“And he handed her twenty-one dollars in cash while writing down zero on the official tax declaration.”

“It’s a clear double ledger,” Nathaniel said.

“He billed top specialist rates and paid the crew half.”

“If we take this to the state board, our own firm gets pulled into a secondary statutory audit,” Brenda said, looking straight across the blue lines at her brother.

“They’ll go through our payroll files five years back, Nathaniel.

If there’s a single missing signature on a sub-tier apprentice form, we pay five hundred dollars a day in compliance penalties.”

“File the audit against his master accounts,” Nathaniel said.