Page 125 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

The kind of person who does that is either professionally trained or standing very close to someone who is.

I remove my watch and set it on the desk.

My mind goes where it shouldn’t go first, which is exactly how I know the thought is real and isn’t just paranoia.

Family.

I hate that it arrives so quickly. I hate more that it arrives logically.

If the fraud path touches legal structuring close enough to Ironwood’s world to share intermediaries, and if the motive extends beyond simple theft into control, leverage, or reputational containment, then the circle around the problem narrows in ways I don’t want to consider.

The entire poisonous architecture of the Harlan name if you tilt it the wrong way.

I look at the name buried in the shell paperwork one more time, then close the file.

Because the next step is going to require more than pattern recognition. It’s going to require proof strong enough to survive contact with people who have spent their entire lives mistaking power for innocence.

And if my first instinct is correct, if the line from these duplicate vendors leads where I think it might…

Then the most dangerous thing at Ironwood isn’t outside the gates.

It never was.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Annie

It’s been one hell of a day already, so when Sherry appears in the office doorway at 4:30 with her clipboard tucked to her chest and a smile that looks just a little too bright, my heart sinks.

What now?

“Annie,” she says, in that carefully pleasant tone people use when they’re delivering something they’d rather not. “Miss Vivian Harlan would like you to have dinner with her tonight.”

I look up from my laptop, my blood running cold. I know the name Vivian Harlan. I know she’s the guys’ aunt. Jesse warned me she might be a little terrifying, so I really don’t want to meet her.

But it seems like that decision has been made for me.

“She does?”

Sherry’s smile strains. “Yes.”

“Why? I’m just a temp.”

Sherry shrugs. “I guess she’s been away and hasn’t had a chance to meet you yet. She likes to meet us all.”

“Over dinner?”

Sherry doesn’t meet my eyes. “Yeah… sometimes.”

I tap my thumb once against the side of my camera, then make myself stop. “And if I say no?”

Sherry hesitates just long enough to be honest. “I don’t think that would go over well.”

A laugh almost escapes me.

Of course it wouldn’t.

Because I’m apparently working for the kind of family where dinner can have political consequences.