Page 42 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series

CHAPTER SIX

JOLIE

“ S o, how’s Heir life treating you today?”

Max’s voice emanated from where my phone lay on the counter of my luxurious bathroom in my new condo in A Dorm.

I’d taken a long bath in my clawfoot tub last night, and I was now leaning over my gold-flecked sink as I applied my mascara in the large mirror, its ornate filigree frame glinting under the bright white lights of the vanity.

There was, of course, no fourth bedroom available for me in the giant top-floor condo renovated especially for the Heirs, but after applying some light pressure to the Academy’s housing office, they’d magically found a vacant two-bedroom unit just one floor below.

I’d loved my little room in C Dorm, but I was an Heir now, so it was A Dorm or bust.

Mari and I had moved in last night, with the burgeoning Knight empire footing the bill for both of us. She’d put up a token resistance to my request to be my roommate rent-free before squealing with glee and packing her room faster than I’d known she could move.

“Well, the day is young,” I replied to Max, reaching for my dark-pink lip stain. “That little exercise yesterday hopefully demonstrated to the Tier One assholes that I’m serious.”

“I’d say so,” Dom chimed in. “I know we did it mostly to screw with them, but the acquisitions team reported it was actually a pretty successful day.”

Life had been a blur since I’d jumped off the roof of Spencer Tower a little more than a month ago.

While I’d suspected that Frankie would keep my secret, he was unpredictable, and I couldn’t risk it.

I’d disappeared from the Academy to go home, and I’d thrown myself into working with Dom, Max, and our team of Shadows to accelerate my plans to come out as the Knight Heir and publicly declare war on the Families.

We’d stripped the dye from my hair, and I’d tossed the collection of color contacts I’d amassed over the years.

We’d prepared the evidence I’d stolen from each of the Families over the course of the semester to be handed over to the press because the cops in the City were bought and paid for, so they were of no use to me.

My lawyers—two sharp women in their forties who’d worked in the Knight organization before being recruited over to the Shadows after my parents’ deaths—began the process to form my first company.

They’d also reached out to the chairman of the Knight Foundation, who was an old friend of my parents and as neutral as one could be in this City, to begin the process of returning my inheritance.

Now I was flush with cash, and so was our operation.

A knock sounded at my bathroom door. “Chica , we’re going to be late, and I wanted a waffle,” Mari whined.

“I’ll buy you a waffle maker for our kitchen!” I called back as I put the finishing touches on my hair—a long braid over one shoulder today.

“Oooh, I love having a sugar mama,” she gushed, and I heard the sound of high heels clicking on the shiny hardwood of my bedroom floor as she retreated, shouting, “I want one of the ones shaped like Texas!”

Weirdo.

“Weirdo,” Max said.

A few days before the Holiday Ball, I’d called Mari and told her I needed her at our apartment in Olde Town for an emergency situation.

Like the good friend she was, she’d appeared at our door less than half an hour later.

After taking in my real hair and eye color, she’d been so shocked that Max had to carry her to the couch, where we all sat as I told her my entire story.

She’d cursed and yelled, feeling more than a little betrayed that the person she’d thought was her best friend was a fabrication, before she’d dissolved into tears over the real tragedy of my life and loss.

Then she’d hopped down from Max’s lap, dusted herself off, and prepped me to look killer at the Holiday Ball, where I was going to look James Spencer himself in his haughty fucking face and tell him I was coming for him.

And I’d done it. I’d managed—by the skin of my teeth—to control the urge to launch myself off that stage and bury my knife in his heart. I’d kept my composure and delivered my message, and I’d left that hall mostly unscathed.

Mostly , because nothing could have really prepared me to watch as Bennett, Zach, and Noah comprehended—before just about anyone else in that room—that their best friend Jojo was back from the dead.

And she’d been under their noses, masquerading as Joanna Miller, the scholarship student from the wrong side of the tracks, for months without them suspecting a thing.

It was like I saw their hearts breaking in real time.

My heart had broken in the same way but gradually—little by little over the first few years as I had to accept the fact that even though my best friends were just across the river, I couldn’t see them.

I couldn’t talk to them. I couldn’t hug them while I cried for my parents.

I couldn’t tell them I was okay or see how they were holding up after being forced to watch that horrific scene.

And then I’d had more years to bury those feelings, to let my boys go, to blur the memories of my old friends into my anger and hatred for the Families.

They’d had to feel a lot of things within a span of about three minutes, and watching it unfold had almost cracked those rickety fractures in my heart back open again.

I saw the shock, the horror, the relief, and the betrayal on each of their faces—and it now seemed like the three of them had landed in different places as to how they felt about it all.

Zach seemed ready to welcome me back into the Heir fold, but it remained to be seen how much of that was genuine. It could all still be a game to him after all.

Noah, by his own admission, was upset with me and would be nursing his hurt feelings for who knew how long. Then he’d have to decide if he was with me or against me because there was no middle ground .

As for Bennett, he was angry, probably for many reasons, but I wasn’t going to let his attitude deter me.

Bennett Spencer didn’t scare me.

I should scare him .

“Okay, honey, we’ll let you go,” Dom said. “Your brother needs to get his ass to school, anyway.”

“Bye, Jojo!” Max called in the background. “See you at home for the long weekend?”

“Yep, I’ll be there,” I replied, zipping my makeup bag and fluffing my braid. “Tell the rest of the team to take it easy for a few days, since our little experiment worked so well.”

“You got it, boss,” Dom said with a laugh, ending the call.

I took one last look in the mirror, smoothing my burgundy cashmere sweater that I’d paired with the tight, dark blue jeans I’d spent eight hundred fucking dollars on during my shopping spree over the break with Mari so I could “look like an Heir.” I stuck my little knife in my new motorcycle boots—also a new purchase that’d cost me four figures, but damn was the black leather soft and supple—and I was ready to go.

Mari escorted me to the dining hall as usual, veering off to the buffet line after we entered and picking up a trail of fanboys and girls on her way like some kind of rich kid Pied Piper.

The same thing had happened yesterday, and today there were even more of them.

This told me there was a minority contingent of students who weren’t so sure the Families hadn’t committed an atrocious murder, or at least they were hedging their bets by attempting to get in with the Knight Heir—and they were trying to go through Mari to do it.

Feeling the stares of the other students hitting me from all sides as I walked confidently down the aisle between the rows of long wooden tables, I set my sights again on the little private table up on the dais at the front of the room.

It was empty, since I’d beaten the other Heirs here this morning.

As I approached, I spotted the dean standing off to the side of the platform, conversing with the dining manager with a serious look on her face. Spying me, she quickly ended her conversation and strode up and onto the dais, positioning herself in front of the empty table to stare down at me.

“A moment, please, Miss Knight,” she said, her words terse.

I stood there, arms crossed, irritated that Dean Jansen was looming above me like I should find her intimidating.

I didn’t.

“What’s going on here, Princess?” Zach’s voice sounded from behind me, and he appeared at my side a moment later, looking disheveled and hot, per his usual.

Noah came around to my other side, wearing a perfectly fitted gray vest and a bowtie, while Bennett stepped beside him, sharp in his navy suit and just as pissed off as I was that he was having to crane his entitled neck to look up at the dean.

“I apologize, Mr. Spencer,” Dean Jansen said, more placating toward him than she was with me—go figure.

“But the Academy has decided to… do away with the Heirs’ table.

We encourage the Heirs to mix amongst your peers—the ones you deem worthy of your attention, of course—as this is one of the most opportune times for networking with the top-tier students. ”

Bennett glared at her while Zach snorted out a laugh. “Are we just calling James Spencer ‘the Academy’ now?”

Her eyes darted to me before landing on Zach, her annoyance with his attitude wrestling with her reverence for his station, before she said, patiently, “As you know, Mr. Ferrero, all three of your parents are on the Academy’s Board of Trustees. They advise on our policies as needed.”

“Well,” I said with a shrug of my shoulder, not wanting to draw this nonsense out. “It looks like the Families would rather there be no Heirs on a pedestal than risk the visual of all four of us together every day, lending me any legitimacy.”

“Yep,” Noah muttered under his breath, “since having you bodily removed from the table would look… uncivilized.” He glanced at me. “Because we all know it would have come to that.”

I chuckled. It sure would have.