Beautiful Lies (Dark Secret Society 2)

“I just buried my father today. I think I’m owed a drink, thank you very much.” Just to really stick it to her, I poured the vodka all the way to the rim.

“Especially with what you have to do.” She kept squeezing her handkerchief as she pursed her lips. “You have a very important…” She paused and lowered her voice as if the driver would overhear us, and she would be accused of breaking the sacred secret. “Engagement tonight.”

“Yes, Mother. I’m very aware of my engagement this evening.”

“Then do you think it’s a good idea to drink? I would think you’d want to stay sharp and distinguished.”

I chuckled as I took a large swig of the vodka. I held the liquid in my mouth longer than normal just so I could feel the burn. “Distinguished? Is that what you call the ritualistic, barbaric, and fucked up Initiation to join a secret society that should have died off ages ago?”

My sister reached for my hand and squeezed it as a way to silently chastise me.

“It’s time you step up and be the man of this family, Sully,” my mother said as she scowled at the drink in my hand. “With your father gone—”

“I know exactly what has to happen now that Father’s gone,” I snapped. “It doesn’t mean it’s not fucked up.”

Jasmine squeezed my hand again. We were brought up not to curse, not to disrespect our elders, and frankly… not to think for ourselves. So, I knew she had to be uncomfortable with how this conversation was going.

“What is fucked up,” my mother said, repeating the curse in an oddly elegant way, “is your refusal to accept who you are. Who you were born to be. You’ve always resisted, and I can’t figure it out for the life of me. When you ran off to California, I thought it would just be a matter of time for you to realize all you were leaving behind in Georgia.” She glanced out the window and stared at the large houses with perfectly landscaped grounds common to Darlington—a town I despised. “But regardless, you have returned home now, and it’s time you step up.”

“Even if it’s not what I want to do?” I asked as I took another sip of my drink.

“And what’s the alternative?” she snapped as she turned her flushed face, with wide eyes toward me.

She better be careful. All the visible facial expressions will cause her to need Botox sooner than she has scheduled on the books.

“We lose everything? Is that what you want? Do you want us to lose the business? The house? All our money? Will you not be satisfied until your sister and I are left out on the street penniless? Will that make you happy finally?”

“No, that’s not what I want, which is the only reason I’m here.”

She went back to staring out the window. “Yes, I know. Money means nothing to you, but it does to us. Your sister would have to stop attending Darlington Academy, and we’d have to leave everything we know. If you don’t do this Initiation and become a member of the Order of the Silver Ghost, then we lose everything your father, and his father, and his father and so on worked so hard to build.”

“I don’t need to be reminded of the stakes,” I said. “But did you ever ask if this is what I wanted? I don’t want this business. I don’t want to be here and run it. I want nothing to do with all this.”

“But I do,” Jasmine finally spoke up. “I know you’ve always hated what Daddy does, but… I want to keep VanDoren Enterprises intact. I can’t inherit it like you can, but I want it. So, if you don’t want to do this for you, then at least get the business for me.”

My sister had never asked me for anything. Well, unless you count all the times she begged me to try to get along with our parents. Jasmine was different than anyone else. She was good, innocent, and simply pure at heart. Even as a teen, she hadn’t lost the part of her that made me love her so much. So, for Jasmine to cut in and speak her mind, it had me take pause and listen.

“I understand you don’t want to be in the Order,” she said in her calm and soothing voice. “I can’t even imagine what you’ll have to go through. If the rumors are true… well, I don’t blame you for not wanting to be part of it.”

Our mother opened her mouth to interject but Jasmine raised her hand to quiet her.

“But Mama is right. We’d have to completely start over if you don’t do this. The business can only be handed down to a member of the Order and first male born. And the house, our assets, basically everything is tied up and controlled by the business. My trust fund wouldn’t last long.”