My fingers hovered over the keys for a second before I took the cup.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he grabbed the spare chair near the wall, turned it around, and sat. Then he pushed off the desk with one boot and wheeled himself back until there was a clear stretch of floor between us.
He stopped about six feet away, maybe a little more.
He always did that, maintaining the same careful distance.
Now he just watched me across the glow of the monitors, silent, patient, the way predators watched the edge of a clearing.
I turned back to the screens, pretending my pulse hadn’t kicked up all over again.
A minute passed in silence, broken only by the soft tap of keys and the low hum of the machines.
“You’re ex-military,” Novak said.
I glanced at him over my shoulder. “It’s no secret.”
My years in the military weren’t exactly a secret—some of the missions I’d undertaken were, but for the most part, I’d been intelligence-based and sat with my computers. I was a brainiac with an Ivy League education who’d hacked the bank responsible for my dad’s death, and that gave the authorities enough leverage to use my skills for five years. I did my time inArmy intelligence, collected enough on things I wasn’t supposed to see to make sure I didn’t have to stay, and the Cave became my landing spot—back to working with Killian, Levi, and Sonya on things that mattered to me.
“You carry a SIG,” Novak continued. “Military issue habit. Army?”
I blinked at him. Most people saw a gun and stopped there. Novak saw the model, the wear pattern, the way it sat within reach.
“Yeah,” I said after a moment. “Intelligence.”
He waited as if there was more coming. There wasn’t. Something in my tone must have told him that, because after a second, he gave a small nod and leaned back a fraction in the chair.
I gestured at him. “I knowyouwere in the infantry.”
“In a way.”
And there it was. An admission that not everything I saw with Novak was real. What did he mean by saying “in a way” when all it did was make my frustration mount? I needed information and to understand.
“All I can find is that you appear to be thirty-four. How close is that?”
“I’m thirty-five, and you’re thirty-two.”
I wasn’t going to ask how he knew that and forged ahead. “Then there’s a reference to you working recon on an Eastern Europe rotation. Then, a dishonorable discharge for dereliction of duty resulting in the death of a fellow soldier. Your file is redacted to the point that I could scrape the black off the paper and start an ink factory.”
“I solved a problem,” he said simply. For a second, his gaze settled on me, steady and unblinking, but there was a flicker of something that might have been anger… or regret. Was that evenpossible? Then it was gone, wiped clean as if it had never existed. “Command disagreed with my method.”
“And the problem was?”
“My target was out of control. I was his backup on an incursion, and to expedite his demise, I didn’t back him up.”
“Why is any and all information about you redacted?”
“You know why.”
“Dangerous information,” I summarized, and he nodded. “So, tell me what it says there.”
“Not yet.”
“Then when?”
“When you’re…” he stopped and frowned. “…ready.”
