Page 38 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series

CHAPTER TWO

ZACH

I threw myself onto the giant leather couch in the Hargraves penthouse living room, having already shucked my suit jacket and loosened my tie.

We’d piled into Noah’s precious electric car and driven straight here because Noah’s was the Family home in which we were least likely to run into any of our parents.

“Fuck, that was annoying,” I said as I stretched. “Shocker that we’re being blamed for this.”

Noah flopped down next to me while Bennett grabbed the recliner.

“I didn’t sleep at all last night,” Noah griped, hanging his head in his hands. “Did you guys?”

“Fuck no,” I replied.

“No, I didn’t,” Bennett said, jerking his tie off with an angry pull. “I still just… cannot fucking believe this.”

“Yeah,” I said with a big grin. “Jojo’s back, and she’s a fucking wet dream. I can’t wait until the semester starts so we can make her our girl.”

They both stared at me like I was nuts.

I was not nuts. This was the only way it could be, and they needed to get on board.

“Are you out of your mind?” Bennett finally sputtered. “She is here to destroy us.”

“I know,” I said, my smile only getting bigger. “ It’s so hot.”

“Zach,” Noah chided in his patronizing-teacher voice. “She doesn’t feel that way about us. I’m not sure she feels anything for us anymore. She showed up to campus, lied to our faces, and stole from us.”

I waved a dismissive hand at him. “I’d be pretty pissed too if I were her. Weren’t you listening? She heard everything .”

Noah winced, and even Bennett looked depressed.

“ We didn’t kill her parents,” Noah pointed out in a hushed, sad voice.

“And yet she’s deceived us and declared war,” Bennett added. “Anything you thought you felt for her as Joanna Miller was a lie, Zach.”

I arched a brow at him. “Anything all three of us felt for Joanna Miller was because she’s Jolie Knight, you dumbasses.”

I’d tumbled through many stages of grief during the five minutes that our world had been turned upside down at the Holiday Ball.

Shock, denial, anger, profound sadness, and so on, but after we’d watched our Jojo waltz out of that hall looking like sex on a stick and an avenging angel all at once, I’d landed on the only thing I knew I could possibly feel about having her back with us.

Pure, unadulterated joy.

The fact that she was now a tall, smart-mouthed, gorgeous goddess was icing on the cake. She was our fourth, our missing piece, and she belonged with us.

Fuck literally anything and everything else.

“You’re insane,” Bennett said, exasperated—his usual mode these days.

I was adept at ignoring it, and I also did not miss that he failed to deny the fact that he had some kind of feelings for our feisty princess from the Southside.

“She’ll lure you in and then gut you, Zach.

You can’t trust her—she isn’t the same girl we knew. ”

I rolled my eyes. “We’re not the same boys she knew, either. The Families have done a number on us all , Bennett.”

“Are we at least in agreement that our parents are underestimating her?” Noah asked, bouncing his foot restlessly where it was crossed elegantly over his knee.

“She may not have an empire under her, but she managed to get in and out of three of the most secure places in the entire City, completely undetected.”

“Agreed,” Bennett replied. “But she’s still no match for the might of the Families, especially now that we know she’s coming.”

“We have to convince her to abandon this crusade,” Noah added. “I won’t watch her get herself killed. Not again. She should take her money and run.”

She probably should, but I was selfish—I wanted to keep her.

“We can protect her,” I said with confidence. “Remember our oath, Bennett? We look out for each other—no one else matters. She was the reason for that oath, and she’s one of us.”

“How do you suggest we do that while she’s also actively trying to bring down the Families?” Bennett retorted.

“Not to mention our parents would lose it if they thought we were playing too nice with her,” Noah added.

Our parents lost it about a lot of things, and I was finished caring. My mom only played at being a loving parent, and I’d stopped giving a shit about Ferrero a long time ago. I’d been in survival mode, taking it day by day, but now I had something I wanted .

My brothers and I would get our Jojo back, and we’d be whole again.

“Both of you need to grow some balls,” I growled. “This is our girl we’re talking about. After everything she endured last semester, or, fuck, the last seven years? Her balls are bigger than all of ours put together. Sack up, or she won’t want us.”

I looked between the two of them, hoping they understood how serious I was. Noah had stalled in the sadness phase of grief and would need a little time, while Bennett was likely going to be stuck in the angry phase until he pulled his head out of his ass.

Fine. I’d wait, and I hoped Jojo would do the same.

They exchanged a look that definitely said, “Let’s change the subject so he’ll lay off,” before Noah sighed, saying, “School is going to be… interesting.”

Bennett scoffed. “The shitshow that was last semester was a cakewalk compared to what this will be.”

I could only laugh, my maniacal grin returning.

It had been so extremely entertaining to observe as our fellow classmates finally caught on to who was speaking to them at the Holiday Ball.

Watching as each of them comprehended that the girl they’d been calling “slum trash” for an entire semester was actually a motherfucking Heir of the Four Families had been like watching a car crash in slow motion.

Bennett’s future fiancée had looked as though she’d bitten into something very sour. That was going to be an interesting dynamic and not at all fun for Bennett to navigate.

I only felt a little bit sorry for him. It was time for him to tell his father to fuck all the way off, even if we didn’t have access to our trust funds yet. I was so tired of watching him try to please that man.

“Oh, good morning, sirs,” Gifford Buckley, Noah’s sniveling family butler, said as he bustled into the room. “Can I, um… offer you some late breakfast? Perhaps a drink to take the edge off?”

The staff would be abuzz with the news of the return of the dead Knight Heir, the gossip always managing to spread like wildfire between those who were closest to the Families.

“No, thank you, Buckley,” Noah replied with his polite smile. Buckley was a nosy ass-kisser and a tattletale who annoyed the shit out of Noah, but he’d had him handled for several years now. “Any news on when my father may return?”

“Oh, uh… none, sir,” he replied. “He checked in as usual this morning but did not inform me of plans to return. Your mother has also sent word she will not be coming home for the holidays.”

“I see,” Noah replied, nonplussed. Noah’s mom had bailed when he was ten years old and rarely showed her face in the City anymore. She was married to Noah’s dad on paper only, and Noah had stopped letting it bother him years ago. “You’re dismissed, thank you, Buckley.”

He scampered out of the room like the weasel he was.

A moment later, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

“Fuck,” I swore, seeing the text from my mother. “Mom wants to meet with me in an hour.”

“I’m sure my father will want the same,” Bennett muttered, now slouched in his chair and staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the dark waters of the Obsidian River glittering like black diamonds in the midmorning sun. “Just to drive it all home one more time.”

I stood up, texting my team to schedule a car back to Ferrero Tower because God forbid an Heir walk four blocks out in the open.

I looked down at the morose fuckers who were my best friends, my brothers, the people I considered my real family, and I knew we were going to make it through this just like we always did.

“Buck up, team,” I said. “We’ll figure out how to handle everything. We’re the fucking Heirs. ”

And our Jojo was alive.

Their resolve seemed to harden, at least a little, and I knew my work here was done.

For now.

“Zachary, baby, I’m concerned that you are not taking this little hiccup seriously enough.”

My mom sat behind the ornate golden desk in her home office located on the main floor of our penthouse and just off our large, sparkling white kitchen that she’d never set foot in, to my knowledge.

She had her makeup mirror out and was reapplying her blood-red lipstick before she was off to the Club to lure her next victim into whatever scheme was her current focus.

Ramon, her long-time bodyguard and sometimes fuck-buddy, stood at the door and watched her with his usual intensity, while Frankie lounged against the wall of the office, playing some mindless game on his phone and half listening to her pouting.

I gave her my most charming smile. “Mom, do I ever take anything that seriously?”

She let out a tinkling little laugh, like I was just so precious. It was a game we played. She fawned over me, I charmed her, and we danced around each other like this until I did something to really disappoint her.

She used to toss me to Ramon or the Enforcers to be taught a lesson so that she could continue to pretend to be my sweet, caring mother.

Until I started to fight back. I made sure I became the most dangerous of them all.

So, now we were in a stalemate of sorts. I was usually a good little soldier, cleaning up the Family’s messes when I felt like it.

I didn’t feel like it at this particular moment.

“It’s just very important that the City sees that girl as an unhinged pretender, certainly unqualified to hold the title of an Heir,” Mom went on, now dabbing powder on her cheeks.

“Of course, if she wants to pick a fight with the Families, we’ll crush her like the annoying little bug she is.

But all of this bad publicity is very annoying, baby. ”

“I’m sure it is, Mom,” I replied lazily. “But we have people for that.”

She eyed me now, finally tearing her dark eyes away from her reflection. “You just need to remember she’s not your friend anymore, sweetie. I would very much appreciate it if you didn’t defy me on this.”

“Oh, Mom,” I said, returning her sharklike grin. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

She narrowed her eyes at me, still holding onto her smile until her glare swung to an oblivious Frankie, and that smile slid right off of her face.

“I needn’t remind you, little brother,” she hissed. “That this is your fuckup. If you’d have just put a bullet in that little bitch before she jumped off of the roof of Spencer Tower, none of this would be happening.”

Frankie glanced up at her, unperturbed. “My deepest apologies, Andrea. Shall I present myself for a lashing? Ten ought to do it, don’t you think?”

“You are not funny, you psychopathic little shit,” she barked. “You think I can’t take the Ferrero name away just as easily as I gave it to you? You have a place in this Family so long as you remain useful to me. And letting a dead girl smear our good name through the mud is Not. Fucking. Useful .”

He only grinned at her. He was used to her attitude with him, the annoying little bastard half brother who was dumped on her years ago, but I hated it. Frankie bled for this Family just as I did, and he deserved better, even if he was a little… off.

“I think failing to kill that girl in the first place was the fuckup, dear sister,” he replied. “The almighty heads of the Families couldn’t even shoot a defenseless little girl! How unfortunate.”

She slammed her mirror down onto the desk, and the resulting crack echoed across the vaulted ceilings of her study.

“Out! Both of you,” she commanded, then she paused with a tight smile sent back in my direction. “Zachary, handle this at the Academy for me, please?”

“Of course, Mom,” I said with a shitty little wave, and then I followed Frankie out the door.

I made my way to the stairs, intending to grab a bag of clothes from my bedroom before returning to Noah’s for the duration of the break, when Frankie fell into step beside me.

“You’re welcome for the little gift I sent you,” he practically sang at me.

“What do you mean?” I replied, only half-paying attention to him as I climbed the stairs, and he followed.

“Your girl. I let her jump off that roof.”

I came to an abrupt halt on the second-floor landing, whirling around to grab him by the collar of his ratty T-shirt, and I shoved him into a corner of the dim hallway.

He smirked at me, not bothered at all by my manhandling him.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’d pulled her pack off of her in the scuffle, so she was trapped on that roof,” he said, his smirk turning manic. “I had her cornered, and when I pulled her mask down, I recognized her instantly. I can’t believe you idiots hadn’t.”

“You’re shitting me, man,” I said, shaking my head. “You haven’t seen her since she was like, eight or nine years old.”

“Fine, I cheated,” he replied, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I heard her partner call her Jojo . And given the situation we were in, it just sparked my curiosity. And when you’re looking at her face with that in mind, it’s pretty fucking obvious.”

I sighed. It made sense. Our sweet Jojo was dead—why would we ever have thought the brash, insolent, delicious scholarship student from Southside could be her?

“And you… let her go?” I asked quietly.

“I couldn’t let an opportunity for such fireworks pass us by.”

Frankie did love chaos, thank fuck. I owed him.

“Plus,” he added, patting me on the chest. “I knew you’d want her back. Just looking out for my nephew.”

And sticking it to my mom.

“I… yeah. It was the right call, dude,” I said, then I fixed him with a stern glare. “But a heads-up would’ve been nice.”

He just chuckled. “Where’s the fun in that? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a few unfortunate souls who owe Andrea a lot of money. ”

He pushed away from where I had him trapped against the wall and sauntered off down the stairs.

This entire situation just kept getting wilder, and I, for one, was looking forward to riding the rollercoaster.