Page 156 of The Darkest Chase

“That’s exactly why you should. Because of what happened to her.”

Cora, I mean. There’s no need to say her name to his face.

I step closer.

I’ve never seen a man his height flinch back from someone as small as I am, but he winces like he thinks I could hurt him.

“Mr. Peters… Joseph, doesn’t it ever eat you up inside, doing their dirty work and staying quiet for the folks who killed someone you cared so much about?”

“…that was Aleksander. And frankly, the little bastard got what was coming.” His voice turns bitter, hard with sorrow. He averts his eyes. “Miss Grey, please don’t press this matter. I’ve made peace with my demons. I suggest you work on yours before you wind up involved with something over your head. I’m warning you for your own good.”

Fear knifes through me.

“I…” I lose it, feeling like a door’s just been slammed in my face. I hope Micah won’t be disappointed that I possibly screwed this up. I look away, fretting my hands against the strap of my bag. “Mr. Peters, I’m sorry. Please just don’t mention this to the Arrendells?”

“Considering I couldn’t bear to see you suffer the consequences, you have my word I won’t,” he bites off. “Never speak of it again.”

“I won’t if you won’t!” I throw back. “But if you ever want help, the offer stands. Come find me. I’ll point you in the right direction.”

I take a bigger risk then.

Digging around in my bag, I find a small notepad with a pen clipped to it.

I quickly jot down Micah’s number.

No name, nothing incriminating, then I rip the page off and offer it to Joseph.

He stares at it like it’s active plutonium, making no move to take it.

Sighing, I fold it in half and slip it in the breast pocket of his tailcoat.

I don’t know what I’m expecting him to say or do.

But he doesn’t say anything.

He just looks down, then up at me again, his lips thinning.

There’s the slow creak of the door opening. The click of the latch, a bit too hard and final.

And I’m alone, except for the agitated sound of Xavier’s muffled voice filtering through the walls.

Despair curdles my stomach.

God, I’m never going to find what Micah really needs.

That means he’ll have to keep plunging along, heading deeper into the danger zone. Whatever it takes to get close enough to the Jacobins for something more than circumstantial. Enough to hold up in court or at least get the Redhaven PD a legal warrant.

Ugh.

Something about that nags me, remembering how Micah never seems to mention any of the other guys on the force knowing about this or helping him.

It just seems off.

Especially when I’ve known Lucas Graves and Grant Faircross my whole life—or at least, known of them. I wasn’t part of their older friend groups growing up, but they always seemed like this shiny thing, always out of reach. People I observed from the outside in my sickly little bubble and desperately wished I could be like when I got older.

But everyone knows the story of Lucas’ sister, Celeste Graves.

How she was possibly having an affair with Montero Arrendell, only to disappear the same night Grant’s best friend Ethan vanished too.

---