Chapter 40 The Knight
THE KNIGHT
EMMA
We end up on the couch.
I don't remember moving there. One moment we're standing in the middle of my apartment, tears drying on both our faces. The next we're sitting side by side, shoulders touching. The silence between us heavy but not hostile.
“About James,” Kai starts.
I tense. “What about him?”
“Someone was paying him. Five thousand a month, plus an apartment here in Silverpoint. His job was to follow you, report on you, destabilize you.” He pauses. “Drive a wedge between us.”
I let that sink in. James wasn't just my bitter ex clinging to the past.
“Who paid him?”
“We're still tracing it. Shell companies, offshore accounts. But we'll find them.”
“Did you hurt him?”
Kai is quiet for a moment. “I hit him once.” His jaw tightens. “I wanted to do more. But it's not my call to make. You get to decide what happens to him.”
I think about James. The years I wasted with him. The way he made me feel small, crazy, unworthy. And now this. A pawn in someone else's game.
“Where is he now?”
“Gone. Left Silverpoint the same night. I have the evidence. Emails, bank statements. If you want to press charges, we can bury him.”
The world feels dark enough already. My parents. My brother. Murdered. James paid to stalk me. Someone out there pulling strings I can't even see.
“Let him disappear,” I say finally. “I don't want to spend another minute of my life on him.” I meet Kai's eyes. “Unless he comes back. Then all bets are off.”
“Fair enough.”
The silence settles again. Then Kai shifts beside me. Almost uncomfortable.
“I've been planning how to destroy Miles.”
I blink. “What?”
“Three scenarios. Different levels of severity. I've been waiting for you to tell me you've had enough, and then...” He shrugs. “Options.”
A laugh escapes me. Unexpected. Almost foreign after everything tonight.
“You have three plans to destroy my coworker?”
“He's been making your life hell.”
I shake my head, but something in my chest loosens. “I'm handling Miles myself. Still, it's good to know there are options.”
“Always.”
The tension breaks a little. We talk. Not about the heavy things—other things.
I tell him about my brother's terrible cooking, how my dad would secretly order pizza after his experimental dinners.
He tells me about his grandmother, the one who gave him the Rhodes name.
How she was the only person in his family who made him feel like he mattered.
he hours slip past. My eyes grow heavy. At some point I lean into him, his arm comes around me, and it feels so natural that I forget to be angry about it.
I fall asleep to the sound of his heartbeat.
Morning light cuts through the blinds.
I wake slowly, disoriented. The couch. A warm body beside me. Kai's arm still around my shoulders, chin resting against my hair.
I don't move. Watch him sleep. The sharp lines of his face softened. The dark circles under his eyes. The stubble shadowing his jaw.
He looks younger like this. Vulnerable. I want to protect this version of him, the one only I get to see.
He stirs. Blinks. Eyes find mine, widen.
“Hey,” he says, voice rough with sleep.
“Hey.”
Neither of us moves. The moment stretches, fragile.
He pulls back slowly, runs a hand through his hair. “I need to go. People to talk to. Threads to pull.” He meets my eyes. “I meant what I said. I'm going to find whoever did this to your family.”
I nod.
He stands, winces as he puts weight on his bad leg. I watch him gather himself. Put the armor back on piece by piece.
At the door, he stops. Looks at me with an intensity that's terrifying and magnetic at the same time.
He turns back, kneels in front of me. Right there on my worn carpet. This man, raised in mansions and chauffeured cars, kneeling at my feet like I'm something precious.
“My worst fear came true,” he says quietly. “I told you the truth and watched your face change. Watched you look at me like I was one of them.” He swallows. “I knew I fucked up. I didn't know how to protect you and tell you the truth at the same time. I chose wrong.”
I lick my dry lips. My body shaking with repressed emotions.
“If you give me a chance,” he says, “I'll spend the rest of our lives making you happy. I don't know how to prove that. I just know it's true.”
He takes my hands, presses his forehead against my knuckles. His breath warm on my skin.
No kiss. No demands. Just this gesture. Like a knight making an oath.”
I sit there for a long time after he's gone.
Work is a blur.
I answer emails without reading them. Sit through a meeting without hearing a word. My body is at my desk, but my mind keeps drifting back to my apartment. To Kai on his knees. To the weight of his forehead against my hands.
At three o'clock, the receptionist appears at my desk.
“Emma? There's a woman here to see you. Says it's regarding a business opportunity.”
I frown. I don't have any meetings scheduled. “Did she give a name?”
“Helena Hammond.”
The name lands like a punch to the stomach. I keep my face neutral, but my pulse races.
“Send her to conference room B. I'll be there in five minutes.”
I use those five minutes to breathe. To steady myself. To remember that I am not the same woman James spent years diminishing. I am not easily broken.
When I walk into the conference room, she's already seated. Immaculate in cream silk. Blonde hair swept into a perfect chignon. Diamonds glinting at her ears. She looks like she stepped out of a society magazine.
She smiles when she sees me. It doesn't reach her eyes.
“Emma. Thank you for seeing me.” Her voice is warm, cultured. Practiced. “Please, sit.”
I remain standing. “Mrs. Hammond. I wasn't expecting you.”
“I'll get straight to the point. We're both busy women.” She opens her clutch, pulls out a check, slides it across the table. “Enough to pay off your debts, start fresh somewhere else, build whatever life you want.”
I stare at the check. The number printed on it.
Five hundred thousand dollars.
More money than I've ever seen in my life.
“In exchange for what?”
“In exchange for disappearing from my son's life. Quietly. Completely.” She folds her hands on the table. “No dramatic goodbye, no tearful phone calls. You simply... move on.”
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it.
“Does this usually work? With the other women?”
Something flickers in her eyes. Annoyance, maybe. That I'm not crying or trembling or reaching for the check.
“Most women in your position understand the value of a graceful exit.”
“I'm not most women.”
“No.” She tilts her head, studies me. “You're stubborn. I can see why Alexander finds that appealing. But stubbornness isn't a substitute for breeding or connections. Or a family name that opens doors.”
“I don't need doors opened for me. I open my own.”
Her smile hardens. “Do you?” She arches an eyebrow.
“Let me be clear. I have relationships with every major marketing firm on the East Coast. GVM included. Thomas Hawthorne and I have known each other for twenty years.” She lets that sink in.
“Your career, such as it is, exists because I allow it to exist. One phone call, and you'll find yourself unemployable in this city. In any city that matters.”
My job. The thing I've worked so hard for. The stability I've built from nothing after I lost everything.
I think about Kai on his knees this morning. The way he looked at me like I was the only thing in his world worth fighting for.
“You can threaten my career,” I say slowly. “You can make phone calls and close doors and do whatever it is women like you do when you don't get your way.”
I push the check back across the table.
“But I'm not leaving him. Not because you told me to. Not for any amount of money.” My voice steadies as the truth settles into my bones. “I love your son. And I think that terrifies you—because you can't buy it, you can't control it, and you have no idea what to do with something real.”
Her lips thin. Eyes go cold. For a moment I see the woman beneath the silk and diamonds.
“You have no idea what you're getting into,” she says.
“Maybe not.” I stand. “But I know I'd rather face it with him than walk away because his mother wrote me a check.”
I move to the door, hold it open.
Helena rises slowly, gathers her bag and the rejected check. Pauses at the threshold, close enough that I can smell her perfume. Something expensive and suffocating.
“You'll regret this. I’ll not offer again.” she says softly.
“The only thing I'd regret is taking your money.”
She leaves without another word.
I close the door, lean against it. Heart slamming against my ribs. I just told Helena Hammond that I love her son. Out loud. To her face.
And I meant it.
I love him.
I love him.
The realization isn't a thunderbolt. It's more like stepping into warm water, the way it rises around you, inevitable and complete.
I love him. Despite the lies. Despite the name.
Despite everything. I love the man who fights for the people he cares about and carries the weight of his family's sins like they're his own to bear.
I pull out my phone, find the card I've kept in my wallet for months. George's number.
He answers on the second ring. “Miss Sinclair.”
“George, hi. I need a ride, if you could?”
“Of course. Where would you like to go?”
“To Kai—to Mr. Rhodes. Wherever he is.”
Warmth creeps into his professional tone. “He's at ELK, Miss. I can be at your office in fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you, George.”
“My pleasure, Miss Sinclair. My genuine pleasure.”
I grab my coat and walk out of the building without looking back.