Page 65 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
NOAH
I ’d just shut the door to my office when my phone began buzzing loudly in the pocket of my slacks.
I sighed. I’d really been hoping to get through my afternoon office hours in relative peace—inevitable visit from Annie aside.
My father hadn’t bothered me once this week, and we were about to sail into the weekend without any kidnapping attempts or torture sessions, so it was a win all around for the Heirs.
Other than the fact that Bennett had been stomping around like an ogre since Zach’s birthday, hiding his raging jealousy behind his concern for everyone’s safety.
He wasn’t wrong—Zach was playing a dangerous game, and there was only so long his mom would believe he was seducing Jolie for the benefit of the Families.
I knew I was going to have to make a similar decision because I was not going to just stand around and watch Zach and Jolie ride off into the sunset together. She was mine as much as she was his, and now that she’d opened herself up to an actual relationship?
I wanted in. Badly.
But I had to figure out how to play it.
Jojo’s flushed face was on my mind—the result of Zach giving her a very public and inappropriate kiss goodbye after Finance this morning before passing her right into my arms. I was remembering how I’d held her, whispering in her ear exactly how cute she looked at that moment—when I answered my phone.
“Sir.” Silver’s voice was her usual calm, but there was an undertone of urgency there that I noticed immediately.
“The board members of Hargraves Technologies conducted a clandestine meeting one hour ago in which they voted unanimously to remove Peter Hargraves as Chairman of the Board and CEO of the company.”
“Shit,” I swore.
“There’s more,” she continued, her long fingernails clacking away at her keyboard in the background. “They elected a new Chairman of the Board and CEO within the same ten-minute span.”
Don’t say it.
“Jolie Knight is now the head of Hargraves Technologies, with the power to unilaterally appoint new board members.”
“Fuck.” I collapsed into my chair, and I removed my glasses so that I could pinch the bridge of my nose like that could stop the oncoming headache. “How did she do it?”
“Best we can tell? Blackmail.”
That would do it. Everyone sitting on the board of a Family company had a skeleton hidden somewhere, and somehow Jojo had found them.
Silver continued. “She had more on these people than even we did. They’re shitting their pants. I have to think she’s got a much bigger apparatus behind her than we know.”
“I agree,” I replied. It was still the biggest fucking mystery about her reappearance.
“The board members have all resigned, and we found three of them on the passenger manifests for international flights leaving tonight.”
“Cowards,” I muttered.
“And,” she went on, “we received notice of a meeting of the new board of Hargraves Technologies. As in, through our private back channels, to this team specifically. The notice is to you, sir.”
I sat forward. “I’m formally invited to a meeting of the new board of directors of Hargraves Technologies?”
“It appears so. You have half an hour to get your butt to Knight Tower.”
“Shit. Who else knows?”
More clicking of keys. “As far as we can tell, no one outside the ex- board members. We’re monitoring their cell phones and emails, and no one has yet tried to reach your father.”
I stood up, throwing on my messenger bag as I held my phone between my ear and my shoulder. I grabbed the 9mm I kept stashed in my desk drawer and tucked it into the inner pocket of my suit jacket.
“Monitor all entries and exits into Knight Tower, specifically the floors where Hargraves Tech sits,” I instructed. “And continue to monitor all board members’ communications as well as my dad’s. Keep me updated if this blows up before we can get a handle on what Jolie has planned.”
“On it. Be safe.”
I rushed out the door, typing a quick message to Bennett and Zach to inform them where I was headed and to be on standby if shit went down.
What have you done now, Jolie?
Twenty minutes later, I strode through the door to the main conference room of Hargraves Technologies, located in the heart of Knight Tower. This most profitable piece of the Hargraves empire used to belong to the Knight Family, after all.
I found Jolie there, standing at the head of the sleek, modern conference table that stretched the length of the room.
Dominic Miller and Max both stood like sentries behind her, dressed in black and strapped to the hilt with weapons.
I presumed the others seated around the table were her new board of directors.
Jolie in her boardroom outfit was a sight that almost knocked the wind out of me.
She wore tailored black pants that cinched at her trim waist, and her silky purple blouse reminded me of the fierce eyes of her alter ego, Joanna.
She’d pulled her blonde hair into a low ponytail, and she’d painted her lips a dark blood red.
She radiated poise, confidence, and power, and I just wanted to stand here and soak it up forever.
“Noah, welcome,” she said with a genuine smile, though a hint of nerves peeked through. “Have a seat.”
I took the opposite head of the table. I was still Noah Hargraves, even if she’d just stolen this company right out from under my Family.
“Jolie,” I replied, my tone reproachful. “What’s all this? ”
“I take it your team updated you on what’s happened here?”
I nodded. “They did. You’ve scared off my father’s board of directors and booted him out of his own company.”
Those gorgeous eyes narrowed. “This,” she said in a low rasp, “is my company. Your father stole it from my Family after he participated in their murder.”
I raised my hands in surrender because she was absolutely correct. “I’m aware. Did you invite me here to rub it in?”
She crossed her arms, surveying the room like the regal queen she was. “No. You’re here because you are the fifth member of the new board of directors of this company. And we’re about to hold an important vote.”
It was my turn to frown at her. “What?”
She motioned to the others seated at the table.
“You know Hannah Langford and Devin Kelly, of course.” I did—two classmates of ours from old Knight-allied families that were still deeply involved in the City’s tech industry.
“And this is Devin’s uncle, Joshua Kelly.
” She pointed at the smiling man in his fifties with a graying goatee and a ponytail.
His biotech company was the crown jewel in the Langford portfolio, and they were both apparently defecting from Spencer with this show of fealty to Knight.
“And me?” I asked. “You’re appointing me to the board?”
“I am.” She held my stare, the intensity in those aquamarines imploring me— pleading with me—to understand.
I did.
She held up a thick legal document. “We’re entertaining a generous offer by Knight Acquisitions to purchase 100 percent of the stock of Hargraves Technology and all subsidiaries. The vote begins now.”
There it was. Jolie was here to take back this part of her legacy, to strip it away from my father, and there was nothing he could do about it from where he sat in Belize or wherever the fuck he was right now.
“I vote yes,” Hannah said, tossing me a wink.
Devin was next. “I vote yes.”
“I absolutely think this is the right direction for our company,” Joshua Kelly said with a theatrical flourish of his hand, “so I vote yes.”
“And, of course,” Jolie said, her eyes meeting mine again, “I vote yes.”
She had the majority. She didn’t need my vote. She was giving me a seat at the table anyway, and I had the out to vote “no” and save face with my father while still being involved in the company that had been my Family’s for seven and a half years.
I gave my girl a smile that I hoped conveyed even a fraction of what I felt for her. I was in awe of her, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her now and forever—she only had to ask.
“I vote yes.”
She beamed at me as applause broke out.
My phone blared in my pocket.
SLVR : HG ENFORCERS DISPATCHED BY PH INCOMING. PREPARE TO ENGAGE
I dropped my phone onto the table, and my frantic gaze slammed into Dominic Miller’s.
He’d already tensed, reading on my face what was coming. “Barricade them all in the bathroom,” he barked at Max. “ Now .”
Max and Jolie both jumped into action, and they’d just shoved Hannah into the large connected bathroom behind the other two board members and slammed its heavy door when a bullet shattered the glass wall of the conference room.
“Get down!” Dom shouted.
He and Max flipped the long conference table on its side, the two of them dropping to the floor, and Jolie dove behind it one second later.
“Noah!” she screamed.
I’d already rolled to the side wall of the conference room, coming to a stop near the front. I pulled the chair I’d been sitting in over my head to shield my body from the shards of glass that rained down over the room.
My stomach was in my throat, and not in fear for my own safety. These bullets weren’t for me—they were here for Jolie.
She’d finally struck at the Families—at Hargraves—right where it would hurt the most, and my dad had apparently decided to use deadly force to prevent her from taking this company from him—no matter the fallout.
Four Enforcers entered, broken glass crunching under their heavy combat boots as they waded into the room, their standard semi-automatic pistols held aloft. “Everyone, freeze!”
Dom popped up and fired a shot at the leader Enforcer, burying the round in his shoulder. He stumbled, his gun discharging at the ceiling, and Dom used that small moment of chaos to fire another round right into his head. His lifeless body dropped to the floor.
“Mr. Hargraves!” one of the remaining Enforcers said as he spotted me against the wall behind my chair and rushed toward me. “Sir, we didn’t know you were in here! I’ll cover you—head for the exit!”