17. Cain

Chapter seventeen

Cain

W hen I got my hands on Piper, I swear to god.

Addy was curled up on the sofa when I'd found her in the morning, her laptop on the floor next to her, and a throw blanket tucked over her shoulders. I hadn't heard her get up last night, but I hadn't been listening for her, too busy sorting through the clusterfuck my work had dumped on my lap. I left her to sleep, tiptoeing back into the kitchen to make some coffee. My eyes burned and a steady pounding thrummed between my temples, making every noise a hundred times louder. I cringed as the coffee maker started sputtering, glancing over to make sure Addy hadn't woken up.

Grabbing my coffee, I crept back to my room, shutting my door with a soft click. God, I was so fucking tired. I looked longingly at my bed before sighing and sitting back down at my desk, waking up my computer so at least it would suffer along with me. Somehow, I had fucked up. Or… something had gone wrong. I still hadn't sorted out which it was. One thing I prided myself on was my work. I didn't fuck up like this. But a client's money was missing, and of course, he was looking at me for answers since I was the asshole who was responsible for it. Unfortunately, even after working through the whole night, I still didn't have the answers. I had no clue where his fucking money went. It just up and fucking vanished, leaving me holding the bag.

I didn't have time for this crap. Wyatt barely had his shit together, Austin was… well, so far he was behaving and not biting anyone else for now, but I needed to keep an eye on him. Addy was, well, fuck. Addy had consumed my whole world, and now she was preparing to up-end everything. Babies, two babies, were going to be under this roof. I was the only one who seemed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. Addy thought she was being hilarious by joking about water births and tubs, but we really had to consider how she was going to even have these kids, considering one of them would more than likely come out with fucking scales or something. And it was not like any of us had parents we could ask for advice.

To top everything off, Piper hadn't come home. We'd done our best to reassure Addy last night, but now it looked like he really might not be coming home. I had tried his phone a couple more times this morning, but he probably didn't even have it turned on. I didn't understand what was going on with him. He always came back. That was his thing. It was impossible to get away from him once he found you. And now I didn't know where the fuck he was, and as soon as Addy woke up and saw that he was still missing… well, fuck. I leaned back in my chair, running a hand through my already messy hair. This was a shitshow. Everything was going wrong. I just couldn't catch a fucking break, it seemed.

Was it… possible? I scowled and stood up, pacing around my room. This was a lot of bad luck, all at once. I had to consider the possibility-

No. There was no way. Even if Jake was still alive, how would he have found us here? I'd been so careful this time. Everything was registered under a different name. We'd basically started from scratch here. How could he be behind this? I groaned, and my head pounded even harder, threatening to blind me with the pain. Why did I have to lie? I should have told them about Jake. I kept them in the dark, and they let their guard down. This was all my goddamn fault…

A small knock on the door startled me, and I turned to see Addy standing in the doorway, her hair a wild mess. "Now's not a good time," I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose with my fingers. As usual, she ignored the words that came out of my mouth, crossing the bedroom until she was standing in front of me. The second her hand touched mine, the headache dulled, washing away and leaving a gentle calm in its place.

"What's wrong?" she murmured, and I wrapped my hand around hers, pulling her over to the bed so I could sit down.

"Just… work," I muttered, my legs collapsing as I reached the bed. "You should be in bed. It's still early," I told her, but I made no move to let go of her hand.

"You didn't sleep at all, did you?" she asked, her tone cutting through me like a knife. I shook my head dully, my eyes closing as she pushed me back down onto the bed. "You're too busy taking care of all of us, and you're not taking care of yourself," she admonished. I grunted at her in response, smiling as she curled up beside me, her leg thrown over mine.

"Did you like your mom?" The question caught me off guard, and I cracked one of my eyes open to look at her. She had her head resting on my shoulder, her melancholy eyes staring up at me.

"Of course, she was my mom," I replied quietly. My parents hadn't been bad people, but they'd been saddled with a couple of fucked up kids, and Jake had quickly destroyed them, like with everything else in my life. Addy reached up and smoothed down an errant curl that had fallen across my face. I needed a haircut at some point. Add that to the ever-growing list of shit.

"I don't remember my mom," Addy murmured, and my heart cracked at the pain in her voice. "Austin doesn't either. Did you know that? And Wyatt only remembers his grandma…" she sighed, squeezing my hand. "How am I expected to be a mother when none of us knows what a mother is supposed to be?" Well… fuck. I sighed and stroked her hair with my free hand. A small hiss erupted and a black head poked out of her hair, glaring at me. Swearing, I jerked my hand away, rubbing it over my face in exasperation.

"Clearly, we'll be an unconventional family," I muttered, and she laughed softly, the snake coiling back around her neck. "But at least we'll be together. That's more than most of us had." She nodded quietly, and I stroked my thumb across the back of her hand gently. A family of fucked-up misfits, a bunch of snakes, and a lot of love. That's another thing we'd never had growing up.

Love.