Page 14 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series

CHAPTER NINE

“ Y ou guys! My father will kill us if we break something.”

“Stop being a whiny baby, Bennett,” I said, giggling.

“Yeah, we’re just making space,” Zach chimed in. “This blanket fort is gonna be killer.”

“We should be careful, though,” Noah added. He didn’t like it when one of us was worried. “We don’t want to get Bennett in trouble.”

Zach and I pushed the coffee table over by the tall windows while Bennett watched us, making sure we didn’t scratch the shiny wood floor. Noah dragged a chair over next to the sofa, then he started throwing blankets at all of us.

Zach and I piled our pillows in the empty space while Noah and Bennett draped blankets across the furniture.

“I’m sleeping by Jojo tonight,” Bennett announced as he wedged himself in between Zach and me where we were laying on the floor in our blanket nest.

“No way. You slept next to her last weekend when we were at Noah’s house,” Zach griped.

“It’s my house,” he shot back. “I’m the best to protect her here.”

“No one needs to protect me, you losers,” I said with a huff. Then I shuffled over next to Noah, who grinned at me.

“You’re the only girl,” Bennett pointed out, as if that was a thing .

“Yeah, what if there’s… a MONSTER!” Zach yelled before he tackled Noah and me both .

“Ahh!” I kicked at Zach, and then Bennett tackled him, and we all laughed and laughed.

“Bennett!”

We froze. Mr. Spencer was back early, and we had made a mess of his living room.

Bennett scurried out of the fort and jumped to his feet. “I’m sorry, Father. We’ll be quiet.”

I laid next to Zach and Noah as we listened to Mr. Spencer’s footsteps approaching. His shiny shoes appeared in front of the opening of our fort. He crouched down, and his dark eyes found me.

Suddenly, I felt my skin crawl.

He raised a gun and pointed it right at me. His hand was already covered in blood.

“Why, Father?” Bennett said, suddenly emotionless.

“For the Families,” he replied.

Then he pulled the trigger.

I woke up screaming.

Sitting up and sucking in air, it took me a long minute to realize I was in my bed inside my room in C Dorm. Not in a blanket fort at Bennett’s house. Not in my bunk back at home.

Not facing down the barrel of James Spencer’s gun.

I wiped the sweat from my brow and fumbled for my phone where it was charging on my nightstand.

“Fuck my life,” I groaned, seeing that its clock said it was only midnight.

It would be hours before I would be able to get back to sleep after yet another nightmare perverting my childhood memories, and I was going to be worthless during my early morning workout.

Decision made, I tossed my covers off and stumbled out of bed, pulling workout clothes on with the grace of a zombie.

I tucked my cherry blossom necklace into the little safe I had hidden at the back of my closet like I usually did when I rowed, and then I crept quietly through the dorm halls and out onto the lawn, heading for the gym.

I was going to get my workout in now, rowing on the erg until I couldn’t breathe or think or move anymore, and then I would pass out until it was time for class.

It had been almost five days since the Hargraves Tower heist, and I was actually surprised the nightmare hadn’t come earlier—like, that same night. My parents were killed in that fucking Tower, after all.

As expected, the gym was deserted, so after I scanned into the building with my ID, I made my way to the huge weight room.

It was as large as the basketball court next door and had an indoor track circuiting the perimeter of the second story.

Despite the late hour, the cavernous space was brightly lit by the gym’s harsh fluorescent bulbs.

Since the gym was mine this evening, I plugged my phone into the docking station that connected to the room’s speaker system, and I cranked up the volume on “Pretty Girl” by Sugarcult before hopping onto one of the sparkling new rowing machines.

And then I rowed. And rowed and rowed.

Fuck James Spencer.

Fuck Peter Hargraves.

Fuck Andrea Ferrero.

Fuck the Four Families.

Fuck their peons and sycophants and legions of lemmings who help them keep their boot on the neck of this City.

And fuck the Heirs. They were all the same.

Just as I was about to turn over a personal record for my 5K, pulling hard to “What It Is to Burn” by Finch, I heard the loud slam of a hand up against the wall as my music was suddenly cut off.

I jerked to a stop on my machine, drenched in sweat and panting hard. I turned to glare across the room, only to find Bennett, dressed in his long-sleeve crew T-shirt and short track shorts, holding the sound system’s power cord in his hand and glaring at it like it’d insulted his mother.

Jumping to my feet, I stormed toward him.

“What the fuck, Spencer?” I barked, reaching out to grab the cord from him.

He yanked it out of my reach, the tall motherfucker.

“Turn that emo shit off,” he growled at me. “Use those headphones you have constantly stuck in your ears if you want music. This is not your personal gym.”

He dropped the cord and crossed his arms to give me his best intimidating stare. He’d shoved his sleeves to his elbows, his toned forearms flexing with the movement, and I hated that I noticed it .

“Or better yet,” he went on. “Leave.”

“Is that a command from the prince to his lowly subject?” I snarked, taking up a mirror power pose and meeting his angry stare. “Or is the grown man in front of me finished throwing a tantrum?”

He moved to step closer to me—too close—and I shoved my palm into the middle of his wide chest. “Back off, asshole,” I snarled. “I am one of the few people in this City who is not afraid of you. Don’t. Fuck. With. Me.”

Then, out of nowhere, he smiled at me. A small one—just a quirk of the corners of his lips, and it both shocked the hell out of me and reminded me so much of young Bennett that my knees almost gave out.

“I don’t fuck with people,” he replied, removing my hand from his chest like it was a piece of lint on his shirt.

“If I wanted to hurt you, you would know it. But the only person at this school that’s hurting you is you .

So, I will tell you again—fall in line and stop making trouble.

” Then he leaned in even closer, his lips brushing against my ear as he whispered, “And either put on your headphones, or get the fuck out of my gym.”

Then he stepped quickly away and strode over to the rowers. He tossed his gym bag to the floor next to his chosen machine, then he hopped on and started pulling like he wanted to break it.

I’d finished my row, but I’d be damned if I’d let him run me out of the gym after that nonsense.

After retrieving my own bag, I made my way to the nearby rack to get a few squats in.

I looked over at Bennett still rowing like he hated the world, and I held his hard stare while I slowly stuck my earbuds in my ears.

Then, for good measure, I ripped my sweaty tank top over my head, using it to wipe my face before tossing it aside and grabbing a barbell.

Bennett’s eyes heated as he took me in, as I was now clad only in a strappy sports bra and spandex shorts, and the frown marring his pretty face intensified.

I was being petty, but it served him right for being a dick to me while also flashing his forearms around and wearing what were definitely micro running shorts and touching me with his fucking soft lips.

If I had to look at those legs while hating him and everything he stood for, he could sit there during his rage row and be subjected to my ass in spandex.

I clicked my music on and tuned him out as I did my squats, and I felt his eyes on me the entire time.

Once I finished, I packed my shit and left the gym without a backward glance, the whirring sounds of his machine still echoing through the huge room as he worked out whatever had crawled up his ass on this particular night.

“How are things with your parents?” I asked Mari the next morning over breakfast.

“The same,” she replied, sighing into her coffee. “They’re talking as if they’ll disown me and make my second cousin the Anzaldua heir if I don’t quit it with my public exhibitionism .”

“The fuck?” I said around a mouthful of bagel. “Like, talking about your girlfriend on social media?”

“Yes. I know, it’s very stupid.” She waved a dismissive hand. “They hate my second cousin, so I’m not taking them seriously. Don’t worry about me. You have enough going on.”

I did worry about her, but her point was well taken.

Chad had been hassling me a bit more as of late, and I could just smell the shit brewing with Harper, Lisa, and Annie.

Those three were as high up the Tier One rung as Mari was and weren’t quite as susceptible as their peers to being frightened away with just an angry “go fuck yourself”—in English or Spanish, depending on her mood.

I parted ways with my only friend and found an empty desk in the quiet back corner of the Leadership Seminar classroom. I’d just pulled up the assigned reading on my tablet and was sorting through my notes when the three stooges filed into the row right in front of me.

“Morning, Princess,” Zach sang at me before throwing himself into his chair, hair sexily disheveled and tie hanging loose around his neck, per usual.

Noah slid into the seat next to him before turning to give me a warm-but-patronizing smile over his shoulder. “Hey, Joanna. How’s it going?”

“Swell, Noah,” I replied, scribbling on my notes. “Another great day at Holywell.”

Bennett scowled at his buddies like they were misbehaving by acknowledging me at all before he sat gracefully into his own seat. His suit was navy today, and I wondered how much his cufflinks cost .

“Get all those demons exorcised last night, Spencer?” I asked lightly, flipping another page in my notes.