Chapter Sixteen
Nero had been to Kinky Kritters twice times before he started working there. Once as a cop confirming a kidnapping. He’d never made it into the elevator and down to the bar. Once to check on a victim.
None of those visits had prepared him for seeing the place during the day.
The overall atmosphere of club was vastly different at two in the afternoon.
The low amber lighting was off, replaced by the flat fluorescent overheads that the cleaning and prep crew used.
Under their unforgiving glare the place lost its mystique and became what it actually was: a large, well-maintained basement with expensive equipment and very good soundproofing.
The leather on the St. Andrew's Cross was scuffed in places.
The bar top had a dull spot near the service well where years of wiping had worn through the finish.
The private room doors, which looked sleek and anonymous at night, had small scratches around the handles from rings and cuffs catching on the hardware.
It was, Nero thought, like seeing a beautiful woman without makeup. Not worse. Just honest.
Lady Leo met him in her office, which was upstairs in the part of the building that actually looked like an office building.
The room was immaculate: cream walls, mahogany desk, two chairs positioned so that the visitor's was slightly lower than hers, which was either an accident of furniture or the most deliberate power move Nero had seen since his last interrogation. Knowing Lady Leo, it was the furniture.
"The position is security chief." She slid a folder across the desk.
"Salary, benefits, and expectations are outlined.
You'll report to me. You'll have authority over all security staff, camera systems, door policy, and incident response.
You won't have authority over club operations, membership decisions, or my bartenders. "
The last item was not in the folder. Nero noted it and moved on.
"The job is real," Lady Leo continued. She was watching him with the steady, unblinking focus of a predator assessing whether something in her territory was a threat or an asset.
"I'm not offering you a position so you can be near my son.
I'm offering you a position because a man walked into my building with a badge and found my son missing and brought him home, and that man has a skill set I need.
The fact that you've also been feeding Amani quiche at four in the morning is—" She paused. Chose her word. "Noted."
Nero held her gaze. He'd stared down wolves, bears, a crocodile shifter who'd bitten a chunk out of a conference table during questioning. Lady Leo was harder to hold than any of them, because she wasn't trying to intimidate him. She was reading him. And she was very, very good at it.
"I'll take the job," he said. "And for the record, the quiche is none of your business."
"Everything that happens to my children is my business, Detective. That is not a statement I expect you to challenge."
"I'm not challenging it. I'm telling you the quiche is between me and Amani."
Something moved behind Lady Leo's eyes. Not approval. Lady Leo didn't approve of things, she permitted them. But something adjacent. An acknowledgment that the ferret sitting in her visitor's chair had a spine, and that the spine was not going to bend on this particular point.
"Monday," she said. "Eight AM. Bethany will have your keycard and building access. Dress professionally. My club has standards, even when the doors are closed."
Nero looked down at his jeans and his enforcement division polo. "This isn't professional?"
"This is adequate. Monday, you will be professional. There's a difference." She stood, which meant the meeting was over. "Welcome to Kinky Kritters, Mr. Nero. Don't make me regret it."
***
He put in his notice at the division the next morning.
His supervisor took it with the resigned expression of someone who'd been expecting it.
Nero had been restless for months, the tip line had been a holding pattern, and the KK case had been the first thing that had lit him up in longer than he wanted to admit. Harold was the harder conversation.
They were in the parking lot behind the division building, leaning against Harold's SUV in the late morning heat. Harold had a coffee. Nero had water because it was a hundred and four degrees and coffee in that weather was a form of self-harm.
"KK offered me the security chief position," Nero said.
Harold drank his coffee. Looked at the sky. Looked at his coffee. "The club where the lion kid works."
"Yes."
"The lion kid you've been feeding at four in the morning."
"How do you know about that?"
"You've bought eggs three times this week. You don't eat eggs." Harold took another sip. "Also, you smile at your phone now. You've never smiled at your phone. It's unsettling."
Nero didn't have a response to that. He hadn't realized he'd been smiling at his phone. He made a mental note to stop smiling at his phone, then immediately recognized that this was a battle he was going to lose.
"The job is real," Nero said, echoing Lady Leo's words because they were true. "The security gaps are real. They need someone with enforcement experience and I'm—"
"Nero."
"—qualified, and the shark network is still active, and the club is a target, and—"
"Nero." Harold set his coffee on the hood of the SUV. "You don't have to sell me. You're a good cop and you'll be a good security chief and you're leaving because of the kid and that's fine. People leave jobs for people. It's what people do."
The directness of it landed the way Harold's directness always did: blunt, accurate, impossible to argue with.
Harold was a hound. He tracked things. Scents, trails, fugitives, the truth.
He'd been Nero's partner for two years and in that time Nero had never successfully lied to him, which was both the best and the most annoying quality a partner could have.
"I'm not leaving because of him," Nero said, knowing it was at least thirty percent a lie.
Harold's mouth twitched. "Sure."
"The job is—"
"Real. You said." Harold extended his hand. Nero took it. The handshake was firm and brief and carried two years of partnership in the grip of it. "Stay in touch on the shark cases. Paulie's still running and I could use your read on him when we get close."
"Done."
"And Nero?" Harold picked his coffee back up. "Ferrets always land on their feet."
"That's a cat expression."
"I know what it is."
Nero flipped him off. Harold laughed. It was the right way to end it. Not sentimental, not heavy, just two men who'd worked well together acknowledging that the work was done and the next thing was starting.