Kate and Lara watched him, their gazes expectant, wary. Did they think he’d have already spat a name out? No, because the only name he could come up with he dared not allow himself to voice. Rousing hope even enough to voice her name and learn he was wrong was more than he wanted to face. It was far more than he could bear to risk.

He shook his head, swallowing tightly.

No. He wouldn’t let himself consider it …

But still, his breath felt suspended in his chest, fury, pride, and disbelief ripping through him.

“Who is she?” He knew, God, in his gut he knew. Just as he’d known the first night he met her as Annie Mayes. When he’d stared into hazel eyes and knew the color was wrong. The hairs on the back of his neck had lifted then as well.

Once again the two women glanced at each other, obviously uncertain how to proceed.

“Jazz…” Lara spoke up, obviously hesitating.

“I asked you a fucking question.” He came out of his chair, his hands plowing through his hair as he stalked to the end of the porch, his fingers gripping the railing in a desperate grip.

He turned back to them slowly. “The two of you owe me, Kate,” he reminded her. “Don’t think you can hold back on this.”

“Dammit, Jazz…”

“Answer the fucking question. Who is she?” he snarled, suspicion and blind fury surging through him.

*   *   *

Kenni stood perfectly still, silent at the side of the door that hadn’t quite closed securely.

There was no way to save the situation, she thought. Kate and Lara Blanchard had brought the truth and there was no way to keep that truth from Jazz now.

Her fists clenched at her side.

Every fear she’d lived with every day of her life for the past two years rose inside her, tormenting her with the knowledge of what could happen now. He could betray her to the Kin, or he would die for her at their hand. Once he learned the truth, he’d realize that, too, and she wasn’t certain she could bear it if his choice was betraying her. But neither could she bear it if he died for her.

She should have never returned to Loudoun. Surely there was some other part of the world where she could have hidden. With the identity in place and already established by the real Annie Mayes, there must have been a safe place to exist other than here.

She hadn’t wanted to exist, though, she realized. She hadn’t wanted to keep running, being found, watching friends die. She hadn’t wanted to continue living a lie and she hadn’t wanted to die never knowing if the family she had loved had ordered their mother’s and sister’s deaths.

But neither had she wanted Jazz to know the truth. Not yet. Not now.

How had he known she wasn’t really Annie Mayes? What had she done to make him suspicious? And what was she going to do now? Because she knew there was no way to keep the truth from him.

*   *   *

A sudden awareness of her had Jazz turning his gaze from Kate and Lara as the kitchen door pushed open and she stepped to the porch.

Darkness shrouded her, wrapped around her. What little light was available allowed him to glimpse the pain and fear in her expression, though, and the sight of it had every protective instinct he possessed rising hard and fast inside him.

The twins rose slowly to their feet, surprised, more than a little nervous as they stared between Jazz and the woman he’d known as Annie.

“How did I give myself away?” she asked the twins. The fear he heard in her voice stripped him to his soul.

From the moment he’d met her something had stilled inside him, going alert, waiting, watching. Aching for her.

Somehow, he’d known, Jazz realized. He had known who she was, he just hadn’t wanted to see it. Admitting it seared him with guilt and the knowledge he’d failed her.

“You didn’t give yourself away,” Lara told her softly before Jazz could answer her. “It was the Kin that gave you away. Cord Maddox’s curiosity tipped someone off, I assume. His search into Annie Mayes has caused several other searches from what we’ve learned. Each of those searches turned up the same information we found.”

“That Annie Mayes is actually in China,” she answered. “Wonderful.” She turned to Jazz. “Why would Cord give a damn about some schoolteacher?”

Cord’s suspicious nature was well known. He would have wanted to know who was teaching any child he’d taken under his protection.

They were all watching him now, waiting for an answer.

He was going to kill Cord, it was that simple. And if he learned the other man knew or even suspected who she was, then he would make what the Kin could do look like a picnic.

“Kenni,” he whispered, knowing—God, could it be true? “Kenni…”

A bitter smile tipped her lips. “You should have just let me leave earlier, Jazz,” she replied. “It would have been so much easier for both of us.”

Oh, he really didn’t think so.

“Kenni.” Lara shifted restlessly at the comment, forestalling Jazz’s instinctive rejection. “They know you’re still alive and they know where you are, but running isn’t going to save you. You already know that.”

Jazz kept himself still, silent. The rage coursing through him was like a fever, a furious, burning surge of such force it was all he could do to remain standing in place.

“No, but it would save those I care about, Lara,” Kenni stated as she acknowledged Lara’s argument, bitterness filling her voice. Shoving her hands into the pockets of the capris she wore, she stared back at Jazz. “They killed Gunny.” Her voice almost broke. “I came back to the warehouse and there was so much blood—” Turning her head she stopped, one hand lifting to cover her lips before she drew in a hard breath. “They will kill anyone who tries to help me.”

Her shoulders straightened then, her slight body giving a small, almost imperceptible shudder before she stilled it. God he wanted to see her face, her eyes. He wanted those contacts out, he wanted the color out of her hair. He wanted to see the woman she had become, the woman who had been stolen from him.

There was no getting those years back, no way to take the horror of what she had lived from her memories. That innocence was gone forever, but the woman was still here. She was here and she was alive, and by God he intended to make certain she stayed alive.

“Kate, Lara, you can bunk in the guest room,” he growled at the other two women as he stomped across the porch, gripped Kenni’s arm, and despite her instinctive attempt to break free pulled her into the house.

“What are you doing?” There were no tears, no anger, just hard determination in her voice now. “Let me go, Jazz.”

Let her go? Yeah, he was going to get right on that.

“Shut the fuck up. And stop fighting me or I swear to God, Kenni, I will paddle your ass.”

*   *   *

This was the second time he’d made that threat. She was getting rather tired of it, Kenni thought dismally as Jazz all but dragged her through the kitchen, television room, then up the short flight of stairs to the master suite at the top.

The bedroom door slammed behind him, the crack of wood against wood sending an involuntary flinch through her body. The moment he released her she swung around to face him, a blistering tirade on her lips until she glimpsed his expression. It was so tight, so hard, it could have been hewn from marble. The fury raging through him burned in his eyes, though. They were brilliant, like a faceted gem slicing into her before he walked away.

Eyes wide, staring at the apparition stalking across the hardwood floor of the bedroom to the French doors, Kenni couldn’t help but draw in a hard, fortifying breath. Throwing the doors open he stalked out to the deck, his arms extended, fingers gripping the railing before him as he stared into the darkness beyond.

The deck stretched out from the bedroom, the railing surrounding it securely. The only way to reach it was from the bedroom. There were no steps, no access period to the patio below. Now, this was a feature she hadn’t thought of. The deck also shaded the patio outside the living room where Marcus and Essie and their pups often played.