Elena’s account did not.

Wayne checked the payment reference and discovered a transfer to a consulting company he had never heard of.

“She’s got twelve people working for her,” he told me.

“One more missed payroll, and she has to send them home.”

I remembered his father’s letter, folded in a manila folder beside Wayne’s elbow.

The warning was not merely about shareholder losses.

It described workers whose pay depended on honest accounting and suppliers who could not afford to wait while Brandon maintained his expensive habits.