Page 212 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

And suddenly the circle around Ironwood feels much smaller. Much closer. Much more dangerous than we realized.

I export every file in the archive onto three separate drives before shutting the system down completely.

Then I stand.

Silas watches me carefully. “You alright?”

No.

Not remotely.

Because the worst part isn’t the fraud. It isn’t even the betrayal. It’s the realization that somebody looked at Ironwood, at my brothers, at Annie, and decided they were all acceptable collateral damage.

I grab the drive from the desk.

“We need all the proof we can get. Then we need to put an end to this. Once and for all.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Annie

The cold hits me the second I step outside.

The sky is still caught somewhere between black and blue, dawn dragging itself slowly over the mountains while the ranch sleeps in uneasy silence.

I pull my cardigan tighter around myself and head for my Subaru with my coffee clenched between both hands.

I need five minutes.

That’s it.

Five minutes where nobody is arguing, nobody’s hiding things, nobody’s looking at me like I’m either fragile glass or the center of a war zone.

My head feels too full. Like someone stuffed cotton behind my eyes overnight.

The gravel crunches beneath my boots as I reach the car.

Then I stop.

At first, my brain doesn’t process what I’m seeing.

It just… stalls.

Because the front of the car sits wrong. Too low. Too uneven.

My stomach folds in on itself. “No,” I whisper.

Coffee sloshes over my hand as I move faster, panic intensifying every breath. And there it is.

Both front tires. Shredded.

Long, vicious cuts split through the rubber like someone carved them open with intentional patience.

My throat tightens so hard it hurts.

That’s not vandalism. That’s a message. A trap.

My pulse hammers; I can hear it in my ears. I spin instinctively, scanning the ranch. The barns sit dark against the weak dawn light. Paddocks still. Fences silvered with frost.