last summer.
I loved having all my people close.
Max and I waved enthusiastically at Carmen as she trotted across the stage a few minutes later, and then it was time for the first former Heir of the City’s Four Families to cross the stage.
Zach Ferrero received his diploma to a rousing round of applause. His dark eyes found mine, and he winked at me. There was so much love in that cocky smile that overwhelmed me in that moment, and I blinked back tears again.
“Ugh, tell Ferrero we didn’t all need to see his bedroom eyes,” Max complained, but he squeezed my thigh affectionately as he said it.
He knew Zach was a part of my heart, and the two of them were pretty much besties even if neither would ever admit it out loud.
Max and Zach’s love language was beating the fuck out of each other in the cage.
After some time spent getting his sea legs, Zach was now running what was the successor to the Ferrero Family empire like he was born to do it—because he was.
He’d taken a page from Noah’s book and turned Ferrero Tower into his own personal project to better the City, and it now housed a boarding school for at-risk youth and the offices of several community-based organizations.
His pet project, though, was his gym. Andrea had demolished the last of the public housing in the City to build a parking garage for the Club, so Zach decided to give that back to the City—in a way, at least—by using that space to open a gym similar to Dom’s.
It catered to the struggling teens raised in the violent underbelly of the City that used to end up in the Snake Pit, trying to make a buck.
He hired Rocky to run it, and it was truly an amazing place.