Page 41 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series

CHAPTER FIVE

NOAH

“ D o you have something you want to tell us?”

Zach had cornered Bennett in the noisy hallway as soon as we’d exited the dining hall. We’d made our escape quickly after Jolie had stomped away from us in a rage, all of us wanting to avoid being stared at any longer by the masses.

Bennett eyed Zach, annoyed, before he blew out a breath, signaling his surrender.

“It was a mistake,” he said, sounding glum, but it did not escape my notice that Bennett James Spencer actually had a slight flush to his cheeks at the memory of his apparently getting Jolie off in the locker room showers. “A costly one,” he added.

Zach grinned like this was the best news ever and not a sticky complication to an already well and truly fucked situation.

“No, it wasn’t. If she hadn’t made it into Spencer Tower after that, she might still be hiding from us.

All of it led us to exactly where we are now—back with our girl.

You thinking with your dick for once in your life did us a favor.

But I’ll admit, I’m pretty fucking jealous, man. ”

So was I, but I would not be admitting it.

Bennett wiped away the wistful look that had crept onto his face, replacing it with his usual scowl after Zach snickered at him. He looked at me. “Tell me that at least you are seeing sense. Nothing about that little meeting inspired confidence that she’ll do the right thing.”

“No, it did not,” I agreed. “And I don’t think we should be surprised.

The girl we got to know last semester is the real her, even if her name was fake.

I didn’t think she’d just show up here as Jolie and suddenly be the sweet, happy girl we used to know or another demure Academy debutante who only cares about clothes, diamonds, and rich men.

She’s still the same stubborn, reckless?—”

“Hot,” Zach added.

“Troublemaker,” Bennett finished.

“Yes, okay, you’re both following,” I said with a frustrated sigh.

“And she’s got to be carrying a lot of trauma from that night.

She needs this war, so it won’t be easy to talk her down.

I just….” I sagged against the wall, closing my eyes to concentrate on blocking out the terrible memories threatening to overwhelm me, and I whispered, “I can’t lose her again. ”

“Me neither,” Zach agreed quietly.

I opened my eyes to find Bennett staring at his shoes, his jaw tense, but he didn’t have to say the words.

He was angry, and he was going to stand for his Family, but I knew he’d die before he let her get hurt again.

We split up, Bennett on his way to his morning Lit Seminar, while Zach and I trudged to the third floor of Holywell Hall to our Finance class.

We entered the large lecture hall five minutes before the start of class, taking our usual seats in the center, near the back of the room.

We watched as students filled in around us—all freshman and sophomores in this class—with the Tier Ones snagging the seats in our immediate vicinity, the Tier Two kids fanning around them, and the few scholarship students taking what was left.

“What’s up, man?” Dane Jefferson said to Zach as he offered his fist for Zach to bump before dropping into the row in front of us. “How was the break?”

“It was interesting,” Zach replied, distracted as his eyes snagged on something at the front of the room.

Dane followed his gaze. “I’ll, uh… I’ll bet.”

Jolie had entered the room, the picture of calm now, with Mari Anzaldua by her side. She ran those beautiful, vibrant eyes over the faces of our classmates—almost like a warning—before she and Mari climbed the steps toward the back of the classroom.

“Ugh, of course she’s in this class,” Lisa Aviano huffed from next to Dane.

She’d practically elbowed six girls out of the way to snag the seat nearest to Zach.

She turned around to give him her flirty eyes.

“But you guys are going to handle her, right? Mom says she’s a pretender, and we all saw how trashy she was last semester anyhow.

” She looked beyond us, raising her voice. “We all know Knight is dead .”

“Oh shit!” Dane laughed, turning around like he wanted a high-five or something.

Zach just stared at them both, his lazy smirk dripping with disdain as he worried at his lip ring.

Meanwhile, Jolie found her way to a seat in the row behind us, her backpack thudding to the floor before she and Mari sat down.

I shook my head at Dane, doing my best to keep my face neutral while I waited for the shit to hit the fan.

“You know what, Lisa?” Jolie said from behind us with a chuckle. “Just for that, I have a surprise for you and all of your Tier One brethren. Tell your mom I made it extra special for you for being a deplorable cunt.”

Shit. I whipped around in my chair just in time to see her casually typing something into her phone while Mari giggled next to her.

“Jolie,” I said, my voice stern. “Whatever it is you think you’re doing—don’t.”

She punched one more button before locking her screen and dropping the phone on the desktop. She looked at me with a teasing glint in her eyes. “You know, Noah, I wasn’t expecting the bossy vibes from you. That was always Bennett’s thing, but you have surprised me a few times now.”

I couldn’t help the coy smile that spread across my face despite the fact that I knew she was about to start trouble.

“If you only knew, Jojo,” I whispered, while Zach snorted a laugh next to me. She peered down at me, curiosity piqued, and I winked at her before I said, gently, “Why don’t you be a good girl and tell me what you’re up to?”

She bit down on the cap of the pen she’d been twirling in her hand, now studying me with great interest, and I lapped it up until the loud vibrations of several phones jolted me back to reality.

“Oh fuck,” Dane swore as he swiped open his phone .

More buzzing came from other phones around us.

“ What the ? — ”

“ Wait, how did ? — ”

I grabbed my phone, shooting a message to the head of my tech team, and she responded within twenty seconds with a link.

“Oh, Jojo, you menace,” Zach said with a laugh, looking at his own phone.

I opened the link to the report from my team.

A package of sorts had just been sent electronically to each outside shareholder of every Tier One-owned company in the City.

These were the investors without ties to the City—those that lived elsewhere in the country and overseas, many of whom may not yet have heard Jolie’s allegations or at least not seen the full picture.

The package contained an affidavit from Jolie herself telling the story of her parents’ murder—along with the video from the Holiday Ball and all of the pieces of evidence she’d stolen from our Family vaults, neatly arranged.

There were also apparently descriptions and illustrations of each company’s ties or involvement with the Four Families.

Jolie had somehow launched this from her phone sixty seconds ago. I had a feeling she was also responsible for the fact that the videos that had been floating around the internet since that night kept popping back up even after the Families had them taken down.

“You bitch!” Lisa cried. “Stop harassing our investors with your insane bullshit!”

“They won’t believe it, anyway,” Dane muttered.

No, some would believe it—the outsiders weren’t as loyal, weren’t as ingrained in the City or brainwashed by the opulence of the Four Families.

I watched from my portal as shareholders in businesses in which Hargraves had an interest were already selling off their shares, many at bargain rates since we’d seen the value of all Family-connected enterprises take a bit of a dip after Jolie went public.

My phone buzzed, and I put it to my ear.

“Sir, many of the shares being sold by outside groups are being picked up by a Knight Acquisitions, Inc.,” my team lead informed me. “We have no information on this company, but we can hazard a guess.”

“We can,” I said grimly. “Thanks. ”

I hung up, turning again to look at Jolie, who was chatting with Mari like nothing at all was happening.

Her eyes met mine, and they sparkled with pleased triumph. I didn’t know if I wanted to spank her or kiss her.

“So, it’s like that, is it?” I asked.

“It is,” she replied, her smile dimming. “Did you think I was going to just sit around and hope for the best?”

It was probably me who had been sitting around, hoping for the best.

“No,” I replied. “But I wish you would.”

After our morning classes had finished, the three of us skipped lunch in the dining hall, choosing instead to deal with shit from our dorm before we had to go back to class.

The Tier One businesses who were hit the hardest had immediately looked to the Families for help, and everyone was scrambling to prepare a statement that would once again make Jolie out to be a poor, confused orphan with misplaced anger.

We’d each fielded angry (or in my case, disappointed) texts from our parents like it was somehow our fault that Jolie got the jump on the Families yet again.

Bennett had managed to stem the bleeding from one of Harper’s dad’s companies by personally calling the largest outside shareholder, who was based in Belgium, and talking him out of selling his shares.

When I stalked into my Chemistry lab that afternoon in a mood, I was not expecting a seating chart like we were in middle school.

And I definitely was not expecting to be paired with Jolie as my lab partner for the entire semester.

She was already seated at the lab table when I approached, reading something on her tablet and absently twirling that pen through her nimble fingers again.

A strand of her white-blonde hair had fallen out of her ponytail and across her face, and I resisted the sudden, consuming urge to sweep it behind her ear.

She glanced up at me as I sat down on my stool, our workspaces separated by a small sink and row of drawers built into the table. “Hey, partner,” she said casually .

Before I could respond, Annie stalked up the center aisle, her thin legs on full display in her short navy skirt and her giant designer handbag thrown over her shoulder.

“Ugh, Noah, I cannot believe the professor sat you with her and not with me. He should know better.” She tossed her bag down on the table behind us. “What are you looking at?”

“Annie, always a pleasure,” Mari murmured, seated at the station behind Jolie.

“I’ll speak to the professor after class,” Annie said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure I can get him to trade seats.”

In all honesty, I probably should have tried to avoid being stuck with Jolie as my lab partner for the entire semester. It wouldn’t be good for my… focus.

But Annie Ling had participated in a scheme that put our Jojo in a dangerous situation last semester where she’d almost been raped . It wasn’t something I was going to get over, and I’d already put my team on making sure I’d be able to… contain Annie, if necessary.

So instead of capitulating to the daughter of my dad’s closest ally, I replied, uncharacteristically terse, “No, thank you, Annie. I think you’ll remember that Jolie and I are old friends. We should be able to work together just fine.”

She gasped, withdrawing her hand from my shoulder to literally clutch her pearls. “But Noah. She’s spreading evil lies about your Family!”

“Whereas you’re practically spreading your legs right here in this classroom,” Mari snapped at her. “ Joder , just sit in your damn seat. You can stare at Noah’s ass from back here.”

Jolie snorted, and I could only roll my eyes as Annie sat down on her stool in a huff.

“Such a lady-killer these days,” Jolie mused to me in a whisper. “I should’ve seen it coming. That sunshine smile could melt even the iciest of panties.”

I gave her that very smile, turning the charm up to a thousand, well aware that I should probably quit engaging with her like this but unable to stop myself. “Hmm, maybe,” I replied, arching a playful brow. “But being an Heir to billions helps more, I think.”

She blinked at me, looking a little dazed, before shaking her head and going right back to studying the syllabus.

I liked that particular reaction way too much .

The professor finally called the class to attention, diving straight into the lesson with harried scrawls on the whiteboard. After an hour of lecture, we were turned loose to work through a practical.

I’d been off in my head for most of the class, puzzling over the chaos my best friend’s return from the dead had wrought.

As I watched more Hargraves-connected companies lose investors through my team’s constant updates, I found that I didn’t feel angry or panicked or anything else I was probably supposed to be feeling.

I found myself almost enjoying the fact that my father would have to pop his head up from wherever he was to deal with it. And I was intrigued and a little dumbfounded as to how Jolie had managed this.

Not that she would ever tell me.

I let out a frustrated sigh at the thought.

“You mad at me, Noah?” she murmured from next to me as she fiddled with some beakers.

I looked at her, the relief that she was here flooding my veins as it did every time I laid eyes on her, but that feeling was constantly at war with the sadness and the hurt over all the time we’d lost when it didn’t have to be that way.

“I’m… upset, Jojo,” I replied. “I’m upset that you didn’t feel like you could come to us—that you decided to deceive us instead.

I’m gutted that we could’ve had the last seven years with you if we’d just somehow known you were still alive.

And I’m frustrated and frankly terrified that you’re going to end up dead anyway if you keep this up. ”

She met my eyes, and I saw some of the sadness I felt reflected back at me.

“This was what kept me going, Noah,” she said, her voice soft.

“I have to do this—for them . It was never about you—or Bennett or Zach—but unfortunately, you’re your parents’ sons, and that means I’m coming for your legacy.

I won’t let what they did stand. I can’t .

” She sighed, turning back to her work. “We’re on opposite sides of this war, and I’m sorry for that. ”

I turned on my stool to face her fully. “Maybe you shouldn’t have assumed so much about the three of us.

Maybe you should have trusted that the bond we all once shared was strong enough that when faced with what it would mean to have you back in our lives, our priorities would have been in the right order. ”

We sat there, staring at each other in silence for another minute until the professor dismissed the class. Jolie sighed, packed up her bag, and stood up from her chair.

As she made her way past me, she paused and whispered, “I missed you guys too.”

And then she was gone again.