It meant that if any investigator ever followed the money trail, the first well-known name they would encounter would be Oay Construction.
Roel reviewed everything within 2 days. He called Derek and laid out the situation clearly.
The legal exposure was serious but manageable if they moved correctly. Uh, they had one option that could fully protect Derek, which was to go to the Anti-Corruption Bureau himself in person with documentation before anyone in Petra’s network realized the folder had been discovered and photographed.
If they went first, they shaped the entry point of the entire investigation. If they waited and were reached from the outside, there would be nothing left to shape.
Roel said it was a painful choice. He also said it was the only one that genuinely protected both Derek and the company.
Dererick said he needed one night to sit with it. Roel said, “Take it.” That night, Petra slept beside Derek in the dark, her breathing slow and even and completely undisturbed.
He lay on his back looking at the ceiling. He thought about 23 years of marriage.
He thought about everything that had been real in those years and everything that had not been.
He thought about the company he had built from one rented truck and a single subcontract, working 16-hour days for years before the business became what it was.
He thought about his children in other countries who would wake up to their parents’ names and headlines if this went the wrong way.
He thought about 38 workers on his Eastern District site whose wages and whose families depended on the company staying functional.
When the sky began to lighten, he already knew what he was going to do.
He went to the bureau that morning with Roel beside him carrying a briefcase of copied documents.
He sat across from a senior officer and told the complete truth for 2 hours.
He did not soften any detail for Petra. Uh he did not protect the dormant subsidiary or explain it away.
He gave the investigators everything he had and answered every question they asked without hesitation.
When the session ended and they stepped outside into the midday heat, Roel said quietly that it had been the right thing.
Back at the house, the surface was completely undisturbed. Roselene cooked dinner. Petra came home in the afternoon, changed, ate, and went to the study.
Derek sat at the dinner table and exchanged the minimum words that passing evenings require.
Rosene cleared the plates and washed the dishes and let the house remain still around whatever was already in motion beneath it.
She had played her part. Now the thing had its own momentum and she could not slow it or stop it.
Three agencies began working through documents. Sorty investigators pulled bank records across multiple institutions. Two of the ghost company directors were contacted through what appeared to be routine administrative queries.
