Page 2 of Subduing the Shark

Swallowing, Jack nodded.

"You're here because my son decided he was ready to have you here. That decision was his alone. The council didn't rushhim. I didn't rush him. If he'd needed another few months, or a few years, you'd still be sitting in that room. Are we clear on that?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Lady Leo stepped away from the bar, heels silent on the floor. She stopped six feet from him. Jack resisted the urge to step back. She was a head shorter than him but the size difference was laughable. He was a shark on dry land. She was a lioness in her own den.

"Here's how this works. You'll be here three hours every night, starting tonight. During those three hours, you will do every single thing my son tells you to do. You will dress how he says. You will clean what he says. You will serve who he says. If he tells you to scrub the toilets with a toothbrush, you'll scrub until they shine. If he tells you to stand in a corner and not speak for three hours, you won't make a sound." She paused, letting each word settle. "Anything less than your complete obedience will result in consequences I don't think you want me to describe. You've seen what I do to people who hurt my family. You were part of the reason I had to do it."

Jack held still. He deserved it. He'd known it was coming and he deserved it.

"The safe word at this club is Lioness." Lady Leo's voice dropped half a register. "You say that word and everything stops. Your punishment ends and you go back to the council for whatever they decide to do with you instead. That's the only out I'm giving you. Use it if you need to, but understand what it means."

Lioness. Her title. Her word. Woven into the foundation of the place so deep that even the safe word belonged to her.

"I won't need it," Jack said.

Her eyes narrowed. "That remains to be seen." She stepped aside, turning the floor over to the person behind the bar.

Amani didn't come out from behind it. He stayed where he was, hands on the bartop, Nero within arm's reach. When he spoke, his voice was steady, but Jack noticed the fingers pressing into the wood.

"You don't come near me. Not within arm's reach, not ever, unless I tell you otherwise." Amani's gaze was level and direct and it took visible effort to hold it there. "When I need something done, I'll relay it through Nero or Harold. You talk to them. Not to me. Not directly. Not until I say."

Jack nodded. "Okay."

"If I change my mind about this, you're gone. No argument. No second chance."

"I understand."

Amani held his stare for another moment, then looked away. His hand returned to the hem of his hoodie, pulling at it, and Jack felt the weight of that small gesture like a fist to the chest. Months ago, Amani hadn't needed armor. Since then, he wore it every day and it was a gray hoodie with sleeves long enough to tuck his hands in, and Jack's shiver had put him in it.

Nero stepped forward, not between them exactly, but close enough that the message was clear. His dark gaze moved over Jack with a professional calm that revealed nothing and probably missed less. "You'll check in with me at the start of every shift. I'll tell you where Amani wants you and what he wants done. You have questions, bring them to me or Harold, if he happens to be here. Not to Amani, not to Lady Leo, not to Bethany. You do your hours, you leave. That's it."

"That's it," Jack repeated.

"Your shift starts at nine tonight. Don't be late."

Lady Leo picked up her martini again and turned her back on him, which was either a dismissal or a statement about how little of a threat she considered him. Probably both. Nero returned to his position near Amani. Harold stayed where hewas, arms still crossed, still watching Jack with those deep brown eyes.

Jack looked at Amani one more time. The lion wasn't looking at him anymore. He was rearranging bottles behind the bar, his hands steadier as that they had something to do, his face turned away. The hoodie swallowed him. He looked smaller than Jack remembered, and Jack was suddenly, violently certain that Amani wasn't smaller at all. He was just hiding. Pulling himself in. Making himself a target that was harder to find.

Jack turned and walked back to the elevator. Hit the button. Waited.

Behind him, the club was silent except for the faint clink of bottles being rearranged by hands that used to move through this space like they owned every inch of it. The elevator arrived. Jack stepped in, pressed the button for the lobby, stood very still as the doors closed. The smell of the club faded. The weight of what he'd participated in settled into his bones in a way that three months of thinking hadn't managed.

He had nine hours until his shift started. He needed to find out if the shiver would take him back, because he had nowhere else to sleep. The holding facility hadn't given him money or a phone. He had the clothes on his back and a sick feeling that had been building since he'd seen Amani's hands disappear inside those sleeves.

He walked out of the building and into the Las Vegas sun and started walking toward the shiver house. It was a long hot way. He had time.

Chapter Two

Harold smelled Jack before he saw him.

Nine o'clock sharp, the elevator doors opened and that deep ocean scent rolled across the club floor like a tide coming in. Salt and cold water and a layer underneath it, biological and ancient, that Harold's hound brain registered as predator before his human brain caught up. It cut through the musk of fifty other shifters packed into the club on a Friday night, through the alcohol and the leather and the warm amber of the lions who ran the place. Shark. Unmistakable.

He was standing near the entrance to the hallway that led to the private rooms, positioned where he could see the bar, the main floor, and the elevator simultaneously. Nero had mapped out sightline positions for every member of the security team when he'd taken the job, and Harold had to admit his former partner was better at it than he'd expected. Nero thought about space the way he thought about crime scenes. Every angle considered. Every blind spot identified and eliminated or monitored.

Nero was behind the bar that night, leaning against the back counter where the clean glasses waited in rows. Not working the bar, just present. Close enough to Amani that his scent would be a constant, which Harold knew was deliberate. Amani was mixing drinks alongside Reza, the otter bartender. Reza was good. Efficient, friendly without being pushy, kept up with Amani's pace without getting in his way. He was also overly lean, which meant he wasn't threatening, which Harold suspected wasat least part of why Amani liked working with him. The lion had enough large predators in his life.