Page 130 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series

As Zach exited the stage, he nodded at Gemma, who sat in the row behind us.

Zach’s estranged aunt had slowly tiptoed her way back into Zach’s life, calling occasionally and visiting the City twice more since she’d pulled the trigger ending the life of the vile woman who’d murdered both my mother and Zach’s father.

We were looking forward to visiting her chalet in Switzerland over the holidays this year, and Max had already spent a fortune on snowboarding gear in anticipation.

Zach stopped along the wall of the hall to shake hands with Frankie, who definitely hadn’t been there thirty seconds ago. I darted a glance at Max, whose heated gaze was now squarely aimed in that direction, a knowing smirk on his face.

Only a few graduates separated Zach from the next former Heir to ascend the stage. Noah Hargraves lit up the room with his lovely smile, his big blue eyes shining behind the dark brown frames he wore today. He accepted his diploma, then those eyes searched for me in my spot on the front row.

I beamed at him, and he blew me a kiss. The pride I felt at watching my Noah graduate at the top of his class had me bursting, and I thanked all the deities of the world that he would still be around campus next year, taking graduate classes and teaching.

It meant I’d get to pay him some more visits in his office to request extra credit.

“God, the way Nick looks at you is going to get me pregnant—ow, fuck,” Max groused as I elbowed him for the tenth time.

Then he muttered, “I hope he’s at least going to start putting a tie on his office door or something when you guys are fucking in there.

I don’t need to be scarred for life when I need help with my fucking advanced computer science homework— ow . ”

I rolled my eyes, though I couldn’t help my smile. Noah was both proud and annoyed by Max’s increased presence in his orbit because of Max’s computer science major, and it was yet another bromance that neither of them would ever cop to but was one hundred percent a thing.

Noah planned to keep his Academy obligations part-time so he could run his healthcare empire the rest of the time.

His hospital and clinic serving low-income citizens in Hargraves Tower flourished, and he enjoyed his positions on the boards of several up-and-coming businesses in the healthcare tech space.

He also enjoyed tying me to the bed and edging me until I begged him for mercy while Zach and Bennett watched. Noah was a man of diverse interests and hobbies.

He was so happy, so focused, that he often forgot about his father. Peter hadn’t left Thailand, but he’d had to pay off a fair few of his more unsavory creditors over the years and had only narrowly avoided a stint in Thai prison.

And his numerous calls to Noah, presumably to beg for money, always went unanswered .

When Bennett finally strode across the stage, his presence commanded the attention of the entire hall.

He towered over every person around him, and his broad chest and wide shoulders were prominent even in his gown.

He accepted his diploma from the dean with the same intense, serious energy he gave to most tasks, and I could sense every eye in the room was glued to him as he marched off the stage with a purpose.

He was, after all, the former Spencer Heir, the son of the deceased king of the City, James Spencer, whose tragic fall from the roof of Spencer Tower had been splashed across every news site in the country.

Bennett’s heavy stare landed on me as he turned to walk back to his chair. Only he could strip me bare with a mere glance, and I felt myself flush from my cheeks to my chest as those eyes burned into me before he shifted his gaze down the row to his mother.

His face softened for her, and a tiny smile graced his lips at her exuberant waving in his direction. Brigette was now as happy and healthy as Bennett could have ever wanted, and he’d even finally come around on Martinez, who was head over heels for Bridgette and pretty much attached to her hip.

Though anyone who suggested Bennett call Martinez his daddy received a look that could flay flesh from bones.

Unlike my other two loves, Bennett had washed his hands completely of what was left of the Spencer empire.

He’d tossed out anyone who’d ever floated even remotely close to James Spencer’s inner circle, then he sold everything off to buyers we’d thoroughly vetted.

It wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life—“Fuck banking and finance,” he’d said—so now the man who was once my most rigid, strait-laced, corporate-world-bound best friend had no concrete plans after graduation.

And he liked it.

Bennett was richer than sin and wouldn’t need to work a day in his life, but I’d insisted he find something to busy himself with that wasn’t his preferred activity—watching me.

I assigned him a spot on the board of the Knight Foundation because if there was one thing Bennett knew how to do, it was spend money.

The Foundation had more funds to give away than it knew what to do with from even the small fraction of a stake it had retained in my dad’s miraculene research, and Bennett seemed excited to start giving it all away to charities and causes that struck his fancy.

And maybe, on the days he wasn’t doing that, or working out at Dom’s, or stalking me around the Academy, he might visit our park.

Bennett had ordered Spencer Tower demolished as soon as it had been cleared of its occupants.

He’d wanted that blight removed from the City’s skyline, ridding us of the reminder of the man who’d orchestrated the murder of my parents and countless other atrocities.

In its place stood a riverside park—a gorgeous green space surrounded by cherry trees and containing flower-lined sidewalks, benches, and a small playground.

He’d named it Angel Park.

I turned into an emotional wreck almost every time we visited. Bennett’s love for me—and mine for him—was something so profound, something so powerful and deeply ingrained within our souls, that I marveled over how I’d ever thought I could live without him.

At long last, the dean wrapped up the ceremony, congratulated our Class of 2025, and then caps flew into the air to cheers and applause.

My boys converged on me, and I managed to steal a kiss from each of them before pulling them in close.

They surrounded me, their hands on my body as I tried to find purchase on each of them, and the boisterous noise of the room fell away as we stood together, my boys and me, quietly absorbing it all.

It was the end of our time together as Holywell students.

Our journey back to each other began right here in this dining hall less than three years ago.

I came here to deceive my old best friends, to steal from them, to begin my quest to destroy their Families in the name of the parents that had been stolen from me.

And I’d done it. We’d done it. None of it had brought my parents back, but the emptiness I’d expected to feel for the rest of my life once I’d gotten my revenge had been filled with them .

I was whole, because this journey brought me back to Zach, Noah, and Bennett. We had each other, and we had our City.

“I love you guys,” I said with only the slightest crack in my voice from inside our huddle. “I’m so proud of you.”

“We love you, too, sweetheart,” Noah replied, his long fingers threading through mine .

“Forever and always, baby girl,” Zach said.

Bennett’s stare burned into me one more time as he tilted his head down to press his forehead to mine. He whispered, “Ours.”

BENNETT

I stared at my reflection in Jolie’s bathroom mirror, finally loosening my tie after the end of a long fucking day.

We’d graduated. Once upon a time, this day was supposed to come with the tiniest hint of freedom for my brothers and me—access to our trust funds, a little more power, and a lot more responsibility within the Families. I’d looked forward to it with equal parts excitement and dread.

Then my Angel returned to me, rid the City of the cancer that was the Four Families, and changed the course of my life forever.

Now it was only her.

So instead, this day had come with a huge party thrown at our penthouse pool with our loving family members and true friends. I now had a bright future that was mine to do whatever the fuck I pleased with it.

First, I would be finally taking off this suit and curling my body around Jolie while I slept for twelve straight hours.

I’d just begun unbuttoning my shirt when I heard, “Oh, holy fuck , Princess,” from the bedroom.

Curious, I wandered out of the bathroom and froze.

Joanna Miller stood in the bedroom doorway, her smile wicked as she passed that violet gaze over the three of us.

She’d dyed her hair and eyebrows the same dark brown from her first semester at Holywell, and she wore ripped jeans, a purple tank top, and her ratty sneakers that I’d tried to get her to throw away for years now with no luck.

I could only gape at the mirage of the girl who’d stirred up so much fucking trouble that semester while she snuck around behind our backs.

“What’s this, sweetheart?” Noah asked cautiously from his seat on the bed.

She took a few slow steps forward. “It’s a graduation present, Noah. I thought you guys might like to fuck Joanna Miller, since all three of you apparently harbored that dirty fantasy back when I first came to Holywell.”

I swallowed as I felt my dick wake all the way up. “You mean we wanted to fuck some goddamn sense and manners into her,” I growled.

Those purple eyes met mine in an achingly familiar challenge. “Come and get it, then, Spencer.”

I tossed my shirt from my shoulders and ran for her. Zach and Noah were quick to follow.

We didn’t let Jolie rest until the early hours of the morning. My Angel never did learn sense or manners, but she had my heart forever, anyway.

The End

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