by Lora Leigh
The problem was, she had no idea if they were right or wrong. Ten years was a long time when it came to loyalties and how they might switch. Just because these three hadn’t been in the military didn’t mean they weren’t strong enough to garner the respect and loyalty of those who were or had been. Charismatic and intelligent, they were natural leaders with little desire to actually lead unless they had no other choice.
“What if it’s not a case of betraying him?” she asked, the pain of that thought as deep and jagged as it had been when Gunny had first suggested it. “He remarried well before that first year was out.”
The rumors that Vincent Maddox and his current wife, once his sister-in-law, had been having an affair weren’t new to Kenni. Even Gunny had begun to suspect her father was behind the death of her mother and the attempts to kill Kenni.
“Vinny hasn’t been exactly sane since the funerals,” Slade remarked somberly, his gaze meeting hers. “And from what I understand he calls her by your mother’s name more often than he calls her by her own. Besides, there’s no way he could pull something like that off without Cord’s knowledge. And there’s not a chance in hell your brother would have gone along with it.”
If only she had the luxury of believing in her brother with such strength. Even if he wasn’t involved, if she went to him, she could be risking his safety—and she refused to do that.
“Then who? Who?” The cry tore from her, more jagged and loud than she intended. “Tell me how anyone could kill Vincent Maddox’s wife and make numerous attempts against his daughter without either Vincent or his sons knowing? How?” Strangling back her fury was impossible.
It was that sense of betrayal, though, the overwhelming, agonizing knowledge that no one else wielded that much power within the Maddox clan or the Kin. Vincent, Cord, Deacon, or Sawyer had to know. The Kin was too tight-knit for anything else.
“Jessie.” She turned to her friend, desperate for a voice of reason. “Talk some sense into them.”
“I did.” Jessie blinked back at her as though in surprise. “I convinced them to let me come with them this morning so I could talk some sense into you. Kenni, you can’t do this alone anymore. It’s going to take a team. That’s something you’ve never faced your enemies with. It’s not just you and Gunny anymore, or a lone friend trying to help from another location. It’s a concentrated effort by men who wield a tremendous amount of power. But it will only work if you reveal yourself.”
So much for the voice of reason.
Kenni dropped her head as she lifted a hand to rub at her temple. She was getting a headache. She hadn’t had a headache in years. Come to think of it, she might remember getting several headaches that last summer. Each one coming after dealing with Jazz and his youthful arrogance.
That arrogance was slightly more developed now.
“That’s why you’re all here? To convince me to reveal myself?” She had to laugh, but there was little amusement, only amazement and outrage “You’re kidding, right?”
“Kenni, by revealing yourself you force your enemies’ hand. You throw them off balance by upping the ante. For whatever reason, learning you’re here made them panic enough to try to take you out in public. That was a mistake. Let’s ride their panic and give them the one thing they obviously don’t want.”
“I can’t deal with this,” she snapped, furious that they would gang up on her and try to convince her to do the one thing she feared could have the Kin converging on her in greater numbers. None of them would survive that. “Take me back to the house, Jazz. Please.”
They had no idea what they were dealing with, or the merciless brutality the Kin could display.
The look he gave her assured her that wasn’t happening.
“Drink your coffee, sweetheart, you’re going to need it,” he advised her firmly. “And before you completely lose your mind, remember the price you’ll pay if you slip out on me.”
He would call her brothers.
Rolling her eyes in complete disgust, Kenni moved across the room to the back door, opened it, and stepped out to the deck. She definitely needed to finish her coffee before dealing with him.
She may need a whole pot of coffee first.
* * *
Jazz watched her leave, the feminine disgust and fury that filled her expression at odds with the uncertainty there.
She had no intentions of being part of the discussion regarding her safety or the Kin.
“She’s going to run, Jazz,” Kate warned him, drawing his attention from Kenni back to the table.
“She will.” Jessie nodded, her brown eyes dark and filled with fear for her friend. “I can see it in her, too. She’s completely distancing herself, pulling back from any emotional connections to allow herself to make the move.”
Yeah, he’d seen that in her as well. Strangely enough, it made him hard.
His dick was like steel in his jeans, and the thought of melting that distance was a challenge he knew he wouldn’t refuse for long. He might last five minutes after the others left.
“Are you sure about her brothers, Jazz?” Lara asked then. “There’s no way they’re involved in this?”
“They’ve grieved for ten years,” Slade replied as he sat back in his chair and regarded the rest of them. “Especially Cord. Kenni was his shadow while she was growing up and he was damned proud of her. Every year on the anniversary of what he believes is her death, he gets skunk-drunk and doesn’t talk about anything but Kenni and his mother. He feels guilty for not being there for them. It was one of only a few times he hadn’t accompanied them.”
“Chances are pretty slim then.” Lara nodded before looking down at her papers and making another note.
“Chances are zero,” Jazz sighed. “But I swore not to contact him. She’s adamant that her family not be told she’s still alive.”
“Fear they’ll be hurt? Or is she really convinced one of them is involved?” Zack questioned.
“I’m not sure.” Running his hands through his hair before rubbing the back of his neck in frustration, Jazz tried to make sense of the woman Kenni had become. “We have less than two weeks left before Cord comes looking for answers, though. I have that long to convince her to trust him.”
“Well, good luck on that one,” Kate sighed. “She really didn’t seem inclined to trust anyone the other night or now, let alone family. Thankfully, we don’t need her to initiate the investigation into who ordered her mother’s death.”
“Kin won’t trust the two of you,” Jazz warned them. “You’re not from Loudoun, nor are you blood-related to anyone tied to the Maddox family.”
Kate smiled. One of those soft, seductive little smiles that he’d seen entrance men when she turned it on them.
“Now, sugar,” she drawled as sweet as any southern belle. “Don’t you know men talk, too? I just have to find the right one, at the right time, who’s had just the right amount to drink. That’s not as hard as you think it is.” The deliberately suggestive wink had him almost feeling sorry for whomever she chose as prey.
The door to the porch was pushed open hurriedly and Kenni stalked inside. Anger and accusation filled her brilliant-green eyes. The look only made him harder.
“You called Cord,” she hissed, that anger transforming into rage as she stood glaring at him. “Why would you do that, Jazz? You promised.”
“I didn’t call Cord,” he denied, his arms crossing over his chest as he narrowed his gaze on her. “Trust me, if I had, the whole fucking clan would be here.”
A little trust wouldn’t hurt, he thought mockingly. She could give him her virginity, but she refused to trust him. Now, wasn’t that some shit?
“Well, he just pulled in,” she snapped, fear and a haunting ache shadowing her gaze. “I swear to God, Jazz, tell him who I am and I promise you, you’ll never find me when I run.”
Before he could counter the threat she turned and raced through the house, returning no doubt to the bedroom.
Son of a
bitch, could this get any more fucking complicated?
Turning to Kate and Lara, he nodded toward the direction Kenni had taken in an indication that they retreat as well. If the twins were going to be investigating the Kin, he didn’t want Cord knowing who they were before the investigation started. No doubt he’d run their backgrounds the second he caught sight of them, but those two were damned good at covering themselves. Better to let them establish whatever cover story they came up with before Cord knew they were there.
No sooner had the twins disappeared from sight than Marcus let out a warning woof to alert Jazz that someone was crossing the yard and heading for the house. The yard and pool was his territory as far as he was concerned, and he didn’t care much for trespassers.
“Easy, Marcus,” he called to the Rottweiler before turning to face the windows looking out on the back porch. Hell, it wasn’t even noon yet. No one should have to deal with Cord Maddox before evening at the earliest.
Seconds later Cord stepped onto the porch. Six two, lean, powerful and glaring at the world, ready to take it on. He’d been trying to take it on for ten years, too. The loss of his mother and baby sister had been too much for the other man’s overdeveloped sense of responsibility and love.
He’d never stopped blaming himself, and Jazz knew he never would.
Cord didn’t bother to knock. The stares leveled on him as he stepped into the house couldn’t have been comfortable. Like a bug under a microscope he was pinned by all of them, assessing, suspicious, and wary.
“Maddox, what the hell do you want?” Jazz bit out, irritation threatening to spill over in the other man’s direction. He hadn’t tamped down the anger from their last little meeting, and adding to it might not be a good idea. For either of them.
A dark-blond brow lifted with lazy arrogance while cynical humor curled at the corner of his lips.
“Not in the best of moods this morning, are you, Jazz?” he observed as he moved to the coffeepot, found himself a cup, and poured the last of the steaming liquid into it. “Get up on the wrong side of your little schoolteacher?”
Cord knew she was here. They’d expected that. Still, the comment didn’t sit well.
“Wrong direction to go in, Cord.” He’d end up teaching the other man his manners with a fist at this rate.
“Interesting.” There was no amusement in Cord’s expression, despite the smile that quirked his lips as he opened a cabinet door and pulled out the creamer Jazz kept hidden.
“Just make yourself at home,” Jazz invited, the heavy mockery in his tone fully intended as Cord stirred a heaping spoon of the creamy powder into his coffee.
“I thought I was.” Turning, Cord faced the room, sipped at the coffee, and waited.
What the hell he was waiting for, Jazz didn’t even want to guess.
“Miss Mayes doing okay?” Cord asked when no one volunteered to guess at what he wanted. “I heard there was an accident in town the other day?”
Jazz knew why he was there but wasn’t going to make it easy for Cord. A surefire way to make a Maddox suspicious? Make something easy for them.
“She’s doing fine,” he growled. “She thinks it was some drunk driver.”
That drew Cord’s attention long enough for the others to unobtrusively slide their papers and files beneath laptops or tablets.
“Hmm,” Cord murmured before sipping at the coffee once again. “A drunk driver, you say?”
“Are you saying anything different, Cord?” Slade asked before Jazz could voice the question.
Cord leaned back against the counter, stared at the slate floor for long moments before lifting his gaze once again and meeting Jazz’s.
“The driver of that car doesn’t drink,” he stated, his eyes narrowed as they met Jazz’s, suspicion now filling the emerald orbs and making them brighter.
Jazz tensed.
“You know who it was then?” he questioned the other man. “You here to tell me who he is, or just trying to piss me off?”
“Probably both,” Cord drawled lazily, his lips thinning in obvious irritation. “Which do you want first?”
“The name.”
All he needed was the name.
“The driver was Joe Fallon,” Cord stated. “But you’re not going to get to question him. See, this is where I get to piss you off. Or you get to piss me off.”
Adrenaline was building, pulsing in his blood with a demand for action.
“What makes you think I’m not going to question him?” He’d tear that fucking mountain apart if he had to.
For the briefest moment rage flickered in Cord’s emerald gaze before disappearing as though it had never been there.
“Because he’s dead.” Lifting the cup to sip again, Cord watched him too intently. “Deacon, Sawyer, and I went up the mountain to his cabin this morning to ask him about it. It appeared he’d been shot just as he came through the door into the kitchen of his cabin.” He set his coffee cup on the counter before turning back. “Now, I just gotta ask, Jazz, you kill him?”
Jazz, Slade, and Zack had an agreement with the Maddoxes. Anything that demanded action against Kin, they’d notify a Maddox. Any action against anyone Slade, Zack, or Jazz was known to affiliate with, and the brothers came to him. Just as they had with Kenni.
“I didn’t get the chance.” He would have, if he’d known who to kill, if he’d had a chance to question him first—but not without first observing the pact they had. “I hadn’t learned who took a swipe at her yet.”
For a moment Cord’s jaw bunched, the carefully banked anger finding no release, no relief.
“It wouldn’t have taken you long.” Cord breathed out, the sound rife with frustration as a grimace contorted his expression. “Dammit, Jazz, what the fuck is going on? What’s that woman involved in that had Fallon trying to race right over her ass?”
Demanding, arrogantly presuming he deserved an answer, Cord faced them, his gaze meeting Slade’s and Zack’s first before turning back to Jazz.
“She’s not involved in anything, Cord.” There were days that dealing with more than one Maddox was more than a man could handle. “What the hell was Fallon involved in that had him racing down the street like a fucking maniac?”
Slade and Zack watched the exchange silently, but Jazz could see the look on Slade’s face. The other man was ready to jump between Cord and Jazz at the slightest provocation. Slade was still trying to play the big brother, though Jazz hadn’t needed a big brother in a lot of years.
Cord shifted his shoulders before placing his hands on the counter behind him and staring back at all of them fiercely. He wasn’t happy and wasn’t bothering to hide it.
“That the story you’re sticking with then?” Cord questioned with obvious doubt. “Come on, Jazz, this is me and we both know better than that. Fallon hasn’t been off that mountain in months, then one day he just decides to run some little schoolteacher over? Does that make sense to you?”
None of this had made sense since the night Cord had revealed that Annie Mayes wasn’t Annie Mayes.
“That makes more sense to me than your suggestion that she somehow deserved it,” Jazz bit out.
A grimace tightened Cord’s face. Evidently, he was enjoying dealing with him about as much he was enjoying dealing with Cord.
“That wasn’t what I said, dammit. I said she’s involved in something and you damned well know she is.” Maddox straightened then, the glare on his face increasing as his gaze swept the room. “And every damned one of you is going to play innocent?”
Deep-green eyes finally settled on Jessie. “You playing this little game with them?”
“It’s not a game.” Jessie smiled sweetly as she propped her chin on her hand and regarded him with a far-too-pleasant smile. “They’re very innocent.”
Cord could only shake his head to that one. “Jessie, you used to be such a good little girl,” he sighed heavily. “Slade’s corrupting you.”
“That’s beside the point,” she a
ssured him with a smile. “In this case, they really are innocent. If Annie was up to something, I would know it. And I know she’s not, so mind your manners, please.”
For a moment Cord’s face softened and Jazz remembered hearing Kenni tell her brothers that a few times. Mind your manners, please, or I’ll tell Momma was the full threat.
“Mind my manners.” Shaking his head once, he turned back to Jazz. “You know nothing, right?”
“That about covers it,” Jazz agreed.
And Cord wasn’t buying it.
“I’ll remember that when I prove differently. When I do, Jazz, we’re going to have problems,” he warned, heading toward the door he’d used to enter the kitchen. “I’ll go before you end up pissing me right off. That wouldn’t be good for either of us.”
Wasn’t that the truth, Jazz agreed silently.
“And Jessie.” Cord turned to her slowly, his gaze implacable as it met hers. “Only one person ever said that to me—to mind my manners, please. She was the best of all of us, but she’s been gone a long time now. I’d appreciate if I didn’t have to hear it again.”
With that, he stalked from the kitchen, the door closing silently behind him before he strode from the back porch and into the yard.
The grief and agony he’d glimpsed on Cord’s face when Jessie spoke only strengthened his belief that Cord would never be a part of a plot to kill Kenni. Discounting her fears and telling Cord the truth wasn’t going to help her trust him, though.
“Poor Cord,” Jessie whispered then, her brown eyes filled with remorse. “I guess I should watch repeating those little asides Kenni’s bad for, huh?”
Yeah, that might be a good idea, Jazz thought ruefully. A damned good idea.
CHAPTER 13
She was the best of all of us, but she’s been gone a long time now …
Kenni tried to tell herself her brother could have faked the grief in his voice. After all, it had been ten years, not ten days since her supposed death.
Cord had been her favorite, and she’d believed she was his favorite sibling. It was Cord who nicknamed her Princess when she was only two, and Cord who had always gotten her out of trouble with her parents as she grew older. He’d taught her to shoot, to hunt, to hide. He’d tried to teach her how to lie, but that lesson had been much harder to learn. If it hadn’t been for him she never would have survived the night her mother was killed until Gunny got to her.