name, of the money she had sent to legal advisers, and of the friends she had stopped seeing because they spoke cruelly about him. She had not defended him because she believed he was incapable of mistakes. She had defended him because she believed he had told her the truth about the mistakes he had made.
At the Akinwale Group, the audit widened as soon as the outside accountants examined the vendor file. The original request for four million two hundred thousand naira had been altered to forty-two million, and thirty-seven million eight hundred thousand naira had been paid above the amount procurement expected. The excess funds did not remain with one supplier. They passed through three shell vendors, then into investment accounts linked by common directors and conveniently repeated addresses. One transfer, eleven million naira, entered an investment vehicle that had later financed Ronke Balogun's small luxury accessories company.
Tunde brought the ledger to Kunle himself, with counsel and an auditor present. He had learned enough about the executive committee to know that an informal confrontation could become another piece of disputed history. Kunle entered smiling, spoke warmly to the lawyer, and made a joke about unnecessary tension before seeing the transaction schedule on the table. Then the smile weakened, though he quickly recovered it. He blamed procurement and insisted that the vendor structure had been reviewed by people whose names he could supply.
"The excess thirty-seven point eight million moved through companies with no verifiable goods delivered," Tunde said. "A portion funded an investment vehicle connected to Ronke's business."
"My daughter runs a legitimate company. Leave her out of this."
"I'm not accusing her of knowing. I'm asking whether you knew."
"You cannot prove she received anything improperly."
"Then help us establish what happened. Did you alter Tobe Eze's authorization?"
Kunle's expression sharpened. "Ask your sister."
For a long moment nobody moved. Tunde remembered how quickly Kunle had handled the original inquiry, bringing forward the signed authorization and describing Tobi's objections as the desperate excuses of a finance employee caught in misconduct. He had never considered that the same man overseeing the inquiry might have benefited from its outcome. Now Kunle sat before him with the uncomfortable confidence of someone who believed he knew something worse about the family. Tunde asked counsel to record the interview carefully and pressed the question again.
"I did not alter the document myself," Kunle said. "There were decisions made at a higher level."
"Whose decisions?"
"You people enjoy pretending this family is clean. Ask your father why he begged me not to report Temi when company money disappeared the first time."
Tunde stared at him. "What are you talking about?"
"Seven years ago. An investment that never received board approval. Ask him about the twelve million naira."
The meeting ended without Kunle providing a full answer. Tunde suspended his access to financial approval systems while the audit continued, and the decision sent a wave of quiet alarm through the offices. He did not imagine that access controls alone would prevent the destruction of evidence; the auditors preserved transaction histories and arranged for independent custody of records. By evening, his father had agreed to speak about the old case. Folarin arrived looking more tired than Tunde had ever seen him.