Owner We Worked For And Built His Burnt Down House From The Bottom Up Doesn't Want To Pay Us Because He Believes We Haven't Done Enough Work

The last time worked on it was 70 days ago we are in North Carolina, he stopped paying us after my father put 10,000 of his own funds into the property because the owner said he would pay him back, I just recorded the entire conversation that took place today 30 minutes ago(an hour now typing everything up) my chest is still pounding a bit, at first he was saying that some people with licenses that came said things were wrong and they had to fix it, they changed 1 cable and 1 box, he had told us before we finished the electrical that he would pay us on the weekend so we took off and left the job incomplete and he then had the electrican come and do that and didnt pay us for wiring the entirety of the rest of the house and my father said to not call the electrican until he completed his work, but did it anyway, then it went to, ya but i dont like how the roof looks when he picked it himself color and everything, 40 sheets of that metal roofing was also stolen but is thats irrelevant as is the tools that we left behind also disappearing. In the end my dad had told him that this contract that we made if he stopped paying us, this would be a breach of contract and said that the owner had told my father that he had run out of money and couldn't pay us back, he then next then says, yea there was money but the amount of work that we did for him didnt look like much so he held back paying us. He owes 40,000 dollars for what we've done,

The house was 99% wired

We built it up from the basement to the roof

Demolition work

Whole new sub floor

Hauling trash and dumping it

We went to California to buy the floor and windows and are just waiting to be picked up in CA almost 10,000 there alone in material waiting in storage and the 3000 it takes to drive there and back

All the plumbing is ready to go

PEX Water lines in

The main roof was almost done but someone stole like 40 sheets so we didnt finish the back porch or front porch and just needed to seal this gasket on the main roof.

In the end he just wanted some money back, or a discount and for us to continue going, he even had cash with him to pay us, I recorded about 20 minutes of that conversation as best as I could, as soon as I head home im going to listen to it and clip sections. My question is, is there a way to sue for 40,000 dollars, the max I've read is 25,000, and I saw a post about theft since we were not paid for the agreed upon work, and how maybe he was trying to extort us or scare us as he was saying he can go to his lawyer instead but I'd have to confirm verbatim what all he said.

I appreciate any and all help, I hope I can get 40k or even more to pay my workers 2 weeks of unpaid work on that house, and get my fathers 10,000 back since he put his own savings into it with the idea he was getting it back, and it was the only job we were working at the time so we were suffering for a while the power even got turned off once and food was barely there we had to borrow from friends to stay afloat, thankfully now we are working with a nice cabinet installation company and things are going great and im saving up and have set up a new company.