Page 65 of Last Resort

And the thing was...she didn’t have to resist anymore. He knew all the ugly parts of her past and was still here talking about baby names and something he’d read about pacifiers.

For the first time she had hope for a future that included Chance—which was more than she’d ever let herself dream of.

But a reminder that she had other very real problems came way too soon. Chance’s phone chimed and he frowned as he looked down at the message.

“We’ve got incoming.”

“Your parents?” she asked.

“My brothers. They’re here.”

Chance went and unlocked the door and let them in. All three men looked grim.

“We need to talk,” Weston said. Chance nodded.

Luke took a seat at the dining room table. Brax grabbed a cup of coffee and did the same. Weston stood on his side of the table, his body tight with tension. Whatever he was going to tell them, Maci knew it wouldn’t be good.

“Should I stay?” she asked.

Luke nodded. “This concerns you most of all.”

Chance grabbed her hand and led her to the table, taking the seat next to her.

“First—” Weston rubbed his eyes “—when I got to the office, there was another note from the stalker. Hand delivered this time. It had been slid under the door.”

He handed them a note inside a sealed plastic bag. There was also a picture of her and Chance leaving the ob-gyn yesterday.

It looks like congratulations are in order and the ante has been upped. I am up for the battle and will defeat you despite your attempts to stop me.

“He knows about the baby,” she whispered. “He was there. He saw us.”

“Actually, that image is from the medical complex’s security camera,” Luke explained. “He probably wasn’t there, he just grabbed it later.”

That didn’t make Maci feel much better. She glanced over at Chance. Fury was burning in his eyes.

Weston held out a hand toward him. “I know you want to lose it right now, but you can’t. Believe it or not, it gets worse, and you’re going to need to focus.”

She could see Chance fight to release the rage enough to focus. Finally, he nodded.

“Even before this delivery this morning, something has been bugging me about the wording of the stalker’s notes,” Weston continued. “I decided to cast a wide net to see if anything came back. It did. This is—was—Brianna Puglisi.”

He slid over a printed newspaper article from three years prior in Dallas. Maci frowned as she read about a local hairstylist found dead in her apartment—strangled. She’d barely been twenty-five, but was a favorite of the wealthy ladies in town. More than one of them had lamented over her loss in the article.

“What’s this got to do with us?” Chance asked.

“There was a note found with the body. It wasn’t published in the paper, of course. I found out about it through some police connections.” Weston laid down a printed police report. “I highlighted the relevant part.”

Battles require sacrifices. War demands it. I must be the best.

Chance looked up at Weston. “Battle. Wars.”

Brax nodded, hands around his coffee mug. “Exactly. Same language as our guy.”

Chance muttered a curse. “And he killed her. Not just a stalker.”

Weston nodded. “Report states that Brianna had mentioned some weird notes she’d gotten, but she didn’t show them to anyone and police didn’t find any at her home or work.”

“This escalates things,” Chance said.

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