Page 8 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series

CHAPTER FIVE

“ Y ou did what ?”

Dom’s deep voice boomed through my earbuds since Max had decided that he needed to make my life harder by putting my call on speaker.

“What part of keep a low profile did you not get?” Dom continued. I could hear him banging around in the kitchen as he spoke.

“Dom, I would rather actually drown in the Obsidian than get on my fucking knees in front of the Heirs and their flock of asslickers like that.”

“Hell yeah,” Max chimed in. “That’s our girl.”

“Max! You’re not helping,” Dom griped.

“Look,” I said, changing the subject. “Is there anything I need to know about yesterday’s perimeter check, Max?”

“Not really,” he replied, his mouth full of whatever he was eating for breakfast before going to school.

“It’s as we suspected—they’ve added Family Enforcers on rotation at the gates, but the Heirs aren’t closely watched while they’re on campus.

No personal bodyguards. The tech on their dorm penthouse security system is top-of-the-line, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. ”

“You got into A Dorm? My barcode wouldn’t get you in there.”

He chuckled. “I met a nice girl on my way over there. She let me use her bathroom, and I now have a high-resolution picture of her ID. I’ll be getting you your duplicate with the A Dorm access as soon as we get it made.”

Stellar. Dom had been hesitant to let Max to join an organization like the Shadows so young, but he was proving himself every day.

“You’re the best,” I replied. “Alright, I gotta go to class. I’m going to spend a few weeks just getting the lay of the land. Let me know if anything changes in the meantime.”

“Will do. Bye, Jojo.”

Jamming to “The Taste of Ink” by The Used, I began my walk to my first class, which unfortunately had me heading right back to Holywell Hall.

I’d ducked outside and found myself a private tree to lean against as I called Max for updates, and I’d also needed a minute to numb myself again and tamp down the urge to break Chad Hendrickson’s face with my fist.

I’d expected some ill-treatment of scholarship students from the general population, but that particular experiment had hit just a little too close to home for me.

I regretted nothing.

Ignoring everyone as I found the small lecture hall where my World History II class was located, I climbed the shallow steps to the back of the room and grabbed an empty seat. I pulled my tablet out, intending to look up the syllabus, when Mari dropped into the seat next to me.

I shot her a questioning glance, more than a little surprised. “Are you sure about this?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t grow up around these people.

My parents sent me to boarding school abroad for most of my education before they dragged me back here to ensure I had the Holywell degree that would give me the right clout in City society.

” She paused, narrowing her eyes at the group of Tier One girls that had just flounced into the room, gave us both the stink eye, and had then taken up seats a few rows ahead of us.

“I learned last year that I kind of… hate everyone here. I don’t really care what they think. ”

“If you say so,” I replied. I wouldn’t be able to let her get too close, but I liked Mari and didn’t mind if she wanted to hang around. “So, what happened after I left? ”

She cringed before whispering. “Chad and a couple of his buddies were about to go after you, but then Bennett just goes, ‘ Hendrickson, leave it ,’ all calm and scary-like.”

“Huh.” Lucky me. As much as I might’ve enjoyed kicking Chad’s ass after his little show, it would’ve complicated things.

Mari was over it too, apparently. “What are you doing in sophomore-level History anyway?” she asked.

I gave her a droll look. “Even us Southsiders can take advanced placement tests.”

And my marks were sophomores, after all.

The door to the classroom opened again, and the buzz of chatter intensified instantly as Zach waltzed in, trailed by a couple of his fanboys, including a guy I recognized as Dane Jefferson.

His Tier One family owned a chain of wildly popular boutique fitness studios and was affiliated with Hargraves.

They filed into the empty seats in the middle of the room. Zach sprawled out in his chair like a lazy king, and I watched the group of girls in front of me as they hung on his every move.

“I spoke to Zach after breakfast,” Lisa Aviano, bar and nightclub heiress linked to Ferrero, cooed at her friends.

She twirled her thick dark hair around her finger as she eyed him through her heavy black lashes.

“I’m so close to getting him into my bed to seal the deal.

My mom is practically best friends with Andrea. ”

Hannah Langford, daughter of tech venture capitalists once under the Knight umbrella, snorted at her. “You know the Heirs only fuck at the Club, honey, where they have the City’s hottest professionals and iron-clad NDAs. But good luck to you.”

The Euphoria Club—Andrea Ferrero’s pride and joy. Classy burlesque club downstairs, professional sex workers upstairs, all catering to the richest and most exclusive clientele in the City. It also had a secret basement that… interested me.

I ignored the stomach swoop I felt at the idea of my ex-best friends fucking the City’s most in-demand, highest-paid sex workers, while Lisa pouted.

“But Noah had a girlfriend last year,” she whined.

“And we all know how that turned out,” Hannah replied .

The professor finally cleared her throat and began her lecture, so that was the end of my eavesdropping.

Class was uneventful, and I thought the coursework seemed manageable. While I might’ve found myself behind had I spent all of my formative years in Southside, I’d had eleven years of the finest education and private tutors money could buy.

When the professor dismissed the class, Mari and I began to file out, me on my way to my freshman Literature class and her to Economics. We were on the stairs when someone rammed into me from behind.

“Move, trash,” a feminine voice barked at me, eliciting a few giggles from her friends and knocking me hard enough that I stumbled off the last stair.

I smacked right into a hard body, and strong hands grabbed me, keeping me on my feet. A deep voice purred, “Woah, easy there.”

I looked up, and I was met with the familiar dark-chocolate gaze of Zach Ferrero. He kept a firm grip on both of my biceps, holding me in place as he looked me over, a smirk forming on his face that was so twelve-year-old Zach, but also so not . “Hey, look who I found. It’s the Southside Princess.”

I straightened, glancing down at where he held onto me, and then back up to his face. “Thanks for the catch, Ferrero. Now get your fucking hands off me.”

His eyebrows shot up for a fraction of a second, but then he gave me what I suspected was his panty-meltingest smile. “And here I thought you were ready to get on your knees for me after all.”

Internal eye roll. Why were all guys the same?

I arched an eyebrow at him, leaning in to whisper in his ear, “Yeah? You have a thing for slumming it, rich boy?”

He chuckled, and it sounded like sex. “Not before this morning, I didn’t.”

My nerves were spiking. Too close, Jolie. He’s too close.

With a quick jerk, I rotated my arms and yanked them out of his grip, then I moved him out of my personal space with a firm shove to his rock-hard chest. “Fuck off. And keep your hands to yourself.”

As I marched out the door, aiming for a wide-eyed Mari where she waited for me in the hall, I heard him cackling at Dane behind me .

“You guys have your work cut out for you with that one. I can’t wait.”

My freshman Lit class was, thankfully, extremely uneventful. Nobody spoke to me, and I was happy about it.

Lunch in the dining hall had been the same, though I’d been on my guard the whole time. The Heirs ate at their usual table and ignored just about everyone, and while a few sneers had been tossed my way by both Chad’s and Lisa’s crew, everyone behaved.

I didn’t exactly trust it, but I wouldn’t complain.

My afternoon class on Mondays and Wednesdays was the Technology Skills seminar—a requirement for all students to graduate. I wandered into the computer lab on the top floor of Holywell Hall and found a seat among the rows of the highest caliber Knight PCs currently on the market.

The other students gave me a wide berth, though I couldn’t help but feel more than a shade of annoyance as Annie Ling, member of Lisa’s Tier One squad and heir to a private hospital empire, took a seat in the row in front of me.

She dropped her Hermes handbag dramatically on the tabletop next to her computer, then began chattering away to Hannah Langford and Nick Ruiz, a Tier Two student whose family ran an up-and-coming chain of holistic wellness clinics with a healthy dose of money and involvement from Hargraves.

At the top of the hour, our very pregnant professor waddled in. Entering right behind her was Noah.

The class went all atwitter, and the professor chuckled, motioning for everyone to calm the fuck down.

“As you all can see,” she said, rubbing her belly, “I am heading out on maternity leave any minute now. I’ve asked my TA, Mr. Hargraves, to step in to teach the class while I’m out.

I can assure you he is very proficient in all manner of technology skills and will be able to answer any question you may have. ”

Noah smiled warmly at the class, his eyes lingering on me for a half a beat longer than everyone else before he took up his post behind the professor’s desk. He set his sleek black laptop on the desktop and opened it, the white horse on the back of its screen taunting me from the front of the room.

It didn’t surprise me that Noah had become some sort of tech wiz.

He’d always taken an interest in computers when we were younger, and I had memories of him asking my dad questions or even working on small projects with him whenever the boys had been over at our penthouse.

I remembered how excited he’d been that my dad had even given him the time of day the first time he’d asked.

My mouth suddenly felt dry, and I swallowed roughly.

I’d have avoided sitting here surrounded by my Family’s creations, especially if I’d have known Noah was going to be teaching the fucking class, if it hadn’t been required for graduation.

I’d expected it would be hard not to think about my dad, but this was going to be torture .

“Thanks, Professor Moore,” Noah said, and she just waved to him as she waddled back out the door, apparently already checking out of teaching this class.

He went on, “I know you all know who I am, and please just call me Noah. We’re going to start our unit on data privacy with an assessment test so I can see where everyone is, so please log into your computers to access the test.”

We all did as we were told. I worked through mine, making sure I got about half of the questions wrong, and Noah started wandering around the room, checking on students’ progress and answering questions.

“You’re drooling,” I heard Hannah snark at Annie, whose eyes were not on her computer and instead glued to Noah wherever he moved in the room.

“Shut up,” Annie huffed at her. “You’re just jealous you don’t have the attention of an Heir. My family had dinner with his several times over the summer, and just believe me when I say our chemistry is amazing .”

“Uh-huh,” Hannah mumbled, still working through her test. “Sure.”

“Finished already?” a smooth voice said into my ear, jolting me out of my eavesdropping.

I turned to find Noah sliding into the empty station next to me, a curious look on his painfully pretty face. Up close, I could see his eyes were the same deep blue I remembered, and the dark brown of his rectangular frames made them pop even more.

“Just a bunch of random guesses,” I replied with a shrug, tearing my eyes from his face and locking them on my screen. “Our tech curriculum at Southside High wasn’t quite up to Holywell standards.”

“I see,” he said with the patience of a teacher. “Well, don’t worry. We’ll get you up to speed in no time.”

“Hmm.” I twirled a pen between my fingers, trying not to squirm under the intensity of his gaze on the side of my face.

After unexpectedly finding myself up close and personal with both Zach and him today, I was glad I’d decided to start wearing tinted foundation that made my pale skin a little tanner and hid the light dusting of freckles I’d always had across my nose and cheeks.

I said, “Aren’t you supposed to be rooting for me to fail out of this place?

It’s quite a ways above my station , after all. ”

“No,” he said, sounding amused. “It’s my job to teach you. And I don’t personally have an issue with those here on scholarship.”

I snorted. “Ah, I did hear that you’re the nice one.”

Before he could respond, Annie whirled around in her seat. “Noah,” she whined, “I think one of these questions has two correct answers. I don’t want to have it counted against me if I pick the wrong one.”

I caught a hint of an eye roll before he replied, pleasantly, “It’s not for a grade, Annie. Just pick whichever one you think is the most correct.”

She batted her long lashes at him, her silky blouse unbuttoned just low enough to tease a hint of cleavage below her string of pearls as she turned further around in her chair.

She whispered, all breathy and obvious, “I was hoping I could talk to you after class? I think you’ll find I know plenty already, and we could have a very stimulating discussion. ”

Gross.

“Is that so?” Noah asked, chuckling.

Hannah, thankfully, was over it. “Annie, do I need to remind you what happened to Christine last year?” She leaned in like she was trying to speak softly into Annie’s ear, but she was loud enough that I could still make out what she was saying.

“After she and Noah dated for six months, she tried to get a meeting with him and his father about an investment in the new company she and her dad wanted to start. Not only did Noah deny her request, he broke up with her, bankrupted her father by pulling all Hargraves funding from their current business, and ran the entire family out of town. I’m just saying…

trying to land an Heir is not fucking worth it. ”

Damn.

I tried to wipe the shocked look off my face, but Noah was too quick for me.

“You see,” he said, leaning in to speak softly next to my ear. “I’m not always the nice one.”

Then he stood up and strode off toward another row of students, leaving me to ponder exactly what the fuck had happened to Noah Hargraves.