I gestured to Val. “Check on the kids.”
Val nodded and jumped over the stairs to the porch, yanked open the door, and ran inside.
“Everyone inside!” Wren called. “They’re coming back!”
Liis ran in with Stella, bringing Abby with her.
“Travis!” Abby called, but he stood next to me, pulling out his sidearm and getting in position.
“No!” Falyn wailed when Taylor tried to pull her away. “No!” Taylor struggled to pick up his wife and Olive’s lifeless body, attempting to carry them both inside.
“Leave her,” I commanded.
“Fuck you!” Falyn spat.
“I’ll stay,” Trenton said, looking down at his best friend.
Camille nodded, holding Trenton’s hand and then Olive’s, closing her eyes, pressing fresh tears down her face.
Taylor finally pulled Falyn away, wrestling her inside as she kicked and flailed, reaching for her daughter.
The Lincoln raced toward us. Chiara sat in the passenger seat, aiming a semi-automatic rifle. Vittoria, now a Carlisi widow, was behind the wheel. As the car came closer, I reached for my sidearm, but it was gone. Dad stepped out in front of me, holding up my gun and aiming it at the Lincoln.
“Dad, get down!” I yelled just as Chiara squeezed the trigger.
Bullets sprayed the yard and house again, but Dad continued to walk forward, shooting at the Lincoln once, twice, and a third time. One of his bullets hit the tire, and the Lincoln swerved, hit the drainage ditch, and cartwheeled into a boat and truck in the neighbor’s yard across the street. The engine caught fire, and we stood, watching it burn.
Dad fell to his knees, and Travis and I yelled his name at the same time. As the fire burned in the background, we helped our Dad to the ground. I pressed my hands against the red circles growing larger than my palms and spreading across his shirt. He’d been hit twice in the chest, once in the abdomen.
My gaze met Travis’s. He looked as panicked as I felt.
The rest of the family filtered outside, spread out and watching the chaos in disbelief. Trenton crawled over to Dad, and I realized he’d been shot in the calf. Falyn fell on her knees beside Olive, cradling her once again in her arms, her cries piercing the air as she suffered unbearable pain. Camille sobbed next to Trenton, Travis, and I. The twins came outside and rushed over.
Val was on the radio reporting the scene and requesting ambulances and the fire department. Hyde ran to the Lincoln, but the heat forced her back. She ran into the neighbor’s home to see if anyone had been hurt and soon came outside waving both arms, signaling the house was clear.
“The ambulance is coming, Dad, hang in there,” I choked out.
Dad smiled. “I’m pretty tired. And I’d really like to see your mom.”
Travis let out a breath, his bottom lip trembling. Trenton used the heels of his hands to wipe his eyes, and the twins stood by, quietly crying.
Dad reached up to touch my cheek. “Stay together. Love one another. I mean it, damn it.”
One side of my mouth curled up, and I felt a hot tear slide over my mouth and down to my jawline. “We love you, Dad.”
“We love you,” Travis said.
“Love you,” Trenton whimpered.
“We love you,” the twins said in unison.
“I love you,” Camille cried.
“Thank you for being our dad,” Abby said, managing a smile.
His gaze drifted to each of us, and then he whispered, “My heart is full.” A single tear formed in the corner of Dad’s eye, and fell away, running down his temple and pooling in his ear. He exhaled for the last time, and he stared into oblivion.
The summer breeze carried the plume of black smoke drifting up from the Carlisi’s Lincoln into the yard, filling the neighborhood. Sirens wailed, matching the pitch of Falyn’s cries, but the roar of the fire stifled both. The heat danced from the flames, creating waves in the air like an afternoon under the desert sun. It looked more like a war zone than the site of my childhood home, the grass soaking up the blood of the old and young.
Camille tore her shirt and tied it around Trenton’s leg, but he barely noticed, holding Dad’s hand to his lips. “Is he gone?”
I looked down, coughing out a sob, and my brothers did the same. My bloody fingers pressed against Dad’s wrist, the absence of his pulse the only stillness amid the chaos surrounding us. He was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
JIM
“JIM?” DIANE CALLED FROM THE KITCHEN. She was holding open the door of the icebox, frowning and looking beautiful in a black sweater and brown suede skirt with big, black buttons. “I think … I think we’re going to have to call a repairman.”
I couldn’t help but smile, watching the two lines between her brows deepen. “What makes you say that, love?”
“Well, it’s not that cold, and …” She opened the milk, took a sniff, and her face twisted. “Yep. Spoiled.”
I chuckled.
“It’s not funny! We just bought this house. How are we going to afford a repairman? What if he says we’ll need a new icebox?”
“Then I’ll work extra hours, and we’ll buy a new icebox.”
She closed the door and sighed, perching her hand on her hip. “James,” she said. She only called me that when she was grumpy with me. “You can’t just work extra hours and buy a new icebox. They’re at least two fifty, and…”
“Honey,” I said, walking across the kitchen to take her into my arms. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Good, because there’s something else.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I’m pregnant.”
I took her in my arms, squeezing tight, probably too tight, feeling happy tears well up in my eyes.
“Is that okay?” she asked close to my ear.
I let her go, chuckling and wiping my eye. “Is it okay? Like we can take it back?”
She jutted out her bottom lip.
“Mrs. Maddox,” I said, slowly shaking my head. “A baby is way better than a busted icebox.”
I sat in the back row of the auditorium, watching my sons prepare to say their goodbyes to me. Olive’s funeral was the day before, and they all looked weary and heartbroken. I wanted nothing more than to hold them and help them through their heartbreak, but it was the one time I couldn’t be there for them.
Thomas stepped forward, clasping his hands in front of him after straightening his black tie. Of course, he has it memorized, I thought, smiling. I knew after he graduated from Eastern that he’d moved to the East Coast to join a government agency before moving to California. It wasn’t until I met Liis that I knew it was the FBI. I was never angry. It made sense for Thomas to want to protect everyone else. My only regret was that I didn’t make it clearer that he didn’t have to hide it from me, but at the time, I wanted him to tell me when he was ready, on his own terms.
“I met Jim Maddox when he was just twenty-one. The details are fuzzy for me, but he’s told me more than once that it’s a five-way tie for the second-best day of his life … second only to the day he married Mom. I learned many things from my dad. How to be a good husband, a good father, and that no matter how many times I make a mistake, it’s never too late to start over. He let me believe I was protecting him, but really, he was protecting me. We could always count on him to have our backs, even when he was busting our butts to keep us from being complete heathens. We held the utmost respect for our father because he carried himself with respect. We loved him because he emitted love. He was a content man, a peaceful man, and he was our hero, right up to the last seconds of his life, and I can say with utmost certainty”—Thomas cleared his throat—“there was never a moment when I didn’t feel loved by him.”