Page 16 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series

CHAPTER TEN

“ I still can’t believe you changed your mind about this,” Mari said as we exited the train two blocks from The Revelry. “Not that I’m complaining, but you tend to stick to your guns about things. Are you sick?"

“You’re thinking too hard, girl,” I said, sounding flippant even though I was extremely serious—Mari did not need to be thinking too hard about my motivations for a lot of things. “How often does a girl from the Southside get to party at The Revelry? I’ll put aside my convictions for a night.”

“Fine. I vote you also put aside this celibacy thing you have going on. Find a hot bartender to ride for the night.”

“Stop projecting your sexual frustrations onto me.”

“ Joder , I know. One cannot survive on FaceTime sex alone.”

I chuckled as we rounded the corner and approached the entrance to The Revelry, closed tonight for a private party just for the students of Holywell Academy.

The club was housed inside a remodeled old theatre, the neon lights of the marquee blazing with “The Revelry” in large turquoise block letters.

The bouncer stood just outside the old-fashioned theatre box office, and I spied about a dozen of my classmates standing in line to enter.

“I’m very glad you let me dress you tonight, chica,” Mari said as we took our spots at the back of the line. She eyed the girls ahead of us, most of them wearing high-end designer cocktail dresses. “Even if you are essentially still wearing shorts .”

“It’s a romper,” I argued. It was simple and black, but the shorts barely covered my ass and the neckline plunged low between my B-cups. “And I wore heels for you.”

“Those are wedged sneakers,” she retorted, rolling her eyes.

“Exactly!”

She huffed at me, failing to contain her smile.

She looked bangin’ in her bright-red cropped top with a matching skirt, its high slit showing a lot of leg while the top allowed a peek of her flat stomach.

She also wore the most uncomfortable-looking strappy stilettos, but I was pretty sure Mari came out of the womb walking on five-inch heels.

After showing our Academy IDs to the bouncer, we entered the club. The lighting was dim, of course, and I paused to really take in the room.

It was gorgeous, and it truly pained me to admit that about anything connected to Lisa or the Ferreros.

The ornate ceiling remained from the original theatre as did the stage all lit by purple-hued lighting that was arranged throughout the club.

The old chandeliers remained as well, and they glowed a bright contrasting orange.

There were sleek tables surrounded by plush leather chairs scattered throughout the club’s wide-open floor, and velvet couches were set along walls and around low tables in quiet corners.

The expansive bar was tucked up under the old balcony and took up the entire left wall.

The small balcony floor contained additional seating and the VIP areas.

The room was crowded, and I recognized almost everyone in attendance as a fellow Academy student. I also recognized a few of the waitstaff and two of the members of the cover band currently commanding the stage as current or former attendees of Southside High.

Mari held tightly to my hand and dragged me toward the bar. “Say what you will about the City,” she shouted over the music, “but the fact that the drinking age is eighteen within City limits is pretty awesome.”

“It keeps us complacent,” I yelled back at her, though I fully planned to take advantage of the lax drinking laws while being forced to party with my classmates.

We arrived at the bar, and it took Mari exactly fifteen seconds to have the very interested eyes of the girl working on our end. She had something fruity in hand for Mari immediately, and soon after she passed me the gin and tonic I ordered because it was Dom’s favorite.

I turned to lean up against the bar, surveying the room and instantly locating the Heirs because the best VIP booth was easily identified.

It was a private viewing box of old, jutting out from the wall slightly lower than the balcony and just to the left of the stage. A wide plush loveseat and another roomy chair surrounded a low table piled high with bottles of liquor.

My three marks sat around the table—Zach and Noah on the loveseat and Bennett on his solitary throne—lazily drinking from crystal tumblers and watching the festivities below with only mild interest. They all wore expertly fitted custom suits, and they’d apparently decided to cut loose tonight because none of them wore a tie, leaving a few shirt buttons undone instead.

“Ugh, fuck this place. Fuck everything ,” a voice slurred from nearby, tearing my attention away from my former best friends.

Hannah Langford was seated on a high barstool at the corner of the bar, sequined pantsuit looking pristine while the rest of her looked…

very drunk. Her dark red hair was coming loose from what had probably once been a very sleek ponytail, and she’d already smudged her mascara at some point tonight.

She squinted at her drink like it was confusing the hell out of her.

“Hey, Langford,” I said, floating in her direction out of sheer curiosity. “What’s with the booze bath?”

She looked up, squinting again like she was trying to figure out who I was, and then she laughed.

“Perfect! Just the person I need right now.” She motioned me closer.

“My fucking parents think I need a course correction on my dating life.” She lifted her hands to do some air quotes but abandoned ship when her stool started to wobble.

“They want to negotiate a marriage contract for me like it’s the fucking stone ages. And fucking Chad is on their list.”

“Oh, God,” I exclaimed, truly horrified.

“I know! See, I knew you would understand.” She sighed, dejected, and I didn’t blame her. Hannah was not my friend, but she had left me alone, never getting involved in shit that had been done to me by her friends, so she was sort of okay in my book.

She didn’t deserve to be subjected to Chad, at least.

I leaned in to whisper conspiratorially, “Do you want me to kill him for you?”

She perked up. “You can do that?”

Mari must have overheard us, because she entered the conversation. “No, por el amor de Dios, she’s joking, Langford. Get it together!”

“Am I, though?” I asked innocently.

Hannah hiccupped, still looking morose, and she pointed a wobbly finger at me. “Hey, Miller. You need to be careful tonight. The girls are plotting. Watch your back.”

Not exactly a revelation, but I appreciated her efforts. “Thanks, Langford. You, uh… take it easy, okay?”

She nodded, waving us away. Mari and I scooted further down the bar, settling in to watch the band. We were just in time too, because a familiar face had just hopped on stage for a guest performance.

Mari gasped. “Is that…?”

I grinned. “Yep.”

The opening notes of “Dancing’s Not a Crime” by Panic at the Disco played, and Max began belting the lyrics into the microphone, his voice smooth and his range rivaling that of Brendon Urie himself.

“I got him into this band!” I shouted at Mari. “I got my first album when I was, like, a year old!”

She gaped at Max, probably rethinking her stance on dick for a hot second, and one look around the room told me she was not alone.

Max was dressed in a simple black T-shirt and tight black jeans, ostensibly on the catering staff tonight, but he still looked and sang like a rock star.

Girls and guys watched him in awe as he sang and danced to the upbeat tune, and I made a mental note to threaten him with actual castration if he stuck his dick in any hole belonging to one of the jerks I went to school with tonight.

“He’s so good!” Mari yelled, swaying to the beat.

I decided to join her, and for a moment I had…

a wonderful time. I closed my eyes and focused on Max’s fantastic voice as he slayed one of my favorite songs, feeling the music as I moved.

For a moment, it was just Max, and me, and the song—no mission, no marks, no Families, no rich dicks making my life harder.

And it was as if that last thought had summoned them .

As Max’s song wound down, I opened my eyes to find Noah and Zach at the bar a few feet away, neither of them hiding the fact that they’d just been staring at me. A quick glance back up at their VIP booth told me King Bennett had remained on his throne and was keeping an eye on us.

Mari had wandered away into the crowd to dance, so I was on my own.

“See, man, I told you they teach them how to dance on the Southside,” Zach said, nudging Noah. “Princess is gonna show our refined top Tier ladies how it’s done.”

“She is going to do no such thing,” I retorted, back to leaning on the bar and keeping my eyes on the band. “Go back to your tower. It must be suffocating for you both down here among the plebs.”

“Come on, Joanna,” Noah chided, taking the entire bottle of top-shelf vodka that had just been handed to him by the bartender. “Play nice with us. We’re all here to have fun.”

Says you, Noah .

I gave them both an unimpressed stare, and I watched as their twin smiles slowly vanished, replaced by pursed lips and narrowed eyes aimed at something behind me.

“Hey, Jojo,” Max whispered in my ear as he threw his arms around me. “How’d you like my song? I think I’m better than the original at this point.”

I turned to grin at him. “Perfection, as always, Maxy.”

“Who’s your friend, Princess?” Zach interjected, suddenly very serious.

Max chuckled as I sighed in frustration, glancing over at the two of them again with a look that said they were on my last nerve.

“These guys bothering you, Joanna?” Max asked loudly, then he placed a sweet kiss to my temple while he stared them both down.

Noah had forced a smile back onto his face. “No one is bothering her. I’m Noah Hargraves . Nice to meet you.”

Max, bless him, ignored that flex and continued to act like he had no clue who they were. “Cool, bro. Do you guys go to school with my cousin?”

That got their hackles down—slightly—though Zach still eyed Max’s muscular arm where it was slung across my shoulders like he wanted to cut it off .

“You don’t look like cousins.”

Great, Bennett had descended from on high. He appeared next to Zach, bringing his broody energy with him, and his suspicious stare was aimed at Max.

Max just laughed, desensitized long ago to the power of the Heirs, having lived with one for seven years. “She’s my mom’s niece. I take after my dad.”

“Not that it is any of their business,” I reminded him, glaring at the guys.

“True, true,” Max replied, dismissing three of the most powerful people in the City in an instant as he turned his back on them.

He whispered in my ear, “Now’s the time—Spencer’s left the VIP booth.

I saw Ferrero arrive with his bag, so I’m going to sweep the booth while you distract them. Get out on the dance floor, babe.”

Then he smirked at something over my shoulder before shoving me into someone’s waiting arms. “On your break, Jennings?”

Internal groan. Max, what the fuck?

I looked up to find Matt Jennings, an attractive, nice guy I knew from Dom’s gym and had maybe hooked up with once, staring down at me like I was the sunshine in a storm. “Hi, Joanna. Do you maybe… want to dance?”

“Um, sure, Matt,” I replied. I’d known Max had an inside hookup with tonight’s catering staff, but he failed to inform me that hookup was Jennings . “I can manage a few songs.”

He beamed at me. “Great! I only have ten minutes before I have to be back in the kitchen, anyway.”

He led me out into the middle of the club, holding fast to my hand as we weaved through the throngs of writhing, sweaty bodies.

We reached an open space right out in the middle of everyone, and Matt tugged me into his body as we began to dance to the sultry beat of the band’s cover of a Billie Eilish song.

My back was to his front, giving me a full, unobstructed view of the room. Max had disappeared into thin air the second he’d offloaded me onto Jennings, and knowing him, he’d already been in and out of the VIP booth with no one being the wiser.

The Heirs were still at the bar, a crowd of girls wearing the world’s tiniest dresses now surrounding them and vying for their attention, but it didn’t escape me that their stares continued to wander in our direction.

We certainly made quite the couple, Matt in his black catering uniform and me in my little black romper adrift in a sea of sparkly wealth, two Southside kids possessing the rhythm and a degree of shamelessness the kids from the upper crust rarely did.

I turned to face him, done with my former best friends for the night, and I threw my arms around his neck. “Thanks, Matt. This is nice.”

“We miss you around the gym, you know,” he replied, staring into my eyes with a hint of longing. “ I miss you.”

“Ah, well, you know I’ll be back around for the holidays,” I said, attempting to keep it light and friendly. Jennings was very nice and definitely cute, but I was a one-and-done type of girl.

“I was hoping?—”

“You were hoping to get back to doing your job ,” a familiar voice boomed from behind him, and I tensed. “Beat it, I’m cutting in.”