“I’ll do it.” Kate rose from her seat and left the house silently through the back door.

Not even her footsteps were audible as she went across the porch. If he hadn’t known what to look for, he wouldn’t have seen her grip the railing to vault soundlessly to the ground below, either.

As he watched Kate move across the yard he was aware of Lara watching him closely, too thoughtfully. She was a dangerous woman when she let herself think too deeply.

“She’s the one, isn’t she?” Lara asked softly as her sister disappeared. “The reason why Jazz Lancing never gave his heart to a woman. Someone else already owned it.”

There was a thread of sadness in her voice, one Jazz couldn’t quite place.

“Yeah,” he admitted remembering the woman-child Kenni had been, and how easily she had snagged his heart. “She’s always owned it, Lara.”

She nodded before turning back to the tablet and sifting through files for long moments.

“Jazz?” she asked softly when he said nothing more. “Do you think you might have a brother somewhere? One who hasn’t already given his heart away, that is? Maybe one who doesn’t see the imperfections?”

The scar. She pretended she’d forgotten it was there, that it didn’t matter, but Kate had told him years before just how very aware Lara was of it.

“I think, Lara, you don’t have a single imperfection. And anyone who sees one needs his ass kicked,” he told her gently.

Lara rarely showed her vulnerabilities to anyone, especially if her sister was around. Kate was incredibly protective of her younger twin. She would kill the man who broke Lara’s heart.

“Yeah, there’s that,” she agreed, her voice brighter now.

A false brightness and one he had no idea how to fix.

“We’ll find out what’s going on here.” Lara glanced back at him, her gaze set and filled with determination. “Then you can find that brother of yours for me. How’s that?”

“I don’t know, Lara.” Moving around the bar, he met her gaze again. “I think you and Kate need to head home. I don’t want you two involved in this.”

Her brow lifted slowly, a move he knew wasn’t a good sign.

“Really?” she drawled.

“This isn’t your fight,” he pointed out. If anything happened to her, or to Kate, then he doubted the other twin would survive.

“Just as we weren’t your fight when you barged headlong into that gang of bikers to save us,” she reminded him, her tone cool. “Forget it, Lancing, we’re not going anywhere, so you’re wasting your breath. And not because we owe you anything. Everyone who died trying to help her and her uncle was working alone, on their own. Gunny and Kenni stuck together, making it harder for the two- or three-man teams that went out after them. That’s why they survived, until they caught her uncle alone.”

“It’s not coordinated.” Jazz straightened then, staring at her in surprise as the truth hit him. “It hasn’t been a Maddox objective, or she would have been dead that first night. The Kin are never sent out in such small teams. It’s always a unit, always precisely planned.” And if a hit was ordered, a Maddox was always there to ensure the plan was followed.

“If that’s true, then it looks more like a few with a single objective in mind. But who would benefit from Sierra’s and Kenni’s deaths?” Lara asked.

“Answer that question,” Jazz growled, “and we’ve solved the problem.”

“If it’s just a few, then facing a group surrounding Kenni and asking questions, someone’s going to get scared and fuck up,” she guessed. “We need Slade and Zack on this.”

He nodded thoughtfully. Slade and Zack weren’t the only ones they needed on this. Cord, Deacon, and Sawyer needed to know their sister was alive and threatened by Kin. That would tip the scales.

The trick would be in convincing Kenni to tell them. Or risk her hatred by telling them himself.

“Let’s wait twenty-four hours,” Jazz suggested. “The two of you head into town, see if you can hear or see anything. Come back here tomorrow night and I’ll arrange for a meeting with Slade and Zack.”

“That’ll work.” Kate nodded, though her expression was still concerned. “Finding out who it is won’t be easy unless she cooperates, though. She hasn’t moved to find out who’s trying to kill her in two years. She might be too scared to know, Jazz.” Sympathy softened her face. “How terrible to believe the very people you trust the most are the ones trying to kill you. Her own cousins striking out at her must have been horrifying.”

She might be too scared to know, but he wasn’t.

“That’s why we’re going to take care of that little thing for her. It’s not a fight she should have to face herself. The fallout will be bad enough.”

CHAPTER 10

How to find a killer when you have no idea of their identity or motives? It was a question Kenni had asked herself for two years now.

Gunny had been investigating her mother’s murder and the Kin as they ran. He’d kept her out of the investigation, though, kept her as closely guarded and hidden as possible. She’d run errands, kept watch when he met with contacts he wasn’t certain of, and drove when he was tired.

When she’d argued he’d just turned the “look” on her: his expression like stone, his brown eyes devoid of emotion. And he’d keep looking at her like that no matter how hard or how long she argued. When she was finished, he would pick up where he left off and she would end up doing exactly what he wanted her to do in the first place.

His stepfather had raised him in the marines and then he’d joined himself even before he’d graduated high school. It was all he’d known until his half sister had found him just a few years before her death.

One look, he told her once, at the delicate woman whose eyes were identical to his and he’d melted. He’d loved the sister he’d never had a chance to know so much that he’d gone AWOL from everything he’d known to save her daughter.

How had he known the danger she was facing, though? What had her mother told him that had him running with her and refusing to contact her family until she was well enough to make the decision herself?

What had he known that kept him running with her, chasing information to identify the person behind her mother’s death?

“It was the bodyguards, Kenni,” he would murmur as he tracked each second of her and her mother’s time in New York. “Cousins. If only your father or brothers can command these men, then who gave the order?”

She hadn’t had an answer for him. And now she didn’t have an answer for herself.

Puppy growls drew her back from the past to the four Rottweiler pups playing at her side where she sat on the smooth stones of the patio the next afternoon.

The runt, fierce and always eager to rumble, was trying to pounce on his sister and steal the squeaky little squirrel he’d decided he was in love with yesterday.

He’d become so possessive over that damned furry toy, she’d started calling him Squirrel. The name had stuck. It was ridiculous, but even more ridiculous was the fact that he’d responded to the name from the beginning.

*   *   *

“No, Squirrel, leave Aggie alone. She was playing with it first,” Kenni chided the rambunctious male pup as he used his teeth to tug at the only female’s ear with fierce little growls.

A puppy woof, demanding and irritated, was Squirrel’s response as Aggie gripped the toy in her teeth and turned her back on him. “You’re being bad, Squirrel,” Kenni said, wagging a finger at him in disapproval. “Aggie will snap at you again.”

Squirrel gave a puppy growl before batting at her hand then going after the toy again.

Squirrel was only about half the size of the other pups but with enough attitude for three Rottweilers. With one black ear and one brown, the quick little pup tried for the toy again only to have Kenni block him once more.