Chapter 124: I Need Answers.

Chapter 124: I Need Answers.
Kane POV

The thick, fertile scent of damp grass filled my nose. Our family's sprawling garden, with its cobblestone paths and neatly trimmed shrubs, might've looked serene to an outsider, but I could feel the tension radiating from my brothers. Adam and Liam slumped at the wrought-iron table near the grape arbor, eyes hollow. 

"Yeah, I can't keep this up; I don't like where my head is going." Adam grunted softly, sounding more exhausted than I'd ever heard him. Which I fully understood after what he had just shared. He ran a shaky hand through his hair. "She got under my skin. It's messing with my head."

"I can tell," Liam said quietly, eyes dropping to those battered knuckles. "You nearly took a chunk out of the wall."

"Better the wall than her face," Adam spat, though a flicker of guilt crossed his features. "I should have more self-control, but you see how she pushes me."

I didn't respond. I only exhaled, reached inside my jacket—where I'd stashed a bottle I'd swiped from the liquor cabinet—and pulled out whiskey. The label was half peeled off, but the content was pure gold. I set it on the table. Liam's eyebrows arched, and Adam's lips parted in surprise.

"Oh, so we're doing that, are we?" Liam asked, a spark of curiosity in his usually level gaze.

"Not sure about you two, but I need a drink. Badly." I shrugged. The tension in my jaw made it hard to speak calmly, but I forced a measured tone. The day had barely begun, and it felt like we'd lived three lifetimes' worth of stress already. 

"So, let's not overcomplicate. We pour a glass, we drink it." Both men nodded in reluctant agreement. I retrieved a few short glasses from the tray I'd left by the door—apparently, I'd thought ahead for once—and plunked them down on the table. 

The sound of glass on metal rang clear in the crisp morning. With careful movements, I poured whiskey into each, the amber liquid glimmering in the sunlight. Then I stepped back, arms folded, waiting for them to take a sip. Or at least do something that reassured me they were still in this fight. Adam eyed his glass, the swirl of whiskey captivating him for a moment. 

"I'm pissed at myself, Kane," he expressed after a beat, meeting my gaze. 

"All these months, I thought I had it together. But seeing Connie again, hearing her voice, remembering what she's done… it wrecked me. I almost lost it right there."

"You didn't, though," I replied, offering a half-smile. "That's something. Let's call it a small victory."

"Small, sure." Adam's mouth twitched, not quite a smile. 

He brought the glass to his lips—and froze when the back door slid open with a grating whoosh. I whirled around, whiskey sloshing in my own glass. Standing in the threshold, leaning against the doorframe in black yoga pants and a fitted tank top, was my mother, the Luna.

Her eyes narrowed at the sight of us, and though she was petite, the authority in her gaze bore down on us like we were pups caught chewing the sofa.

"That," she said, her voice cutting through the gentle morning breeze, "is not an appropriate breakfast for Alphas."

I felt my heart lurch, not out of fear (okay, maybe a little fear), but from the annoyance that we couldn't have a moment's peace or indulgence. In her prime, my mother was unstoppable—a Luna who had raised us with an iron will and zero tolerance for mischief. 

Even now, well into her forties, she looked every bit as fierce as she had when we were teenagers. The training gear she wore only accentuated her lean build, the muscle definition in her bare arms reminding me that she could probably still outrun me if she chose.

"It's been a rough day." I sighed as Adam, glass still in hand, shot her a scowl. 

"It's barely morning, Adam." Her arms folded over her chest. He downed the whiskey in a single gulp, wincing as it burned down his throat. 

"Try a rough six months," he growled back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"That's not an excuse to drown yourself in liquor." She paused, her gaze flicking to me just as I lifted the glass to my lips. "So help me, Kane Maddox, if you shoot that," she gestured to my whiskey, "I will do the same thing to you right in front of your friends as I did when I caught you smoking."

Caught me smoking? God, I remembered that day vividly. My cheeks warmed, mostly from old embarrassment. Next to me, Adam raised an eyebrow, a silent question in his eyes, while Liam, who'd been about to take a sip of his own drink, suddenly looked more invested in the conversation than in the whiskey.

"What did you do?" Liam cut in, pushing his glass away as if it might infect him with maternal wrath.

My mother's gaze flicked towards him, but her attention remained pinned on me. 

"Kane." The single word carried an unmistakable command.

I closed my eyes briefly, trying to steel myself. Memories of me at sixteen, cornered by her in the garage, a lit cigarette in my hand, came flooding back. She'd had no mercy then, and apparently, the memory of that fiasco still had the power to make me squirm.

"Fine." With a helpless glare in Adam's direction, I tipped the glass, turning it upside down so the whiskey splattered on the ground. The earthy garden soil greedily soaked it up.

Liam burst into laughter, stepping away from the table so as not to incur my mother's fiery lecture. 

"Damn, you were one fierce momma," he announced, a broad grin lighting his face. "What exactly did you do to him?"

"That," she said with a sly smile, "is between me and my cigarette-stinking teenage son."

I grumbled, tension creeping up my spine. "We done?" I asked.

For a moment, none of us moved. Then Liam, stifling his chuckles, came to sit beside me, carefully placing his glass on the table as if discarding any notion of drinking under the Luna's watch. Adam just stared at the spilt whiskey on the grass, looking as though someone had just shot his dog. My mother took a step forward, arms still crossed. 

"Alright, boy, calm down, no need to pout. I need answers." Her gaze roamed over us, searching for clues. "Do you know anything about the state of my bedroom? Or why your father- Alpha Leigh has disappeared?"