Kill the King (A Knight's Revenge Book 3), page 1
KILL THE KING
A KNIGHT’S REVENGE
BOOK THREE
ELIZABETH DEAR
CONTENTS
Synopsis
A Note From the Author
Prologue
Chapter 1
Zach - Present Day
Chapter 2
Noah
Chapter 3
Jolie
Chapter 4
Jolie
Chapter 5
Bennett
Chapter 6
Jolie
Chapter 7
Jolie
Chapter 8
Jolie
Chapter 9
Zach
Chapter 10
Jolie
Chapter 11
Noah
Chapter 12
Jolie
Chapter 13
Jolie
Chapter 14
Bennett
Chapter 15
Jolie
Chapter 16
Jolie
Chapter 17
Jolie
Chapter 18
Noah
Chapter 19
Jolie
Chapter 20
Jolie
Chapter 21
Zach
Chapter 22
Jolie
Chapter 23
Jolie
Chapter 24
Noah
Chapter 25
Jolie
Chapter 26
Jolie
Chapter 27
Bennett
Chapter 28
Jolie
Chapter 29
Jolie
Chapter 30
Bennett
Chapter 31
Jolie
Chapter 32
Jolie
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also By Elizabeth Dear
About the Author
Copyright © 2023 by Elizabeth Dear Publishing LLC
Editing by McKinley & Jamee at Hot Tree Editing
Cover by Cherie Foxley
Formatting by Elizabeth Dear and Stephanie Osu, PA
All Rights Reserved.
No Part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for brief quotations in a book review.
To Sarah. Thanks for joining me on this crazy journey and not thinking I’m an absolute weirdo. Your support means so much.
SYNOPSIS
In Saint Gabriel City, the rule of the Four Families ends now.
They’re bottom-feeding criminals pretending to be the model of the American dream.
They suck the City dry to serve themselves and the elite class that licks their boots day in and day out.
They murdered my parents out of sheer, unbridled greed.
And now, they’ve dared to take Zach from me.
With my boys, my family, and the Shadows by my side, I’ll finish this fight. No more dancing around the corporate boardroom—we’ve come to destroy the Families, and we’ll give it everything we’ve got.
And we’ll continue to run the halls of Holywell Academy while we do it.
Peter Hargraves, Andrea Ferrero, and James Spencer—I’m fucking coming for you, and your sons will be by my side to the bitter end.
This is a New Adult, college-age dark academy romance. It is the third and final book in the trilogy and ends with a HEA. It is also a Why Choose romance, which means our heroine has multiple love interests, and she will not have to choose between them. As always, this series is for readers age 18+ and contains a ton of foul language, very steamy scenes, and violent themes. If you’ve read Storm the Gates (A Knight’s Revenge Book 1) and Seize the Castle (A Knight’s Revenge Book 2) and want to see how Jolie and the boys get to their happy ending, jump in!
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Hey team! Nothing new to report here. If you’ve read Storm the Gates (Book 1) and Seize the Castle (Book 2), you’re in the right place.
Same content warnings apply as the previous books—gun violence, murder, mayhem, and some gore. There is a brief depiction of an attempted sexual assault of a side character. We also have spicy group sex stuff (!!), and many, many uses of the F-bomb and other swears.
We’re doing it, guys. We’re taking down the Families and riding off into the sunset. A little pain, a lot of love, and a big dose of adventure lie between us and our happily ever after.
Thanks for coming on this journey with me, Jolie, and her boys.
- Elizabeth
PS: I know I haven’t given you guys a new playlist since Book 1, but if you need an emo theme song for this one, just throw on “A Love Like War” by All Time Low on repeat.
PROLOGUE
ZACH - AGE 12
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been in the basement of Ferrero Tower, but it felt like several days had passed.
I ran my gaze around the dull cement walls of my surroundings for the millionth time since I’d been shoved into this little room. I hadn’t known Ferrero Tower had a dungeon in its basement, but I wasn’t surprised.
I was learning a whole lot of terrible stuff about my Family since I’d been forced to watch my mom commit murder while my best friend lay bleeding and dying on the floor in front of us.
With nothing else to do but wait, I counted the cracks in the wall again and then the metal bars of the door. I was bored, but being bored was better than being beaten. I was sure Ramon and his Enforcer buddies had run off to tell my mom I hadn’t learned my lesson yet, but they would definitely be back.
Or maybe they were still pissed I’d bitten Rogers’ finger off, but screw that guy. He’d deserved it for letting a twelve-year-old kid get the drop on him.
Probably because I’d been thinking about my visitors right then, the clank of the lock sounded, and the hinges creaked as the door began to open, announcing the arrival of whomever had come down here to torment me now.
Expecting Ramon or his team of assholes, I got a little jolt of surprise as my mom waltzed through the door, her shiny black high heels clacking loudly against the smooth, bare floor.
“Oh, my sweet baby,” she said with a little scandalized gasp. She hustled over to where I sat on the floor, my back propped against the cold wall because I’d refused to take even a little comfort in that joke of a cot they kept in here. “What have they done to you, Zachary?”
“What you ordered them to do, Mom,” I said dully.
She crouched in front of me, the slit in her skirt only just allowing her the movement. I gave her a blank stare as she caressed my face, taking in my puffy, swollen eye and the cut on my forehead. My face throbbed, my body ached, and I was pretty sure I had a cracked rib. I hurt, and I was pissed, but nothing they’d done to me was serious or life-threatening.
Nothing that would permanently scar the beloved Ferrero Heir.
Not physically, anyway.
“Baby, you know I don’t want any of this,” she cooed at me, forcing a concerned look onto her pale, flawless face. “But we have rules in this Family, first and foremost of which is that my commands are to be followed without question. I only want what’s best for you. For us, Zachary.”
“Sure, Mom.”
She stroked my shaggy, dark hair, greasy from sweat and going a few days without a shower—not that skipping a shower was unusual for me. I smelled ripe, and I hoped my mom was really offended by my stench.
“Now, I think it’s time for this nonsense to end,” she said, standing up. “I’ve taken the liberty of confiscating all of your possessions from the Knight girl. The pictures on your cell phone have been deleted as well.”
Despair consumed me. I shut my eyes and threw my head back against the wall.
That was all I had left of her.
Mom went on, unmoved by my distress. “The Knights were traitors, Zachary. You need to accept this now and purge them from your life. You will not hang onto any childish fantasies that pretend otherwise. That is why I had Ramon’s team search your room. It is not okay for you to stab my Enforcers in the leg with kitchen knives when they are carrying out my orders.”
I said nothing.
She reached for my wrist and jerked me to standing. I let her because I didn’t care anymore.
“Let’s go home,” she said, her voice light and breezy like she’d suggested we go get ice cream. “I know you’ll be a good boy for me from now on, won’t you?”
Fat chance.
I’d have to try harder not to get caught, though.
“Yes, Mom.”
“That’s my baby! I know you’ll always do what’s best for our Family in the end. That’s how I raised you, after all.”
She clutched my arm as I limped out of my little cell, following her through the bowels of the basement and to the elevator.
My mom could have her Enforcers smack me around all she wanted. I was never going to forget my best friend. I was never, ever going to call her a traitor.
And I was never going to be Mom’s perfect little soldier. I’d play the part, but I looked after myself, Bennett, and Noah now.
Screw Ferrero. Screw the Families.
They broke my real family, and someday, they would face the consequences.
CHAPTER ONE
ZACH - PRESENT DAY
Ramon’s hard, emotionless face took up my entire field
of vision as he knelt in front of me. To anyone who didn’t know him, he looked as blank as he always did when he worked—directing Ferrero Enforcers, hovering around my mom, carrying out orders—but I could make out the excited glint in his eyes.
He fucking loved giving me what he thought I deserved, and he hadn’t been given this chance in years.
“Your mother has done nothing but give you everything you could have ever wanted, and this is how you repay her?”
I spat a wad of bloody saliva in his face, and he buried his fist in my gut. “You ungrateful little shit.”
I coughed. It hurt, but honestly, I’d had worse. Max Miller had hit me harder, and I’d enjoyed that shit. Ramon was getting soft in his old age.
“Is that the best you’ve got, motherfucker?” I rasped. “My girlfriend can throw a better punch than that. You better get it all out now, because I’m going to break every bone in your fucking body before this is over.”
He scoffed at me before standing to launch a hard kick to my side, and I coughed again as I bit off a groan. He spat, “You’ll be lucky if your mother lets you out of Ferrero Tower after this, boy. I suggest you think long and hard about how you’re going to grovel for her forgiveness.”
I snorted out a laugh. Mom was still delusional after all these years.
She still thought these tricks could break me. That they could keep me in line and force my loyalty to Ferrero.
That I didn’t have any power beyond what she allowed me to have.
I tracked Ramon’s path back to the middle of the empty warehouse where I was being held under the watchful eyes of at least ten Ferrero Enforcers. They’d smartened up over the years, apparently, because they’d locked my arms securely behind my back with good old-fashioned chains since I’d long ago learned to break zip ties. The chains looped around my wrists, securing me to the cold metal pole I’d been reclining against for the past twenty-four hours or so.
I’d also gotten a bit better at figuring out how much time had passed during these little episodes, tracking the comings and goings of what was left of Ferrero’s highest-level Enforcers as they’d entered and exited in shifts during my confinement.
So far only Ramon had the privilege of beating on me. I guessed he was pretty pissed that I’d killed five of the eight guys Mom had sent after me before they’d managed to take me.
Ramon approached again, kneeling to offer me a drink from a new bottle of water. They’d also allowed me a few energy bars during my stay, and I’d eaten them. I was no longer the dumb kid who threw a tantrum and went on a hunger strike when I was being punished like this.
I needed my strength because I was going to end everyone in this fucking room for making my Princess worry.
And I knew when I didn’t show up to her bed last night or answer any calls today, she was going to go off. My baby girl loved me, even if we hadn’t said those words yet, and she was not to be fucked with when she was angry.
“If you think your little girlfriend is going to come save your ass,” Ramon said, yanking the water bottle from my lips after I’d drunk half of it, “I have bad news for you. We have a small army set up on the bridge. No one’s getting through.”
That confirmed what I’d suspected—I was in some nondescript, off-the-books warehouse in Industrial City. I’d been in and out of almost every Ferrero cell and torture space over the years, and I knew this wasn’t one of our properties in the City. Instead, we were in the rundown, uninhabited area to the east of the river, made up mostly of shipping containers and dilapidated warehouses. It was accessible from the City by a single narrow bridge or by the occasional container ship that parked at the docks to the north.
I hadn’t known that Ferrero held any property over here, but I knew for a fact that Hargraves had storage facilities somewhere in Industrial City where it kept some of its less-than-legal medicinal products.
I eyed Ramon, giving him my most unaffected stare. “Tell Mom she’s really fucked up this time. I’m not a kid anymore—she can’t have you beat loyalty into me. And if one hair is harmed on my girl’s head because of this stupidity, I will burn Ferrero Tower to the fucking ground with all of you in it.”
Ramon shook his head like he was my disappointed dad. “She’ll be so ashamed. You can kiss all the freedom she’s so graciously given you all these years goodbye.”
I snorted. Freedom—is that what we’re calling it?
“Let me have a shot at him, boss!” Anderson yelled from the group guarding the entrance. “He killed our fucking team lead.”
I sent a savage grin in his direction. “He washed out, Anderson. If you let your mark steal your gun and get your head blown off in an eight-versus-one fight, then you clearly can’t hack it as a Ferrero Enforcer.”
Ramon slammed a fist into my side. “Shut the fuck up. I’ve had enough of your mouth and your attitude to last a hundred goddamn years.”
I stifled a pained groan. He’d already nailed me on that side once, and if I didn’t already have a broken rib, I probably did now.
As Ramon stalked off again, I felt the chill of the night seep into the stark warehouse floor. I was thankful I’d managed to get my long-sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants onto my body after my shower and before Ramon’s team of assholes had burst into my room in our penthouse, but I definitely wasn’t wearing shoes. I was not looking forward to another sleepless night chained to this fucking pole with icy feet and a numb ass.
I’d only dropped by the tower in the first place to appease my mom, deciding to swing by for a brief visit when she’d summoned me during my evening workout. I grabbed a shower in my room before I was supposed to meet her in her home office, intent on also packing a bag with the few things I had left in my room that meant anything to me in case it was the last time I returned there.
I’d barely pulled my pants on when I was ambushed, and I fucked up by not putting my Rolex back on my wrist first thing. It, along with the internal panic button the three of us all had hidden in our watches, sat uselessly on my nightstand, right next to my fucking gun, so I had to improvise.
They won, and I lost, but five Ferrero Enforcers had to die before they managed to knock me out and drag me all the way out here.
And while my Princess will have missed me at bedtime, it was a stroke of luck that Frankie would have missed me even earlier—we’d been set to have a drink together in a basement dive bar near the Academy about an hour after I was nabbed.
If anyone could possibly be more hacked off about me disappearing without a word than my brothers or my girlfriend, it would be Frankie.
One of them would hunt us down eventually, and I could only hope it would be before my mom ordered me moved to another location or Ramon slipped and inflicted more lasting damage than usual.
Just as I was steeling myself for another cold, uncomfortable night, the heavy door slid open, and the telltale click-clack of high heels announced the inevitable.
My mom had arrived.
Without a word, she stalked through the team guarding me, her long wool coat swaying as she moved. She pushed her oversized sunglasses to the top of her head, revealing her cold, dark gaze as she took in my battered form sprawled on the floor and chained to a pole. She frowned, as if seeing the violence she wrought up close and personal was surprising to her. Then she pulled her two-thousand-dollar scarf tighter around her neck, like she was bracing against the cold that she no doubt found reflected back at her in my stare.
“Oh, Zachary.”
She knelt in front of me, stretching her tight skirt to its limit, and she reached up to caress the side of my face. Fortunately, I still had use of both of my eyes, but I had a gash in the side of my head, and the blood that had oozed from it was now dried on the side of my face and my neck.
