Moving to the kitchen he stepped inside before coming to a hard stop and feigning surprise at the sight that met his eyes.

He took one look at Kenni’s face before directing Phoenix Weston a hard look. The bruise already marring her creamy flesh was a killing offense. Phoenix Weston was a dead man.

“You know, I’m getting really tired of men thinking they can abuse my woman,” he told Phoenix softly.

Kenni’s lip was bleeding, her eye swelling. And she was favoring her right ankle. But she was alive.

“Fuck you, Lancing. She killed Colby. We weren’t going to kill the bitch. But she’ll die now.” There was no small amount of panic in Phoenix’s voice.

That panic wasn’t a good thing.

“Who killed Colby?” He just wanted confirmation, but the bloodthirsty look in Kenni’s eyes assured him he didn’t need it.

“This fucking bitch.” He jerked Kenni’s head back by her hair as she struggled against him. “Stay still, you fucking cunt.”

Jazz winced at the insult and the fury flickering in Kenni’s gaze.

Jazz tsked softly. “Colby’s staining my floor, Kenni. Blood is damned hard to scrub out of stone.”

“It will give it character,” she snarled. “The bastard kicked Squirrel. He deserved it.” Then her eyes narrowed. “What took you so fucking long anyway?”

“I had to get dressed,” he murmured, meeting her eyes and hoping she saw the warning in his.

“Primp,” she snapped.

“Both of you shut the fuck up,” Phoenix cried out. Damn, pressure really brought the bitch out in the other man.

“What do you want, Phoenix?” Jazz didn’t waste any more time. Phoenix was becoming unpredictable.

Phoenix snarled back at him, his hand tightening in Kenni’s hair.

“We were going to be nice and just collect the information her mother gave her,” he spat out. “But she had to go and kill Colby.”

“I don’t have it.” She followed the grating denial by swiftly striking an elbow into Phoenix’s kidney, just as Jazz heard Marcus and Essie bounding behind him.

Jazz stepped aside, lifted his brows, and watched Essie take a leap for the kitchen table and throw herself at Kenni. Marcus was right on her heels, his object the gun in Phoenix’s hand.

Powerful jaws locked on tender flesh as Kenni’s assailant screamed out his horror, but Essie had grabbed a mouthful of Kenni’s shirt and pulled her from his hold with enough strength that Kenni went to the floor.

“Hold!” Jazz ordered before the male could take Phoenix’s throat out.

Marcus turned a growl on Jazz at the order, his teeth poised at a horrified Phoenix’s throat as saliva dripped from razor sharp-teeth. Marcus was prone to show Jazz his displeasure with his teeth.

“Do it and your ass goes to the barn,” Jazz growled right back at him.

Marcus let his teeth graze tender flesh over a throbbing vein as the scent of human urine brought a grimace to Jazz’s lips. Dammit, the kitchen tile was going to be impossible to clean.

Marcus was satisfied, though. He moved back, only to jump for Jazz when the kitchen door slammed inward and Slade then Zack rolled into the room. Jazz only shook his head, pushing Marcus aside and moving quickly for Kenni as she grabbed Phoenix’s gun and came to her feet with a graceful, well-trained twist of her body.

“Kenni.” He moved between her and Phoenix.”We need someone to question,” he reminded her as he read the bloodthirsty anger in her eyes.

“He kicked Squirrel.” There was no fear, no hesitancy in her. “Colby said they killed Gunny. They don’t deserve to live.”

“If that’s true, then he’ll die by my hand. I was the one who trusted him.” Cord Maddox stood at the back door, flanked by his second-in-command, Banyon Maddox, and three Kin lieutenants.

Kenni stared at him icily. “See why I didn’t want to tell you a damned thing,” she charged as she threw her hand out to indicate Banyon and the three men Cord had served with in the military. “You can’t keep your damned mouth shut.” Jazz turned to Cord slowly, furiously.

Before he could speak Cord shot Kenni a dark frown. “Men die when they fight alone, squirt, Gunny should have taught you that. So do women.” Then he turned to Jazz, his gaze narrowing. “Why doesn’t it surprise me that once again you didn’t even bruise your knuckles?”

Cord might have been giving the appearance of a man who didn’t give a damn, but the raging pain and fury building in his eyes told another story. Still, it was no excuse, and Jazz wouldn’t let it go. Cord should have never betrayed her then dared to walk into her home and say something so ignorant to her.

“The day isn’t over yet, Cord,” Jazz promised him as Kenni’s expression paled and pain darkened her green eyes. “Not by a long shot.”

CHAPTER 18

Getting Kenni to sit down and actually sit still long enough to check the swelling in her face wasn’t easy. For some reason she felt the need to pace. As she’d done so, she’d glared at her brother and cousin, as well as the two men Cord had brought into the Kin from the team he’d fought with in the military.

John T and Axe, and that was all most people knew them by. Reserved, loners for the most part, but pure hell in a fight and they watched Cord’s back whenever needed. Jazz knew he should have expected Cord to bring them in. That was a serious oversight on his part.

“You okay?” Jazz touched the bruise rapidly darkening and swelling further on the side of Kenni’s face.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, throwing a glare over his shoulder at Cord. “He just had to tell them, didn’t he?”

The betrayal she felt wouldn’t be easily wiped away. He’d figured that out in the beginning. That one piece of information, her identity, she felt endangered her family too much to reveal until her mother’s killer was found. By revealing it and bringing the men he’d revealed it to into the house, he’d sliced at her sense of security, the small amount of safety she’d tried to find in Jazz’s arms.

Gently, he pressed the ice pack he had with him to her face. “He trusts them with his life, Kenni. And unfortunately, he’s right. You and Gunny against the Kin going out after you, over and over again, made both of you weak. Neither of you was to blame, though, I promise you that.”

Uncertainty shadowed her eyes, haunted them. The tears she kept trapped in her soul darkened the emerald color and filled them with a pain so deep, it went far beyond what she obviously revealed in her face.

“He should have at least asked first.” The betrayal refused to abate, and Jazz couldn’t blame her a bit. He just understood it.

That didn’t mean he was going to forgive it, just that he understood it.

Kenni didn’t much care at the moment, though. Slade and Zack had taken Phoenix to the basement and that left no one to expend her anger on.

She tried to rise from her seat again.

“Come on, Kenni, sit here with me for a minute,” he told her firmly, placing the ice pack on the side of her face again. “Let’s see if we can help the swelling here.”

“I need to check on Squirrel…” She actually made it to her feet this time.

“Squirrel is fine.” Rising, he looped his arm around her waist as she tried to move past him. “You’re going to sit right down here.” He pushed her back into the chair. “And let all that lovely adrenaline racing through you begin to crash so we can contain it.”

Kneeling in front of her again, he watched her closely as Cord’s men moved around the kitchen.

“What are they still doing here?” She glared at them. “He needs to take them and leave.”

“And you need to sit still and hold that ice pack to your face,” he ordered, wondering if anything could get through to her and her need to release the fury pounding through her.

Rising, he turned to drag another chair over to the side of the table when he felt her move again.

“I’ve had enough of this!” Jumping from her chair Kenni stalked to the steel barrier holding the puppies outside.