I can feel Saxon’s stare on me.
“Yeah. Off-limits.”
So many questions fight for supremacy in my brain, but one triumphs. “Then why did you ...” I let my words trail off.
“Next question.” His reply is curt.
Something like victory bubbles up inside me, and I have no idea what to do with that feeling. We’re both quiet for a few minutes before I realize I’m losing my chance to find out more about him ... I mean, interrogate him.
“What about you? Did you enlist after high school?”
“Yes.”
“Go to college at all?”
“No.” His short answers aren’t exactly inviting more questions.
“What was your job?”
He pauses like he might not answer. Finally, he replies, “Sniper.”
“I guess that fits. How long were you in?”
“Long enough.”
His non-answers should dissuade me from asking more questions, but I’m not losing my opportunity. “Why’d you get out? Didn’t like it?”
He grunts. “It was time.”
“So, how’d you come to work for Mount?”
“I don’t.”
“Wait. I’m confused. I thought—”
“No. I don’t work for anyone, and I sure as hell wouldn’t take his orders every day.”
“I still don’t get it.”
He grunts like he doesn’t want to answer, but he eventually speaks again. “I’m doing him a favor. I don’t pass up the chance to have Mount in my debt too often. Never know when I’ll need to call it in.”
I’m not sure what to make of all this, but I keep questioning him. “How do you know Rafe?”
“Through Mount,” he replies, keeping his answers short, but this one brings my questions full circle.
“What did my brother do? What was so different about this job? Mount made it sound worse than normal ...” I pause, not sure what else to say.
“How much do you know about what your brother does?”
The question catches me off guard, mostly because I never talk about it to anyone. Not just because I don’t want him to get in trouble, but also because it allows me to pretend that my brother isn’t a smuggler who spends more time on the wrong side of the law than the right side.
“Enough,” I say, keeping my answers short like he does.
“Keep going.”
“He transports things,” I say, and I can almost feel the sidelong glance.
“Your brother’s a transporter.”