Page 22 of Devious Knight

I don’t know what her motives were in working with them. So far I haven’t found any solid plans.

She’s too sweet and innocent to have murderous intentions, so I can’t imagine her at fifteen years old wanting to murder my family. But I think she was used as a pawn.

Regardless, I don’t care. I don’t give two fucks about the whys or hows. All I care about is what she did.

Isabelle uploaded a sophisticated spy code into the gallery’s system that allowed my father’s enemies to track him.

They tracked him all the way to Greece, where they set a trap and killed him. Along with my mother.

My parents' deaths were a mystery. People assumed it was an inside job because no one could figure out how my father’s enemies got into the house the way they did. Or how they knew he’d be there.

Isabelle Kolyav was the missing link.

For years, I tried to review what happened. My family and I looked into everything my parents did right up until the incident and came up with nothing.

Then last semester blind luck led Dmitri to discover the code in the system. Once he did that I was able to trace who put it there.

I still can’t describe the shock that filled me when I learned it was her. And even that was covered up, too. Isabelle’s details were erased—no doubt by her father.

I thought he might have been involved, too, or maybe he might have put her up to it, but that didn’t make sense.

Her father wouldn’t have needed to do what she did to hack my father. With his tech skills he would have done it in a cleverer way. The records also showed he was called into the gallery to investigate a security breach. His subsequent actions didn’t seem like he knew anything more than what he did to cover up his daughter's guilt. But I’m sure she would have told him something.

Maybe not the truth.

Knowing the code allowed me to link everything to Nickoli and the Malina. It was like a trail of breadcrumbs that led me straight to him.

Nickoli is in a class on his own, but so is Isabelle. The girl I once compared to an angel and thought was too good for me.

In high school I stayed away from her because it was obvious that I should.

She was my complete opposite.

She was sweet and innocent. I was the bad rich boy from Orange County who, unknown to most, was kicked out of school and sent to juvie because he banged his drama teacher then exposed her, and set fire to the school gym. That was me acting out after my parents’ deaths.

I watched Isabelle watching me. Her in her cute little dresses and that body made for sin.

She thought I didn’t see her. But I did. I always did. And I knew if I touched her, even once, my poison would corrupt her.

I was out of control. No one could handle me. My uncle and aunt in New York took me from my aunt in the Orange County because they felt they could raise me to be a Knight.

I love them both, but being a Knight was the only reason I accepted their help. I hated living in the Orange County after losing my parents. Everything reminded me of them.

When we started college I knew what Isabelle had done at the gallery, but I didn’t know what the code was until I got the confirmation a few weeks ago.

Now it’s showtime.

Michael leans in to whisper something into her ear that has her blushing.

The Hand That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails blares through the speakers, playing loud at first to get the people up and dancing before it mellows out.

Michael takes Isabelle’s drink and sets it on the side then pulls her onto the dance floor. I grind my teeth when he manages to persuade her to dance with him.

I’m not the only guy watching her as she sways her body to the music, looking anything other than the sweet, sunny girl they’re used to seeing walking around campus. Isabelle looks like a goddess owning her sexuality.

The thing is, she always looks like that to me, even when she’s going for sweet in her little dresses.

I watch her and Michael dance for the entire song and my blood heats every time he touches her and gets close enough so you can’t tell where he begins and she ends.