It would have been best if he’d done just that.

“Oh yeah, like I was going to miss this,” Jessie snorted. “Finding out my best friend is none other than the missing Maddox Princess was more than I could pass up. Come on, Your Highness,” she teased then, her brown eyes sparking with laughter. “You know me better than that.”

Kenni almost grinned. Jessie could do that, take something that should piss Kenni right off and make her laugh instead.

Rather than giving in to that urge, she turned to Jazz as he moved to her with a cup of coffee.

“Snitch,” she accused derisively. “Really, Jazz? You couldn’t even hold out and let them see me first? They may not have even guessed.”

The look of disgust didn’t even faze him. He just winked, those wicked blue eyes laughing at her.

“Sweetheart, trust me, they would have guessed. Besides, you were sleeping and wouldn’t talk to me,” he pointed out. “I had to tell someone and Kate and Lara were tired of talking about you.”

She slid a look to the other two women. They really weren’t pulling off the whole innocent-expression thing. Then she turned to Slade.

“I need to leave,” she told Slade, the only person she believed would have Jazz’s safety uppermost in mind. “Would you please take me back to the house?”

Slade just watched her for a long silent moment before his gaze turned to Jazz. A second later his lips quirked in amusement.

“I would, Kenni, but he’d kill me before I got you out of the house. I’d hate to make my children an orphan today.”

“Versus tomorrow, or the day after that?” she asked him, amazed that she sounded so calm, so cool. “Really, Slade, I’m sure you’ve seen the report these two busybodies dug up.” She flicked her fingers toward Kate and Lara. “No one survives attempting to help me. Is that what you want for Jazz? For yourself?”

Kate and Lara glanced at each other in mocking surprise.

“Busybodies?” Kate murmured to her sister. “That’s one of the nicest insults we’ve ever received.”

Kenni had hoped the two women weren’t as insane as the rest of the group seemed to be. She’d hoped in vain.

“She’s just as overdramatic now as she was as a teenager,” Zack observed as he sat back in his chair and lifted his cup for a sip of the steaming liquid. “Hell, Kenni, you should know better than that. Whoever’s betraying your father can’t possibly pull together enough Kin to come against us. Why do you think your father and Cord do little things like come to one of us when someone we know has come to their notice? We could divide the Kin if we wanted to, and they know it.”

Arrogance.

Every damned one of them was so arrogant and self-assured it was sickening.

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?”