A Beautiful Funeral: A Novel (Maddox Brothers Book 5) (7 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

TRAVIS

A
BBY WAS STANDING AT A WINDOW
near the front door of our French Provincial home, peeking out from behind the gray sheer curtains she’d picked five years before to replace the old ones she’d picked three years before that. So much more than just the curtains had changed in the last eleven years. Weddings, births, deaths, milestones, and truths.

We’d rejoiced in the birth of our twins and mourned Toto’s death. He was the twins’ personal bodyguard, following them everywhere and sleeping on the rug between first, their cribs and then, their toddler beds. The hair around his eyes began to gray, and then it was becoming harder for him to keep up. His was the second funeral I’d ever attended. We buried him in our backyard, the Bradford pear his headstone.

Just a few months before, on our eleventh anniversary, Abby had confessed to knowing I worked for the FBI. Swollen with our third child, she’d handed me a manila envelope full of dates, times, and other pertinent information between her father, Mick, and Benny, the mafia boss I’d just shot in the face for threatening my family.

Abby’s SUV usually sat parked in front of my silver Dodge truck, but it was notably missing, and my wife wasn’t happy about it. We’d traded in the Camry years ago for the black Toyota 4Runner Abby drove to her teaching job. She’d always been good at numbers, and she’d begun teaching the math lab for sixth grade almost right after graduation.

College seemed like a week ago. Instead of dorms and apartments, we had a mortgage against a two-story, four-bedroom home and two car payments. The Harley had been sold to a good home before the twins arrived. Life had happened when I wasn’t looking, and suddenly, we were adults making decisions instead of living with someone else’s.

Abby put a hand on her round middle, rocking back and forth to relieve some of the aching in her pelvis. “It’s going to rain.”

“Looks like it.”

“You just washed the truck.”

“I’ll take yours.” I smirked.

She glared at me. “Mine is totaled.”

I pressed my lips together, trying to suppress a smile. My shoulder burned from where a bullet had grazed me and drove through my seat, and my head was pounding from slamming into a tree on the side of the highway. I’d just begun to heal from the beating I’d taken beneath the streets of Vegas by Benny’s men, and now, I had a fresh black eye and a one-inch vertical cut through my left eyebrow. I just happened to be driving Abby’s SUV to pick up some ice cream, being a model husband while also using that time to get an update on Thomas from Val. The Carlisis thought I was in California, so they went there first, but Val said it was only a matter of time before they arrived in Eakins. That was when the first bullets shattered the passenger side window.

Abby was pissed, but she chose to be angry about the truck because she couldn’t be mad about the situation. Anger was easier than fear. Even after I’d already eliminated the threat, I wanted to empty my clip into every single one of them when I saw the photos in the vehicle that had run me off the road. They had pictures of my wife, my kids, my nieces and nephews, my brothers and their wives. Even Shepley, America, their sons, and my aunt and uncle. They were planning to wipe out the Maddox family.

They chose the wrong family.

“They’ll replace it,” I said, trying to mask my growing anger.

“They can’t replace you,” she said, turning with her arms crossed and resting on her belly. “Are you going?”

“To meet Liis when she lands?”

“You should. She’ll need to see your black eye and the cut on your eyebrow, to see the danger is real and has extended to the rest of the family,” Abby said.

“I can’t leave you here alone, Pidge.” I sighed. “I didn’t realize how much we’d used Lena until she left.”

Abby shot me a knowing grin. “You miss her, don’t you? She’s the little sister you never had.”

I smiled but didn’t answer. Abby already knew that I did. Lena was a tiny thing, shorter than Abby. She was an exotic beauty, as deadly as she was stunning, handpicked by the Bureau to protect our children before they were born. Because my undercover position was atypical in that Benny knew who I was, where I lived, and that I had a family, the Bureau took extra precautions. Lena quickly fit in and was a huge help to a new mother with twin infants, especially when I was gone. She was like a little sister to Abby and me, and she loved to gang up on me with Abby. Like an aunt to the kids, she accompanied them to parks, nature walks, playing cars and Barbies, and teaching them Portuguese and Italian. She even taught them how to defend themselves, which we learned wasn’t the best idea for Jessica. I should’ve known no daughter of mine would be afraid to use her new knowledge if someone picked on her brother at school.

Eighteen months ago, Agent John Wren replaced Lena. Suddenly reassigned, we didn’t know where she was going, just that she was nervous as she packed her things and was devastated that she didn’t have time to say goodbye to the children.

“I’m not alone,” Abby said, snapping me to the present. She gestured over her shoulder to the window.

I didn’t need visual confirmation to know that Agent Wren was outside in a black car, along with two more agents in undisclosed locations. Now that we knew our entire family was a target, we had to be vigilant. The Carlisis weren’t known for their patience; they typically attacked at the smallest sign of weakness.

Lena’s sudden departure deeply affected the children. James began experiencing nightmares, and Jessica was depressed for months. Abby insisted we not put James and Jessica through that kind of anguish again, so the Bureau sent an agent we thought the kids wouldn’t become attached to. The twins were old enough that it was unnecessary for our new security to be handpicked because of his rapport with children; rather, he was chosen for the fact he was classified as
hyper lethal.
To date, Wren was the only agent I’d met with that classification.

“I still feel bad that he has to sit outside in this heat,” Abby said.

“His car is air conditioned, and you were right. The kids were getting attached … and so was he.”

As aloof as Wren was, the kids had grown on him. We were just as surprised as he was the first time Jessica nearly knocked him over with a hug. They beamed every day when they saw him sitting outside their school, and as each day passed, their acceptance of and love for him broke down his walls. As it turned out, that only made Wren more determined to keep them alive, a positive side-effect none of us saw coming. Abby wasn’t happy about their growing attachment, though, so the rules changed. He had to keep his distance, and for a second time, the kids were heartbroken.

Abby nodded and turned away from the window, walking over to join me. She looked down at her stomach. “What do you think about Sutton?”

“You’re talking names now? Sutton for a boy?” I asked, trying to keep my expression neutral. Pregnancy made my wife even more unpredictable than usual, but I just rolled with it. Pointing it out just made her cranky.

Abby’s gray eyes brightened, relishing in the truth I couldn’t hide. “You don’t like it? I know it doesn’t start with a J like the twins, and that’s kind of the Maddox thing, but …”

My nose wrinkled. “It’s not a Maddox thing.”

“Taylor’s are Hollis and Hadley,” she said. “Shepley’s: Ezra, Eli, Emerson. The T’s? Diane and Deana? James and Jack? You’re really going to deny it?”

“It’s a regional thing.”

“Your mom and aunt grew up in Oklahoma.”

“See?” I said. “Regional.”

Abby pressed her fingers into her back, waddling to the couch. She negotiated the space and her body, keeping the right balance as she lowered herself to the cushions. “Get this thing out of me,” she groaned.

“Definitely not naming him
this thing
,” I teased.

“Well,” she began, breathing heavily. “We’re going to have to name him something.”

I thought for a moment. We’d been through four baby books twice. “Why not Carter?”

“Your middle name? I was actually trying to think of first names to go with Carter. If we made it his first name, what will his middle name be?”

I shrugged. “Travis.”

“Carter Travis Maddox,” she said, pausing to get comfortable. Even moving made her breathe hard. “You don’t think that would be confusing to have a Travis Carter and a Carter Travis in the house?”

“No. Well, possibly, but I still like it.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah?” I beamed.

“Kind of goes along with our theme of naming the kids after us … sort of. James after your dad. Jessica after me … ish.”

Jessica James was the name on Abby’s fake ID. It was how she got into bars when we were freshman, but more importantly, how she gambled in Vegas. I remembered watching her in awe as she went head to head with gambling legends, hustling them for thousands, all to save her dad from being killed over an unpaid debt to Benny Carlisi. That trip to Vegas, fighting for the balance of what Abby didn’t make, and the fire at Keaton Hall was the cosmic trifecta that landed us in our present situation. I was investigated for my involvement in a fire that had broken out on campus, resulting in the deaths of dozens of my classmates, and my brother just happened to be investigating Benny. When he learned my girlfriend was the daughter of a washed-up Vegas gambler who had ties to the Carlisi family, I was brought into the federal fold in exchange for immunity from prosecution for the fire.

I was relieved that when Abby had figured out I’d been drafted into the FBI for most of our marriage and had lied to her about it, she’d helped me bring the Carlisi case closer to a conclusion instead of leaving me. I was able to hand over years of bank account statements, emails, letters, and text messages Abby had gathered by hacking into her father’s email account and phone, all tying Carlisi members to various felonious crimes.

Abby thought that would mean I’d be home more. Instead, the Bureau was going a hundred miles per hour trying to close the case. Now that Benny was dead and they were hell-bent on vengeance, we were all racing against the clock.

Abby smiled, resting her head against the couch cushions. Her hair was shorter than it was in college. Her caramel locks now just grazed her shoulders. She combed back what she called side-swept bangs with her fingers, but they fell right back into her eye. Abby would turn thirty in September. As wise as she was at nineteen, she was nearly clairvoyant now. I was sure that only made her more dangerous, but she was on my side—thank Christ. Her gentle curves filled her maternity jeans, her cleavage bursting from her bright tank top, and I chuckled thinking about how many times I’d begged her to have another baby—shamelessly enjoying the changes her body went through to carry our sons and daughter.

“What?” she said, catching me staring at her tits … again. Would I ever grow up? If it meant I had to stop appreciating how sexy my wife was, I hoped not.

I cleared my throat. “I’d like to meet Liis at the airport, but”—I looked at my watch—“you’ll be leaving soon to pick up the kids.”

“You should go.” She sighed, struggling to lift her chest to get a full breath.

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

“I can get the kids from school,” she said. “Wren is here. He can drive us if you’re nervous.”

I frowned. “This needs to be over.”

“And it will be,” Abby said, standing. She walked over to me, sliding her hands under my biceps and locking them at the small of my back. She had to bend over slightly to nuzzle her head under my chin, pressing her cheek against my chest, but even her sweet touch couldn’t cheer me up. We both knew the end of one case only meant the start of another. Abby was responsible for the break in her father’s case. Mick Abernathy was a washed-up gambler who had an in with the Vegas mob. She had found out I was working for the Bureau and only wanted to help end a case that kept me away too much. Since handing over information that would put her father and the underboss away, she was asked to be an occasional consultant for the FBI. They were still waiting for her answer, and so was I.

Her tip had allowed me to climb the ranks quickly. No legal employment in Eakins would pay what I was making with the Bureau. If Abby took the consultant job, she would be able to stay at home with the kids. Either way, we’d made a good life here.

“Dad is excited,” Abby said, “to see Stella.”

“It never gets old, I guess. No matter how many kids his sons keep spitting out, there’s nothing like holdin’ a grandbaby for the first time.”

Abby wasn’t amused. “I believe it’s the daughter-in-laws who do the spitting.”

I kissed her on the forehead. “Touché.”

“You should go to the airport, Travis. I’ll pick up the kids from school with Wren and meet you at Dad’s. Thomas would have wanted you to.”

My brows pulled together. Hearing Thomas’s name in past tense was unsettling. “Make sure Wren stays out of sight. Dad already knows something’s up.”

“He knows, Trav. He’s known. I’m pretty sure since the beginning. He knows about the twins, too.”

“What about the twins?” I asked.

Abby simply giggled, shaking her head. “You Maddox boys are terrible liars.”

My face twisted in disgust. “No one’s lying.”

“Omission is lying,” she insisted. “Making up cover stories is lying.”

When I was recruited into the FBI at just twenty, I was also obligated to keep it from my wife. Unfortunately for the Bureau, Abby was too smart and stubborn to remain oblivious. Unfortunately for me, Dad was equally as sharp, and it was a full-time job to keep it from him. I wasn’t sure how Thomas had been able to do it for over a decade. According to Abby, he hadn’t. She was sure my father had known the entire time, too.

I kissed Abby’s soft cheek, still smelling faintly of chocolate from the cocoa butter she slathered all over her skin the moment she’d started to show. That prompted me to kiss her again before heading out to my truck.

I used the small radio clipped to the lapel of my sports jacket to call Agent Wren. “Heading to the regional airport for pickup.”

“I’m sure Agent Lindy will be happy to see a familiar face, sir.”