“Zack came around the mountain yesterday to see if anyone was watching. He said Deacon and Sawyer had their eyes on the house.”
“Yeah, they’ve been taking turns with Cord,” he snorted. “Guess they don’t trust me with their baby sister, right?”
A chuckle came across the line. “That’s possible. I have a feeling it’s too late to worry about her virtue, though.”
“Damned straight.” He grinned. “She’s mine.”
“We’ll be there in an hour or so then,” Slade assured him. “Have some coffee ready.”
“Will do.” Hanging up the phone he reminded himself to make sure Kenni knew company might be there for breakfast and hurried toward the shower.
What pulled him up before he reached the door he wasn’t certain. The balcony doors were closed so he couldn’t hear the dogs barking. Glancing out into the side yard, he noticed Marcus and Essie weren’t romping on the lawn like usual.
Sliding over Jazz opened the lock slowly, cracking the door just enough to hear Marcus’s and Essie’s furious growls.
Son of a bitch. That sound from their throats only meant one thing.
Grabbing the phone, he hit the SOS.
He was dressed in seconds. Pulling on his boots, he checked the concealed knife tucked under the heel. Pulling his Glock from a drawer, he chambered it swiftly before pushing it into a holster and tucking it at the small of his back. Another he didn’t bother holstering; that one he gripped in both hands before moving to the door Kenni had left just slightly cracked.
The house was far too quiet—unnaturally so but for the muted sound of the dogs’ snarls and growls. Moving silently down the stairs, careful to make certain he stayed in the carpeted areas, Jazz paused before moving into the foyer where he could be seen.
From where he stood he could see the television room. Marcus was at the dog door, digging at the metal barrier blocking it. Foam spilled from his mouth as he snarled and barked at his inability to force his way in.
Essie was pacing the fence line, looking for a way out of the yard. God help whoever was in the house, because Essie knew what she was doing. She just hadn’t been able to do it since conceiving the pups.
Ten minutes, he thought. Fifteen at the most before the cavalry would crash this little party after he sent out the SOS.
Unless Essie and Marcus were able to clear a jump to the balcony without the smaller deck next to the pool that Jazz had removed to keep Essie from hurting herself or her babies while she was pregnant.
Maybe it was time to install steps after all.
* * *
Marcus and Essie both must have been forced to hold themselves too long, Kenni thought she heard them race to the dog door with enough force that the hard rubber flap cracked behind them. A second later Squirrel yelped painfully.
Kenni rushed from the kitchen expecting to soothe him from his indignation at having his nose tapped by the rubber. What she didn’t expect to see was a full-grown male booting her baby out the dog door before sliding the metal partition back in place.
The real shock came when he turned to face her, though.
“Colby?” shock dulled her senses for a moment as betrayal knotted her stomach with a strangle hold.
Colby Weston? It had been years since she’d seen him and his twin, Phoenix. They were—once again—cousins. But these cousins were much closer; their mother was actually a Maddox.
Turning, she sprinted for the hallway and the safety of Jazz’s bedroom. Phoenix stepped around the corner before she could reach it, a weapon in his hand pointing straight to her.
“Shower just turned on,” he told his brother. “He’ll be a few minutes.”
Colby sneered at the comment, his gaze raking over her maliciously.
“Jazz will kill both of you.” She backed away, moving into the kitchen again and the little corner shelf on the other side of the room.
If she moved toward the knives, they would stop her. She knew they weren’t completely stupid, otherwise Marcus and Essie wouldn’t have been fooled.
“We’ll have our business finished and be gone before he’s out of the shower,” Phoenix assured her, narrowing his eyes gleefully as she bumped into the corner shelf, her hands going behind her back to steady herself against it, and to grip the handle of the antique corkscrew lying on it.
She hoped Jazz wouldn’t be upset if she bloodied it a little.
Or a lot.
Her fingers curled around the handle of the corkscrew as Colby advanced on her.
“And what the hell do the two of you think you’re doing?” she snapped, so furious that the bastard had hurt Squirrel that holding on to her control was next to impossible.
“Come on, Kenni, you’re not completely stupid,” Colby drawled. “You know why we’re here.”
“If I knew I wouldn’t ask,” she bit out, hoping, praying to delay them long enough for Jazz to get downstairs.
“That fucking marine that was there the night your mother was killed?” he reminded her. “He had something we want. I assume you have it now?”
He actually sounded convinced that she had whatever it was he was talking about. This was the first she’d heard of Gunny having anything her mother gave him, though.
“He would have told me if he had anything,” she snapped. “Mom was dead before he arrived that night.”
“And she didn’t have it,” Colby snapped, growing angry, his expression turning cruel. “She gave it to him and you know it. So just hand it over.”
“I’m telling you, Gunny didn’t have anything.”
Colby sneered again.
“Killing him was fun, Kenni. Almost as much fun as killing you will be if you don’t have that SD card your mother stole and slipped to her bastard brother.”
Gunny? They had killed Gunny? How? Gunny was so much stronger, more intelligent. It made no sense that they’d been able to do such a thing. Colby and Phoenix were far weaker in strength and intelligence than any who’d been sent after her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. If Gunny had anything he would have told me,” she snapped, waiting.
Colby was close, moving slowly closer as Phoenix kept watch from the doorway.
“Come on, Kenni,” Colby mocked her cruelly. “Give us the card and we won’t hurt you like we had to hurt Gunny.”
Kenni stared back at him, ice moving through her veins now, a calm settling over her as he moved closer. Almost close enough.
“You didn’t kill Gunny. You’re not capable of it.” She was certain of it.
Colby laughed at the response. “He should have never returned to the warehouse alone. That was the mistake he made.”
He smiled and stepped closer. That was where he made his second mistake. The first was breaking into Jazz’s house to begin with.
When he was close enough to actually touch her, to lift his hand and strike her, Kenni struck. Gripping the wooden handle of the corkscrew she brought it from behind her back, slamming it in beneath the sternum on an upward angle. Feeling the twisted metal crunch through tissue before entering the heart with a hollow pop, she gave a quick little turn, watching his eyes widen as his heart ripped open.
Blood spilled around her hand as Kenni gritted her teeth, forcing herself to hold his gaze.
“Colby?” Phoenix called his name from the doorway.
Life bled from Colby’s eyes just as Phoenix jumped forward. Pushing the lax body weight to the side Kenni moved quickly, sliding out of the way as the twin caught his brother’s body in time to keep it from collapsing to the floor.
As satisfying as that was, she now had no weapon and Phoenix moved fast once he realized what happened. Though she was desperate to avoid the blow she saw coming, Phoenix still managed to deliver a fist to the side of her face, sending her to the floor as pain dazed her senses.
Damn, she hated this part. She’d never been able to take a blow to her face and come back easily. It was one part of the self-defense training Gunny had never been able to condition her to.