Page 228 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

For one brief second I understand why people surrender control to her so easily.

Tessa looks safe.

That’s her greatest talent.

“Cody,” she says warmly. “You look exhausted.”

I remain standing.

Her eyes flick briefly toward the folder in my hand.

“You’ve been busy,” she continues carefully.

“You built the shell structures.”

Tessa doesn’t react immediately.

That alone is reaction enough.

She folds one page of her book neatly over before setting it aside. “I’m not sure what you think you found.”

“The vendor pathways tie back to mirrored legal registrations.”

“That could mean anything.”

“It means whoever built this thinks the way you do.”

There.

Tiny flicker.

Left eye.

And once you see guilt land inside somebody’s body, you can’t unsee it.

I feel suddenly ill.

Tessa notices. “Cody…”

“How long?”

The softness disappears from her expression gradually.

“You boys were drowning,” she says.

My pulse slows dangerously. Because innocent people deny first. “You embezzled from us.”

“I stabilized Ironwood.”

The calm certainty in her voice almost makes me laugh.

Instead I step closer slowly. “You siphoned operational funds through shell companies.”

“And prevented financial collapse repeatedly.”

“No,” I cut in. “You manufactured instability.”

Tessa rises smoothly from her chair. Even now she moves all controlled. “When Silas inherited this ranch,” she says evenly, “he was grieving and eighteen years old.”