Page 51 of Her Righteous Protector

He sat down next to her and wrapped his arms around her. “Talk.”

She snorted out a laugh.

“Hannah, there is nothing funny going on,” he growled.

“Actually, there kind of is. I believe the last three words you’d said to me were; eat, swallow, talk. You were kind of sounding like Tarzan.”

“Hannah, enough with the shit. Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

Okay, maybe a little mad, she admitted as she looked into his stormy gray eyes.

“I screwed up, Max. I should have been telling you about Meghan’s parents.” She shrugged out of his protective hold and went over to the counter to get her phone out of her purse. She brought it back and unlocked it. “Here are the texts I’ve been getting from Peggy ever since Meghan died.”

* * *

Ice coalesced throughout Max’s body as he read each escalating text. There were twenty-seven—he’d counted.

“This first one came two days after Meghan died?” Max clarified.

Hannah nodded.

YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO TAKE MY GRANDSON AWAY FROM ME, I’LL HAVE YOU PROSECUTED FOR KIDNAPPING.

The one that came in three days ago was the worst.

ZEPHYR WOULD BE BETTER OFF DEAD THAN LIVING WITH SOMEONE WHO HATED HIS MOTHER SO MUCH. I’M GOING TO MAKE SURE HE’S TAKEN AWAY FROM YOU.

“Is this all?” Max gritted out the question.

“No,” Hannah admitted. “Today I got my one and only text from Meghan’s dad.” She took the phone from his hands and pulled up that text.

I HAVE PROOF YOU KILLED MY DAUGHTER, YOU WILL PAY.

“And you’ve been ignoring this? Why didn’t you go to the police when they first started coming in?” Max demanded to know.

“I was stupid, Max,” she said tiredly as she looked up at him. “Meghan got stuff like this all the time. She was constantly blocking their numbers, getting new numbers, then blocking them again. But finally, after having Max, she had to keep the same number, so then they would call and text from different phones. You just get numb to it.”

“No,” Max said as he glared at her phone, then looked up at her. “No, you never get numb or put up with this kind of abuse.”

Hannah bent her head, her hair covering her chalk-white face.

Ah shit, there’s more.

“Elias Peterson said they’ve retained an attorney to try to gain custody,” Hannah whispered.

Max let loose a short laugh. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Hannah shook her head.

“That isn’t even a thing,” he scoffed.

“Mr. Peterson said it could make things difficult for us.” Hannah paused, then looked up at him. “I’m not sure, but I think it would really be a problem if you would want to take him to Virginia. You’d want to do that eventually, wouldn’t you?”

Max kneaded the back of his neck.

“We’re just taking this one day at a time, remember?” he said gently.

“But your job is there,” she persisted. “Your emergency leave can’t last forever. Are you saying you want to quit and move to Chicago?”