Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Annie
The thing about messy systems is that eventually they start repeating themselves. Real fraud hides in repetition people stop seeing because repetition feels safe.
Which means for the last three days, my entire life has become staring at overlapping town budgets until my eyeballs threaten legal action.
The office smells like coffee, paper, printer toner, and the cinnamon candles Duke keeps sneaking into shared spaces because apparently he thinks ambiance is a necessary condition for accounting.
My desk is covered in contracts. Rodeo vendor agreements, town event budgets, regional livestock transportation invoices, temporary permit requests, sponsorship packets, insurance documentation… the kind of paperwork nobody reads carefully because everybody assumes somebody else already did.
Which is exactly how people get robbed.
I sit cross-legged in my chair with one of Cody’s highlighters between my teeth while I compare approval signatures across three different filing systems.
“Okay,” I mutter at the screen. “You sneaky little bastards.”
The problem with event accounting is that it’s naturally inconsistent.
Temporary staffing. Rotating vendors. Last-minute supply requests. Permit changes. Insurance amendments. Emergency equipment rentals. Livestock transport variations.
Nobody expects it to look clean, which means it’s the perfect place to hide patterns.
The same way Ironwood’s busiest operational periods created camouflage inside the ranch books, the rodeo circuit creates camouflage through movement.
I’ve spent three straight days cross-referencing vendor clusters against event budgets and regional contract schedules, and now the overlaps are starting to surface.
Not enough to accuse anyone, but enough to make my stomach hurt.
I flip another page and highlight a routing approval. Then another. Then stop.
My thumb taps once against my camera automatically.
Grange & Holloway Legal Consulting.
Tessa Grange’s firm, seemingly linked to a lot of this. It’s a hard pill to swallow, and not something I’m totally convinced of, but still… the thing about numbers is that they don’t lie.
People do. Systems do. Classifications do.
But numbers themselves? They tell the truth eventually if you pull hard enough.
The problem is that smart people know how to manipulate where that truth appears. And whoever built this mess is smart. Too smart to leave obvious fingerprints.
I swivel toward the second monitor and pull up another file.
Same legal review notation. Different vendor chain. Different event. Same firm.
My pulse kicks harder.
By the fifth overlap, my skin’s gone cold. Because coincidence has a statistical limit, and Tessa Grange keeps surfacing just close enough to the edges of these entities to make my instincts start screaming.
Structural proximity.
The kind of proximity that only matters if you already understand how all of this works.
Which I do. Unfortunately.
I sit back slowly in the chair.
Outside the office windows, the ranch moves through late afternoon sunlight. Horses in the lower paddocks, ranch hands near the feed bay, trucks shifting down the long gravel road.
Everything looks normal.
That’s the terrifying part. This entire thing keeps looking normal until you tilt it sideways.
A knock sounds lightly against the office door before Duke leans in carrying two iced coffees. “Checking to make sure you’re still alive.”
“Debatable.”
He steps inside and hands me a cup before leaning one hip against the desk. His eyes flick across the paperwork spread. “You found something else?”
I take the coffee. “Maybe.”
“That’s your ‘yes but I don’t want to say it out loud yet’ voice.”
“I have a voice for that?”
“Honey, you have at least seven different investigation voices now. Cody’s very proud.”
I snort softly despite myself. Then my gaze drifts back toward the highlighted legal notations.
Duke notices. “What is it?”
I hesitate, because I don’t know what this means yet, and once I say it out loud, it becomes real in a way I’m not sure I’m ready for.
Still…
“We keep seeing legal overlap,” I say carefully. “Not direct involvement. Just…” I tap the page. “Administrative proximity.”
Duke takes the document and scans it. His brow furrows. “Grange & Holloway?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s Tessa’s firm.”
“I know.”
Duke reads another page, then another, slower now. “You think she’s involved?”
“I think her firm keeps appearing in structures tied to entities we already know are suspicious.” I rub at my temple. “Which isn’t proof of anything except proximity.”
“But your gut hates it.”
“Yes.”
That earns me a long look. Because Duke knows me well enough now to understand I don’t jump to conclusions.
I hate conclusions. Conclusions require certainty and certainty gets people hurt when you’re wrong.
“What does Cody think?” he asks.
“I haven’t shown him all of this yet.”
“Why not?”
I stare down at the papers. “Because accusing the ranch attorney of helping build shell pathways tied to financial manipulation feels like a thing I’d like slightly more proof for first.”
“Reasonable.”
“Thank you.”
“But still terrifying.”
“Also yes.”
Duke exhales slowly and sets the paperwork down. “Jeez.”
Yeah. Exactly.
The silence stretches another moment before he reaches out and brushes a loose strand of blue hair behind my ear.
The gesture’s soft enough to hurt a little.
“You okay?” he asks.
The honest answer? Not remotely.
Because the deeper this goes, the uglier the shape becomes. And underneath all of it, the growing realization that somebody very close to Ironwood might’ve helped build this architecture intentionally.
“I’m tired,” I admit.
Duke’s expression softens. “Yeah.”
“I feel like every time we pull one thread, the whole thing spreads wider instead of narrowing.”
“That’s because rich people turn corruption into group projects.”
A startled laugh escapes me. “You say that like you aren’t one of them.”
“Honey, I live here. That doesn’t mean I trust any of it.”
That lands harder than he probably means it to. Because that’s the thing about the Harlans. For all their money and power and intimidating cowboy competence, none of the brothers actually seem comfortable inside the machine Ironwood became around them.
Especially Silas.
The thought arrives and settles deeper than it should.
Duke notices my expression immediately because apparently privacy is dead. “There he is,” he says knowingly.
“What?”
“That look.”
I narrow my eyes. “What look?”
“The one where you pretend you aren’t thinking about my brother while actively thinking about my brother.”
“I hate how observant you are.”
“I’m emotionally intelligent. It’s exhausting.”
I roll my eyes, but heat creeps up my neck anyway. Which is ridiculous because apparently I’m incapable of thinking about any of the Harlan brothers normally now.
Love that for me.
Duke grins and steals one of my fries from the diner bag beside the keyboard. “You should go see him. Go outside.”
“What?”
“You’ve been in this office for hours. Go breathe some real air,” Duke says. “The paperwork’ll still be evil tomorrow.”
“I don’t think paperwork can technically be evil.”
Duke gives me a look.
I sigh. “Fair.”
I shove my hands into the pockets of my cardigan and head down the porch steps slowly, letting the cool air clear some of the static from my head.
Ahead, the ranch stretches dark and silver under moonlight.
And there…
Movement near the fence line. Tall, broad shoulders, slow pacing.
Silas.
Silas walks the fences when he’s carrying too much. And lately he looks like a man carrying entire continents.
I should leave him alone. Probably.
Instead I start walking toward him before I consciously decide to.
The grass crunches softly beneath my boots as I cross the yard. Silas doesn’t turn immediately, but I know he hears me coming because nothing gets near that man unnoticed.
Especially not me anymore.
When I get close enough, he finally glances over.
Moonlight catches the hard line of his jaw, the dark shadow of stubble, the worn leather glove hanging loose from one hand.
I stop beside the fence rail, shoulder brushing lightly against his arm. “Hey.”
Silas looks back toward the property lines. “How are you, Annie?”
I nod. “Good.”
“You’ve been working too hard,” he says eventually.
I snort softly. “That’s rich coming from you.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
His mouth shifts again. He looks exhausted. Soul exhausted. Like responsibility has been chewing pieces off him for years and he’s only just now starting to notice what’s missing.
My chest aches unexpectedly. He’s been carrying all of this since he was eighteen years old. No wonder he snaps when it all gets too much for him.
And standing beside him now, with the fence stretching endlessly ahead of us and the ranch breathing in the dark, I finally see it clearly.
Not just the intimidating ranch boss everyone else sees or the man people whisper about like he was born carved from stone and expectation.
Just… a tired man trying so hard not to fail the people he loves that he’s forgotten he’s allowed to be human while doing it.
Before I can overthink it, I step closer.
Silas goes very still. Then I wrap my arms around him. For one stunned heartbeat, he doesn’t move at all. I don’t think anyone hugs this man first.
My cheek presses against the solid warmth of his chest, cardigan sleeves bunching against his jacket as I settle closer.
He’s warm despite the cold, broad beneath my arms, but there’s tension locked through him so deep it feels welded into bone.
His breath catches almost imperceptibly above my head.
“Annie,” he says softly, rougher than usual.
“You know,” I say against his chest, “for someone so terrifying, you’re actually kind of terrible at hiding when you’re hurting.”
A huff of laughter leaves him. Real laughter. Small, rusty, but real. “That so?”
“Mmhm.”
“And you’re an expert?”
“I’m emotionally avoidant and heavily caffeinated,” I inform him. “Basically a professional.”
We stay like that for a while, both of us needing this more than either of us realized.