Page 71 of Close Quarters

Leon crossed his arms over his chest, stepping ahead of Reno and me and looking up at Mona. “I can promise that most people here didn’t know what they were signing up for when they went through that paperwork.”

“As I said?—”

“And,” Leon continued, cutting Mona off and earning a brow that shot up into her hairline, “how many of them have difficulty reading? And how many of them had a lawyer present or someone with the knowledge to understand it? I’m pretty literate, but even I would be hard-pressed to make sense of the legal jargon that goes into paperwork, especially the kind that waives rights.”

“We can talk about this another time,” Mona said with a sigh.

“You want us to be mentors, leaders,” Leon said, narrowing his eyes. “Well, I’m telling you it’s important that the guys who come into this program fully understand what they’re doing. And before you say it, I understand that most of us would kill for something like this, and we should be and are grateful for the opportunity?—”

“I would never say anything of the sort,” Mona said, brow furrowing. “That’s not the attitude I want anyone to have here.”

“I know,” Leon said, tilting his head back. “But if we’re supposed to encourage growth and responsibility, the ranch should do the same. You can’t have legally binding documents with confusing wordage and expect people to know what they’re signing up for. That’s not informed consent.”

Mona’s hands tightened over one another before letting out a sigh. “How about this? I hear you, I understand, and I’m not dismissing the conversation because you’re bringing up good points. But that isn’t the point of this announcement, so I ask that you shelve it until we deal with this issue first…fair?”

“Sure,” Leon said, stepping back and bowing his head. Despite the display of admirable confidence and intensity he’d just shown, I could see the tightness in his shoulders and the way his gaze went distant.

“Good,” Mona said, eyes lingering curiously on Leon for a moment before clearing her throat. “The other point I wanted to make is that I need you all to know that Mr. Isaiah and I were extremely careful in vetting Riley before we allowed this to happen. We had to be sure with every tool available to us that he was doing it for the right reasons.”

“And was he?” someone else called above the muttering of the crowd.

“Hey, how about you shut the hell up!” I called back, craning my neck to find out who was talking shit.

Reno grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me, making me stand and rolling his eyes. “You’re not going to pick a fight with anyone here, stop.”

“And since when are you the voice of reason?” I snapped at him.

The corner of his lips curled. “Well, one of us has to be, otherwise things go to hell. So I guess it’s my turn.”

“Jesus, what is wrong with you?”

“Shh, listen.”

I huffed, glaring at the crowd as Mona continued. “Listen. His aim from the start was to collect information about how the ranch was run and its effects on the participants to make a case about how much more effective this kind of system is than incarceration.”

Reno snorted harshly. “Of fucking course, that was his thing.”

Mona stopped, turning a sharp gaze on him. “Something to add?”

“Not really,” Reno said with a shrug. “Except that sounds just like him. Advocating for the dregs of society? Trying to make things better for them? Yeah, sounds just like the little Boy Scout.”

“It…kinda does, actually,” I admitted, not objecting because he wasn’t sneering when he’d called Riley a Boy Scout. Which he was in a lot of ways, but that didn’t mean it needed to be used as an insult. “What about Max? Why isn’t he here?”

“This created a small bit of fallout that we had to address, and Max is our spokesperson right now, considering he was Riley’s mentor,” Mona explained.

“Wow, you’re letting him speak to people? In front of a camera?” I asked. “Why are you trying to make the fallout worse?”

The crowd had a good chuckle, and Mona even smiled. “I have quite a lot of faith that Max will comport himself appropriately. He has…plenty of motivation.”

That took me back momentarily, but Mona continued before anyone could say anything else. The rest was just assurances I didn’t need about Riley’s character and intentions. It was followed by making Reno and I swear to keep our mouths shut and informing the mentors that it was their responsibility to filter the information down to their mentees. Considering how annoyed some people looked, I hoped Mona knew what she was doing.

Once we were dismissed, I walked back toward our cabin with Reno. I waited until we were away from the group before asking him. “So, uh, did you catch that?”

“The comment about Max? Yeah,” he said, frowning. “Kinda weird that she knows but didn’t…I don’t know, seem all that pissed about it?”

“Yeah,” I began and stopped when I heard footsteps behind us. I turned around to see Leon hot on our heels. “Oh…hey.”

His brow shot up as he reached us. “Pissed about what?”

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