"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 workedwell together acknowledging that the work was done and the next thing was starting.
Chapter Seventeen
