Inherited Malice - Alta Hensley Page 0,3

what was coming for him.

2

Beau

I’ve always liked to play with fire.

Red. Hot. Flames licking the air in a chaotic dance.

On the surface, you’d read me as a no-nonsense businessman. Ruthless, powerful, and not someone you’d want to mess with. But deep down, something burned inside of me in need for danger, for heat, for an inferno that lacked in my day to day.

Maybe that was why I wanted to join the Order.

Yes, my father, and his father before him, and the generations before that sealed my fate. I didn’t really have a choice if I wanted to be a Radcliffe and run Radcliffe Jewelers and Imports. But my heritage wasn’t the only reason I stood in the white ballroom of the Oleander at midnight.

I wanted the silver cloak.

I wanted the membership.

I wanted it and would do whatever it took to get it.

Although I’d never show it. I’d never reveal the fires that burned inside of me. I never showed anything but cool and collected at all times. A hard shell on the outside no matter that inferno on the inside.

“Are you ready, son?” my father asked as he walked up to me cloaked in silver as a proud member of the Order of the Silver Ghost.

Nodding, I sipped from my drink, careful to only sip. I wanted my mind sharp and clear for what was about to come.

“They’re going to try to push your limits,” he warned.

“I know,” I said. “I’m ready for it.”

“I can’t do anything to stop them if it gets too tough, and I can’t step in no matter how much I’m sure I’ll want to. You understand that right?”

I patted him on the back reassuringly. “I won’t need your help, Dad. I think I’ve proven I can handle myself, and this Initiation isn’t going to be any different than the other challenges I’ve faced.”

Satisfied with my answer, he nodded, shook my hand, and walked to join the other members. I took the opportunity to make my way across the room and join my buddies who had just arrived.

When Emmett and Walker saw me, they both lifted their glasses in a toast. “To the Initiate,” Emmett announced. “Good luck, man.”

Raising my glass, I said, “Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll need any luck. Just some Trials to pass like every man who did it before us. We’ve all faced harder things in life helping build our empires and legacy.”

“Don’t be so cocky,” Walker said. “You’ve been too busy to hang out with us lately. You haven’t heard the stories Sully has been dishing. These Trials sound like something out of a sick and twisted horror movie.”

“I haven’t been hanging out with you assholes, because I’m still recovering from the last time I went out drinking with you,” I said with a slanted grin. “I damn near blacked out that night and had a hangover that lasted days.”

Emmett chuckled. “Not our fault you’re a lightweight.”

He was right about that. I rarely drank because I didn’t like to lose control. And whenever I went to have “just one drink” with the guys, it never ended as planned. And I hated things that didn’t go as planned.

A silver cloak approached, and it took me several moments to truly grasp that the man who stood before me was my good buddy Montgomery Kingston. The silver seemed to ghost his appearance. It seemed foreign on him, and yet, he was just as much a member of the Order as my father and the rest of the men clad in silver.

“I hardly recognized you,” I said to him.

“He’s one of them now,” Walker teased. “I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that he can still speak with us.”

“Whatever, shut up,” Montgomery shot back with a smile as he drank from his tumbler. “You’ll all have your very own silver cloak soon enough.”

“Unless you pull a Sully, that is,” Emmett cut in. “How’s Rafe doing in his Trials now?” he asked Montgomery.

I was curious about that as well. Rafe and I would be overlapping for a short time during my stay here. I had no idea if we would see each other or not, but it did give me some sort of comfort to know I wasn’t completely alone in the Oleander.

“He’s doing as good as one can in the manor,” Montgomery said, and I could tell that was the extent of the information we were going to get. I understood this. I knew that Montgomery danced a line between being a member of