Page 88 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series

CHAPTER SIX

JOLIE

W e entered the library’s conference room to find Peter Hargraves, Andrea Ferrero, and James Spencer alone and not so patiently waiting for their sons.

All three sets of eyes snapped to me as I entered one step ahead of my boys, still twirling the bloody knives through my fingers that I’d unceremoniously yanked from the shoulders of the Ferrero flunky I’d stuck to the door.

Peter and Andrea both sat behind the table. Peter lazed with his legs crossed, while Andrea sat ramrod straight, her dark eyes hard and her normally pale cheeks flushed.

James Spencer lingered behind them, standing tall under the high windows of the back wall, his hands fisted at his sides. The look of loathing he aimed my way would’ve made a lesser woman cower in the corner, but I was not a lesser woman.

I was his worst fucking nightmare, and now I had his son.

“Oh, goodness, Jolie, that is really not necessary,” Peter said, eyeing my knives and giving me a patronizing smile.

“We aren’t here to hurt anyone.” He ran a nervous hand through his wavy, barely graying blond hair as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

The gesture reminded me so much of my Noah, and it made me despise Peter even more.

“History says otherwise, Mr. Hargraves,” I replied as the guys spread out beside me so that we stood in a line, a united front against the Families.

“Yes, well,” Peter began in a smooth voice, still hanging onto that smile. “I think?—”

“Shut up, Dad,” Noah snapped, and the way the smile dropped from Peter’s face was a thing of beauty. “You don’t speak to Jolie. Not after what you’ve done to her.”

Peter sighed. “Noah, if you would have just taken my calls, we could have discussed all of this. Obviously, I did not know you were at the Hargraves Tech offices when I sent the team in?—”

“Dad.” Noah gave my hand a quick squeeze before he stepped forward and took up a power stance right in front of his father, towering over him with his arms crossed over his hard chest and glaring down at Peter with disgust. “I said, shut the fuck up. You’re done here.

You know it, and I know it. Hargraves is mine now, and as of yesterday, the last of your major investors have dumped you and joined me under the Knight umbrella.

Say your goodbyes to this City and fuck back off to the Maldives or wherever the hell you’ve been wasting your days. ”

I squeezed my thighs together and took a calming breath. Noah was using his dominant voice, and it was turning me the fuck on.

Not the time .

“Peter, get some fucking control, now ,” James barked.

Peter tossed him an irritated glance over his shoulder before turning back to his son, trying once more to force a smile.

“Noah, I am so proud of how you’ve handled things while I’ve been away.

I am certainly ready to let you step into a leadership role, but this nonsense with Knight has to stop. We do not let people steal from us.”

I snorted, and Noah’s cold smile was so vicious that even Andrea looked alarmed.

“You’re right, Dad,” he said, leaning down to place his palms on the table, his navy suit stretching across his broad shoulders with the movement.

“When stealing from a member of the Four Families, we make sure to kill them first, including their innocent children, isn’t that right? ”

James and Andrea’s heads both snapped to Noah then, and all three of them watched him warily. This was the first indication any of us had given that we might know the truth about my parents’ murders.

Peter gawked at Noah like he didn’t recognize him at all. “Son, I don’t know what’s gotten into you. I’m offering you the helm of Hargraves, but you need to reverse course, and quickly.”

“You’re still not listening, Dad,” Noah growled, and I stifled a moan.

“I already have the helm . It’s all mine.

I even bought out the entirety of Hargraves Tower yesterday and awarded a contract to an up-and-coming builder from the Southside.

She’s going to help me turn the first ten floors into a state-of-the-art healthcare center for low-income citizens. Isn’t that great?”

Peter gasped in alarm. “Noah!”

“Enough, Peter,” James snarled. “You’ve been outplayed by your own son because you’re never fucking here .”

Noah stood again, giving his dad his back and rejoining our line. He paused in front of me to press a lingering kiss to my temple while I grinned savagely at his father.

“And if you think you’ll still be sitting pretty on top of all your dirty drug money, Mr. Hargraves,” I said, “Knight’s new head of security is taking out all of your stash houses in Industrial City as we speak. I think you’re about to have some unhappy customers.”

He paled while Zach barked out a laugh. “Oh shit, did you guys let Frankie play with the flamethrower after all?”

My grin widened. “We sure did.”

“Zachary!” Andrea snapped, the mention of Frankie and Industrial City likely reigniting her fury. “That… mess you made a few days ago was ridiculous and unnecessary. You are continuing to let that bitch cloud your judgment.”

Zach shrugged, eyeing his mother with amusement. “You fuck with the bull and you get the horns, Mom. I told you, and I definitely told Ramon, repeatedly—for years—not to fuck with me. Then I warned you both not to fuck with my Princess. How’s the hunt for a new security team treating you?”

She bristled. “Where is your uncle?”

“Weren’t you listening?” Now Zach’s smile had vanished, and he was every bit as cold as I’d ever seen Bennett at his stoniest moment. “He’s out lighting up every last bit of Peter’s drug inventory. He works for Jolie now because she treats him like a fucking human being.”

Andrea swallowed, the thought of being on the wrong side of Frankie unsettling to just about anyone, before she let the rage descend.

“You do not want to oppose me, Zachary. I will crush you into dust and remold you into something I can actually be proud of, and I’ll make sure you’re watching as I slit your girlfriend’s throat right in front of you. ”

Zach’s guns flew from their shoulder holsters under his suit jacket. Andrea’s eyes widened as he aimed them both right at her head. “Say that again, Mom. Threaten the woman I love one more time.”

She sagged a bit in her chair, waving a dismissive hand in his direction. “Honestly, Zachary. I am your mother . You’re not going to shoot me, for crying out loud.”

“Try me,” he growled. “And try rebuilding Ferrero’s security team after Jolie Knight destroyed the best you had and stole Frankie Fingers from you.

Try to keep your gun-running operation going after I purchased every open mercenary contract on the market yesterday.

Knight Tower is now a fucking fortress, and Ferrero is a festering open wound.

I’m done, Mom. Fuck you, and fuck Ferrero. ”

My heart warmed even as my stomach dipped under a burst of nerves.

Zach had worked his ass off after his rescue to hit his mom at her most vulnerable—and to keep her that way—all while making sure we had the most secure tower in the City.

I loved him so much for it, but I worried for him nonetheless.

Andrea sniffed, her cold, dark glare sliding straight to me.

I knew, as the guys did, that their parents were going to hold out hope that their Heirs would return to them—that if they could get me out of the way, I’d no longer be there to lure them away from the Families with my wild fantasies and magical pussy.

I returned her stare. “Enjoy that sinking ship, Andrea. When I’m through with you, you’ll be on your knees, begging me for mercy—mercy that you didn’t show my mother when you laughed in her face as you shot her.”

“Enough of this!” James thundered. He strode forward, now standing at the table between a seething Andrea and a shell-shocked Peter.

His menacing stare shifted from me over to Bennett, like he’d been about to unload on me before he remembered he had his own Family issues to address.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Bennett? Your friends being hypnotized by a cunt is one thing, but you ? I thought you were better than this, and now you’re about to irreparably fuck things up with the Jansens. ”

Bennett returned his father’s fury with a cold, bored stare. “I’ve resigned as the Spencer Heir, Father. Or did Elise forget to inform you of that during a moment when your dick wasn’t down her throat?”

Zach and Noah both snorted, and I discreetly picked my jaw up off the floor.

Bennett had never dared even look at his father wrong in all the time we’d been friends.

I knew he’d grown into his own man over the years, and I trusted his deep devotion to me now, but to say it was a shock to see him not only oppose his father but sling an insult at him in the flesh was a gross understatement.

“That’s nonsense, son ,” he spat, seething. “I knew you weren’t nearly ready to step into a leadership role at Spencer, but I never thought you were this stupid.”

I tensed, my dagger hand feeling twitchy. Bennett ran a soothing palm down my back from his spot next to me. “Ah, well, I always was such a disappointment,” he replied casually. “I would think you’re glad to be rid of me, Father.”

James slammed his hand down on the table, and only Peter flinched. “Stop saying that shit.” He stepped away from the table, pulling his phone from his pocket to glare at it, then shoved it back into his pants before looking at Bennett again. “Where is your mother?”

Bennett shrugged. “She’s a grown woman, and last time I checked, she wasn’t a prisoner in Spencer Tower. Maybe she got tired of hearing her husband fucking the help right down the hall.”

Jesus Christ, Bennett wasn’t here to play.