Nero watched him not flinch and thought:that's not strength. That's what's left after someone teaches you that showing pain has consequences.
When Miriam finished and rewrapped his feet in fresh gauze, she prescribed antibiotics for the infection and left instructions for daily wound care. She touched Amani's shoulder briefly on her way out, a raccoon's quick, practical gesture of comfort, nothing lingering. "You were brave. Let yourself heal now."
Amani said nothing.
Nero gave his preliminary briefing to Lady Leo in the kitchen while Bethany sat with Amani in the living room. He kept it clinical. The facts: Grainger was dead. The ranch would be processed as a crime scene. Three of the four sharks involved had been identified, Dale, Mako, and Paulie. Jack had cooperated fully and would testify. Arrest warrants were being prepared for the other three. The evidence chain was solid: Jack's testimony, the traffic footage, the van, the money trail from Grainger's accounts.
"Amani won't need to testify," Nero said. "Jack's testimony and the physical evidence should be sufficient. If the prosecutor wants a victim statement, it can be written. He doesn't have to sit in a room with these people."
Lady Leo absorbed this with the stillness of someone who was processing information on multiple levels simultaneously. "The other three sharks. You'll find them."
"Yes."
"How quickly?"
"Dale and Mako are local. They'll be picked up within the week. Paulie may have run. Harold's working on his trail. If your network has anything on his location, I'll take it."
Lady Leo looked at him for a long moment. The kitchen light was harsh and she looked tired in a way that the porch light had hidden, the deep, bone-level exhaustion of four days of fear followed by the adrenaline crash of relief. But her eyes were clear and her voice was steady and she was, at that moment, not a mother. She was the head of an organization, conducting business.
"You'll have everything my people find within the hour. I assume you'll want to speak with Amani more formally at some point."
"When he's ready. Not tonight. Probably not tomorrow. He needs time before anyone asks him to walk through what happened."
The businesswoman receded and the mother came forward, and she looked at Nero with an appraisal that was different from the one she'd given him twelve hours ago. That one had been measuring his competence. This one was measuring him.
"You carried him," she said.
Nero wasn't sure if she meant from the ranch or up the porch steps or both. "Yes."
"He let you."
Nero understood what she was saying. A lion letting someone carry him was not a small thing. A lion in crisis, trusting a stranger enough to go limp in his arms and fall asleep against his shoulder for three and a half hours, that wassomething Lady Leo would have noticed. Something she would be thinking about.
"He was exhausted," Nero said, because it was true even if it wasn't the whole truth.
Lady Leo held his gaze for another moment, and then she nodded. "Thank you, Detective. For bringing him home."
Nero left the kitchen and stopped in the living room doorway. Bethany was curled up on the couch next to Amani, her head on his shoulder, asleep. Amani was awake. He was staring at the dark window with the same expression he'd worn in the bedroom at the ranch, alert, watchful, unable to let go. His hand was resting on Bethany's arm, fingers loose, the only part of him that looked relaxed.
He noticed Nero in the doorway. Their gazes met. Nero expected the dismissal, the automatic cataloging and rejecting that big cats did with smaller species, the flick of the eyes that saidnoted, not interested. But Amani just looked at him. Looked at him the way someone looks at a light they left on so the room wouldn't be dark when they got back.
"I'll check on you tomorrow," Nero said.
Amani nodded. One small movement. Then he turned back to the window.
Nero walked out into the night. Harold was waiting in the SUV. They drove back to the division in silence, and Nero finished his report and went home and stood in his shower for twenty minutes and thought about amber eyes in a dark room and a kid who let a stranger carry him because he was too tired to be afraid of trusting the wrong person.
Chapter Twelve
Amani didn't sleep.
Lady Leo had made up the guest room, fresh sheets, extra blankets, a glass of water on the nightstand. The room was warm and clean and smelled like his mother's house, which was the smell of safety, of childhood, of the world before. He lay in the bed, staring at the ceiling, and listened to the sounds of the house settling. The distant hum of the city outside was normally a comfort, but he did not sleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, hands touched his stomach. Breath danced over his neck. A voice saidlittle cub.The room smelled like sage. The clock ticked while the desert pressed against the windows.
He kept his eyes open.
At some point, three, maybe four in the morning, he got up. His feet screamed as they touched the floor but he barely registered it anymore. Pain was just a thing that was happening. It had been happening for days. It would keep happening. It was the least important thing about him at that moment.
