Page 37 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series
CHAPTER ONE
NOAH - PRESENT DAY
“ I just want to say again how thankful the Families are that Miss Knight has been found alive after all of this time. It saddens us all, though, that she has decided to cook up such a strange vendetta against the Families, who mean only to welcome her back with open arms.”
The pretty blonde robot, the current favorite from the public relations firm the Families had on retainer, smiled brilliantly for the camera before pasting on her sympathetic face.
“We have launched an investigation into the plane crash that so tragically killed Jeffrey and Kerstin Knight, and we will be cooperating with the Bahamian authorities to determine how Miss Knight was somehow mistakenly declared deceased. The Families have also thoroughly examined the supposed ‘evidence’ Miss Knight has given to the media regarding her allegations surrounding her parents’ deaths and have determined each item to be an extremely well-crafted hoax. ”
I shifted in my chair, not bothering to look at the press conference as it played on the flat-screen television that hung on the wall of James Spencer’s office, instead pretending to be engrossed in my phone. I could feel Zach fidgeting next to me.
“We’ve requested that Miss Knight submit to a psychological examination, as the Families suspect she may have sustained head trauma or other lasting injuries in the plane crash that are causing her to invent such outlandish lies about the Families.
She has thus far refused, but rest assured we will continue to insist. It is the Families’ only desire that she receive the best care available so that she may return to being the happy, healthy former Heir we all once knew her to be. ”
James turned off the TV and slammed the remote down on the top of his desk.
He sent his furious glare around the room, sliding it past where Andrea sat primly next to her bodyguard on the couch and over to where Zach, Bennett, and I were seated in the chairs that faced his desk.
As expected, we’d been summoned first thing this morning to face the firing squad.
“I cannot believe that you three were staring that girl in the face for an entire semester and somehow did not figure out who she was,” he seethed. “Have your heads been entirely up your asses this whole time? This is a goddamn disaster!”
“To be fair, Father,” Bennett said, the picture of calm as he’d long ago developed an impenetrable shield when it came to his father’s ire. “She was posing as a scholarship student. We rarely had any reason to interact with her or even notice her at all.”
What a lie that was, but none of our parents would suspect that.
They’d have expected us to keep to ourselves, giving our time and attention only to the caliber of student who merited it.
It would have made even less sense to them than it did to us at the time that we—all fucking three of us—had been so interested in Joanna Miller, the brazen, irritating, but also wildly alluring, scholarship student from the City’s poor Southside.
Well, it all made sense now, didn’t it?
“It’s unfortunate we aren’t able to claim she’s an imposter,” my dad chimed in from his video feed currently streaming on the second flat-screen TV in James’s office.
Of course, not even this was important enough for him to return to the City.
“She had her DNA run by five different independent labs before she came forward. None of the labs are in our network, so we’re unable to alter the results.
The media knows Jeff’s DNA is on file from that bogus paternity suit twenty-five years ago, so she’ll be accepted as the real thing. ”
I glanced his way, knowing he would be able to see the entire room, me included. I hoped he could see the disappointment on my face that he was once again avoiding his problems instead of facing them head-on .
“It is a shame,” Andrea replied coolly, crossing her legs under her tight red skirt and pursing her lips—painted red to match.
“If we’d only have known she was crawling around the Academy like a little cockroach, we could have taken care of the problem.
No one would’ve missed a mangy street rat from the ghetto. ”
Zach, who was dressed in a full suit and tie for our parents, slouched further in his chair.
He crossed his arms across his chest and gave his mother a challenging look.
No doubt that task would’ve fallen on us—just another test —but they were all kidding themselves if they thought Zach, Bennett, or I would ever have harmed a hair on Jolie’s head.
Not after what we went through the first time.
Not that she would’ve believed we didn’t have it out for her.
Jolie had very clearly decided not to trust us—her closest and best friends for the first eleven years of her life—to protect her.
Instead, she chose to lie to us, and now we were on our heels just like our parents were, trying to figure out what to do about this whole fucking mess.
It was a bitter pill for me to swallow.
“Oh, come on, baby,” Andrea cooed at Zach, amused by him as always. “She’s not your childhood friend anymore. She’s a crass little slut who now absolutely reeks of the Southside.”
Bennett cut in before Zach could mouth off. “So, there won’t be a kill order on her?” His blasé tone was a work of art.
“No, unfortunately,” James spat. “Not for the time being. It appears that once she was finished sneaking around, stealing from us, she knew it’d be much harder for us to kill her if she came forward.
Like Andrea said, no one would’ve missed some random bitch from the slums, but if she disappears now, the Families look guilty. ”
We were guilty. And so far, the City appeared divided as to whom they believed.
“James, we will handle this just as we handle everything,” my dad said, not even looking at the camera anymore while he was obviously fiddling with something on his computer.
His graying blond hair was swept artfully behind his ears, and he had a hell of a tan for the middle of December.
I wondered which of his beach properties he was visiting and which of his mistresses he had with him.
“We have everything. She has nothing. It’s her word against ours. ”
“I have already lost one major deal with an overseas investor!” James barked, banging his fist on his desk. “They didn’t want to contend with even the potential of bad PR by associating with Spencer, so they pulled out at the eleventh goddamn hour. This cannot continue.”
“She doesn’t exactly have nothing ,” Andrea added. “We know that the minute she stepped out of that disaster of a party last night, she initiated the process to have her inheritance returned to her from the Knight Foundation.”
James looked at me. “And what does that entail?”
I cleared my throat. I was knowledgeable on this particular point because I was on the foundation’s board.
“All of Mr. and Mrs. Knight’s personal assets at the time of their death, as well as Jolie’s trust fund, were used to fund the foundation as directed by their wills.
The entire amount would have gone to Jolie as their surviving Heir.
The foundation also owns the Knight penthouse, which as you know is currently leased to Anders. ”
Jolie was a billionaire now. But she only had money—Spencer, Hargraves, and Ferrero had descended like vultures on the Knight empire before her parents’ bodies were even cold, and we now owned all of Jeffrey Knight’s shares in the various business enterprises that had made up the very profitable Knight portfolio.
James was thoughtful—his anger finally receding—as he leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers.
“Despite that, Peter makes an excellent point. We are the Families, for fuck’s sake.
She is an orphan—now a rich one—but that doesn’t change the fact that she spent her formative years attending shitty schools on the Southside and being raised by outsiders.
She’s an Heir in name only, and she is an Heir to nothing .
The Knight empire is ours and will continue to be ours.
She has nothing behind her but her money, her ex-Special Forces adoptive father who taught her how to use a parachute, and her adoptive brother who is decent with a computer.
It won’t be long before the entire City realizes she’s not to be taken seriously. ”
Bennett continued to stare emotionlessly at his father while Zach and I just nodded like this made complete sense to us.
None of us—not even Bennett—were going to tell our parents that we suspected Jolie had a lot more than just her new family behind her.
We had started to speculate she was hiding something even when we thought she was just Joanna Miller.
In addition to our growing concern that one of our peers would finally do something to her that would actually kill her, the fact that we’d found her to be increasingly more shady had caused us to distance ourselves and push even harder for her to leave school .
And now that we knew who she actually was?
She wasn’t an idiot. One did not just publicly declare war on the Families for shits and giggles, but it was still so unbelievably reckless, even if she had some kind of help.
“Exactly,” Andrea said, beaming her vicious white smile at James before looking at us.
“This can be stamped out at Holywell. The students will see how this girl, who well and truly is from the Southside, can never compete with the real Heirs. Her illegitimacy will trickle up from the students to their parents, and she’ll be dismissed along with all of her wild stories about us. ”
The three of us just nodded. Of course it would be left to us to deal with their mess, as usual.
“I’ll set up some meetings with my larger investors and partners,” my dad added. “We’ll just need to reassure the big players so that they don’t get skittish. All will be fine.”
“Bennett, I’ll be moving things forward with the Jansens,” James added offhandedly, like that arrangement wasn’t a giant fucking deal for Bennett.
“Not that I’m worried they’d turn on us, but sealing the deal will lock them in.
We can’t afford to lose the partnership of the largest hedge fund in the City. ”
Bennett gave his father a perfunctory nod, but the slight tensing of his jaw and flare of his nostrils didn’t get past me. His imminent engagement wasn’t exactly thrilling him.
“Alright, meeting adjourned,” James said with a lazy wave of his hand. “We’ll keep each other apprised of any developments in this fiasco. And you three—” He glared at us as we stood up from our chairs. “—had better fucking fix this. It is your ineptitude that put us here.”
Zach smirked, but his dark eyes were hard. “I think it was the murders you three committed that put us here. But don’t worry—your clean-up crew is on it.”
Andrea huffed, rolling her eyes. “Zachary, quit that.”
“Out!” James barked, pointing at the door.
We strolled out without another word.