Beyond Redemption (The Maddox Brothers #6)

Prologue

The sun was… wrong.

It was too large, sitting too low in the sky for the hour.

As I tried to make sense of its size and placement just above the rooftops, and the way it drenched the world in a dry, amber glow, the light seemed to misfire.

Its beams glitched, throwing a staccato of shadows across Dad’s yard that stretched, broke, and realigned out of sequence.

Cicadas droned in a low, uneven hum that felt more mechanical than natural.

Heat rolled off the asphalt in slow, warped ripples, leaving my mouth parched and driving my fingers to pull the damp collar from my throat.

I turned, facing Dad’s porch. The concrete steps appeared distorted, as if reality had slipped briefly out of focus.

The grass looked perfectly watered, yet it felt off beneath my shoes—too rigid, each blade standing straight up like props on a cheap soundstage.

The air was warm and utterly still, thick enough to make every breath feel forced, as if I were breathing matter instead of air.

No breeze moved through the trees, no engine passed on the street, no distant hum of the neighborhood.

Behind me, the house glowed. Every window burned with a steady, golden light, as if daylight were spilling inward rather than slipping away.

Laughter floated from the porch as bright, unguarded, layered voices talked over one another.

The laughter of children cut through, strange, yet familiar, and I turned toward the sound.

My father sat in the yard, the grandchildren dancing around him, their hands linked in an uneven ring. Stella, Carter, and even Oliver were settled on their backs nearby on a faded patchwork quilt, watching the unnerving, flickering sky with quiet, fascinated smiles.

“Dad?” I called to him, but he didn’t hear me.

The rest of the family filtered out through the front door and onto the porch, clustering together—appearing arranged rather than gathered—like a picture compressed to fit a frame a size too small.

Falyn perched on the bottom step beside Olive, one elbow resting on her knee, her chin balanced against the heel of her hand as she studied her daughter with a patient, unwavering smile. Camille leaned into Trenton, seeming too tired to stand.

Behind them, Taylor and Tyler stood shoulder to shoulder, arms folded across their chests, positioned directly behind Travis and Trenton. Their smiles were broad, mirror images of each other, as if they were watching a performance instead of their dad laughing in his own yard.

I felt my pulse climb. I’d been here before, in this unnatural light, knowing impending danger was coming before my mind could catch up.

I was locked in my subconscious, dreaming in my bed, but as much as I willed myself into another dream, or to wake up, I was frozen in this same, excruciating nightmare.

My wife stepped out of the house, scanning my brothers from head to toe, and walked around the group to the outer corner of the porch near the railing. Her gaze paused on Dad, then the babies on the quilt, and finally the sun.

“Liis!” I called. Her eyes scanned the perimeter. Like me, she knew something felt off. I jogged over to her, my legs feeling heavy, my shoes sticking to the ground. “Liis?”

“Tell me you feel it too,” she said, her eyes on the road in front of the house.

I nodded, wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. It was late afternoon, summer, but it felt like we were standing in front of a bonfire.

“Something’s not right,” she said, confused. “We should get everyone inside. We…”

Somewhere down the street, an engine crept closer.

The sound was low and uneven, not reckless or urgent, but heavy in a way that settled beneath my ribs before I understood why.

Instinct took over without permission. I swept the block automatically, my eyes cutting left, then right, then back toward the far end of the road where the asphalt shimmered, seemingly breathing in the heat.

Nothing.

“You heard that, right?” I said, squinting against the sun.

“They’re coming, Thomas,” Liis said.

“Where? I don’t…” I said, looking a second time.

“Did you not hear me?” Val asked.

This was new; she wasn’t usually present when I had this dream.

One moment the porch was overcrowded with family, the next Val was in the mix, too crisp for a summer afternoon, as if she’d been cut and pasted into the scene.

Dark blue tailored pantsuit, trousers cropped clean at the ankle, a white button-down pressed so sharp it felt out of place in my hometown.

Her FBI badge glinted once at her waistband before dulling in the amber light.

That she’d found her way into my subconscious at all made no sense.

Val was Liis’s best friend, still working out of the San Diego office, and I hadn’t stood in the same room with her in years.

Yet her presence didn’t register the way it should have.

It didn’t feel like an intrusion. She belonged there, at this exact moment, because this wasn’t going to be one of the versions where my father lived or where Olive could go home to her parents.

This was going to end the way it had two and a half years ago—with the wails of a mother and the broken hearts of sons.

Val took a breath then spoke again, louder this time, holding her hands at each side of her mouth. “Giada and Chiara Carlisi have been spotted in Eakins. Everyone needs to get inside!”

A maroon Lincoln cut through the golden haze, windows blacked out, dust billowing behind it. I knew what was about to happen, but I couldn’t get the warning to my family fast enough, and they were too focused on the dancing to notice the danger.

“Get inside,” I said, staring at the car in disbelief. I’d been here many times before, and yet I still felt the same panic as the first. “Get inside!”

Voices crashed over one another, laughter cut off into confusion and a rising edge of fear.

Travis shouted, but his words were blurred with the rest of noise.

Dad directed the kids toward the house without hesitation, then moved forward into the yard, as if danger were a direction instead of something to fear.

“Once a cop,” Dad said, walking past me toward the road.

“Always a cop,” I said, turning to watch him, already sick over what I was about to witness.

The Lincoln slowed as it passed the house.

I didn’t hear the first two shots, but the reaction on the porch told me we were under attack.

Bodies dropped low, diving for cover or for the children, moving with a speed that told me they understood something I didn’t.

The next two reports were sharp, clean cracks that split the air, confirming what their instincts had already known.

Instead of the usual impacts, every window of the house blew outward.

Glass burst across the porch in glittering sheets; the warm glow from inside vanished behind a storm of splintered wood and flying shards.

The yard lurched beneath my feet. I looked down and saw that the grass was no longer green.

It was dark and slick, spreading outward in a slow, relentless bloom, pooling and creeping toward me like something alive.

It wrapped around my feet, and as I struggled against it to get to Liis and Stella, it traveled up my legs.

“Liis!” I screamed, reaching out for my wife. She was still standing by the railing, staring at the road. “Liis! Get Stella!”

My palms slid across the wet ground as I fought to reach them, breath tearing out of my chest in uneven bursts. As I looked back and tore at the vines gripping my legs, I realized the ground wasn’t just wet, it was soaked in blood.

“Olive?” Falyn shrieked, on her knees next to Olive’s tiny, limp body. “Olive!”

This was wrong. It was all wrong. Olive had been holding Stella when the Carlisis opened fire, and Olive had been a senior in high school, not five.

Liis had been the first to reach them, not Falyn.

Agents Wren and Hyde had been there, not Val.

The Carlisis’ Lincoln had been black, not maroon.

My brain was rewriting the details. Why?

I kicked free of the vines and crawled to Olive, reaching my fingers to her neck. A flutter, weak and fragile, fading beneath my fingers tips even as I waited for the next pulse. Her big green eyes were open, staring past me, through me, as if the sky was full of wonders.

“This isn’t real, Olive,” I said to her—and myself. “It’ll be over soon, sweetheart. It’s okay. It’ll be over soon.”

Her lips moved, and I leaned close until my forehead almost touched hers.

“Tell Twent,” she swallowed, “that I wanna go home.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling tears burn my eyes. “We’ll get you home, okay?”

“Ew?” Trenton cried out, scrambling to rush to her side. He cursed and sobbed in the same breath, looking her over in sheer shock.

“This isn’t how it happens,” I reassured him. “This isn’t… this isn’t real.”

Trenton cupped Olive’s face in both hands and offered her a reassuring smile, unconcerned with the blood pooling beneath them both. “You hear that, kiddo? You’re gonna be okay.”

She gave a small smile, trusting him in a way that made it seem as though she'd already been told how this would end. Seconds later, her face smoothed, every line easing, every muscle relaxing, as if she’d simply fallen asleep with her eyes open.

“Olive?” Trenton asked, confused. “Olive!” He screamed, shaking her as he glanced back and forth between us. “You said… you said she was gonna be okay, Tommy! What do I do? What do I do?”

“I…” I looked down at her lifeless body. “Trent, this isn’t—”

Paramedics and police swarmed the scene in a burst of flashing lights and shouted orders.

Someone yanked me off the ground and pushed me back.

Dozens of hands grabbed at my clothes and face, pulling me into the street, away from Olive, my dad, my wife, and daughter.

I fought hard, desperately pushing and swinging at anyone close. It was useless.