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One by one, I saw it sink in on my friends’ faces that the women they loved had been in far more danger than they’d ever imagined.
I took a long swallow of booze to soothe the inferno of madness drying my tongue. Even being the one to tell the story, the words seemed unreal. Like a long series of stories that had to be fictional.
“I can’t believe Mrs. H, out of all people…” Beau shook his head in disbelief.
“So obviously, I’m not going to continue with the Trials,” I said. “I have Jasmine hiding in the passageways until I go get her. We’re going to leave and never come back.”
Emmett whistled between his teeth. “Insane. Truly fucking insane. We all know how messed up those Trials were. But Jesus, I had no idea just how dark these assholes are.”
“Sully was the only one of us who truly saw them for what they were,” Montgomery added. “Now what?”
“I want nothing to do with this Order. I want absolutely nothing to do with this fucking hell of a manor,” I declared.
“So we walk away. Fuck them all. We don’t need them. We’re all powerful men in our own right,” Rafe said as he stood up. “We’ve all been looking for a reason anyway, if we all want to be honest.”
“We should have done this a long time ago. Fuck tradition. Fuck lineage. Fuck it all,” Montgomery said. “Sully’s doing just fine without it.”
“But what about the dead belles? Do we just let the Elders get away with murder?” Beau asked.
“Maybe we take them down,” Montgomery suggested, fire in his eyes. “We literally know where the bodies are buried. We could destroy these men. End the Order of the Silver Ghost once and for all.”
I released the breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding. “There’s a problem with that. Dear ol’ Dad just threatened to use the blackmail he has on Jasmine. He told me he has photos and videos of all the Trials and wouldn’t hesitate to use them against her if she steps out of line even a little.”
“Yeah, but that would expose the Order. He’s bluffing. He wouldn’t do that,” Emmett said.
“Maybe not. Hard to say,” I agreed. “But if he has dirt on Jasmine, you all know he has dirt on your women too. Who’s to say he won’t release the photos and videos of every belle in order to save his ass or to get the media attention off of him?” I shrugged. “I don’t know what he’d do. But he’s the master at knowing how to spin the narrative.”
“If he even dares to—” Beau seethed.
“We need to burn this fucking house to the ground,” Montgomery boomed.
As if Montgomery had a crystal ball into the future, or if the fates were listening to our words, the smell of smoke filled the air. All of our attention was turned toward the wall, where smoke began oozing from the cracks.
Before any of us could truly grasp that smoke was actually flooding into the room and what that meant, I heard a shout from the hallway. “Fire!”
“The secret passageways,” I said as I ran toward the door. “Jasmine.”
Oh fuck. Oh fuck!
“Go find her, and we’ll go see where the fire is and if we can put it out,” Montgomery commanded as he too ran out of the room with Beau, Emmett, and Rafe close behind.
23
JASMINE
FIFTEEN MINUTES EARLIER
I was furious at being stowed away while Walker went to talk to the menfolk. And yet, what else was there to do? It was the bodies of women in the ground buried so blatantly back there. I wasn’t safe here. I never had been.
But now we knew the truth, and after Walker told his friends… Well, they couldn’t silence all of us, could they? As I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, though, staring out into the darkness of the hidden passageway and shivering even though it wasn’t actually that cold, I realized just how naive that was to think.
Was I really still the wide-eyed idiot who thought she was being so rebellious by coming out to the Oleander in the middle of the night? Walker tried to warn me that very first time about what this place was, but I didn’t listen.
I shook my head and hugged myself tighter. But of course I never could have imagined… Not even Walker knew what his own father was truly capable of.
I froze. And did I think such a man would truly go down without a fight? Yes, we knew where the bodies were buried—for now. But bodies could be moved. Dear God, these men had literal skeletons in their closets, and they were still so arrogant and shameless. They believed they were gods who could get away with anything.
Even murder.
Fury suddenly burned away the residual fear in my chest. I’d grown up always angry about the world I’d been presented with and the casual condescension of everyone around me assuming only my brother could run my father’s company, not me. In my town girls were prized for how beautiful they were, and how that might enhance their marriage prospects. It was positively medieval.
