I had let him keep his little fiction, because it cost me nothing, and because I had learned long ago that it is often wise to let arrogant people underestimate how much trouble they are standing next to.

Preston thought my brothers were dangerous because he believed they broke laws.

He had it precisely backward.

What made my brothers dangerous was that they knew, better than almost anyone alive, exactly how to use the law — and that is a far more dangerous thing to a man like Preston than any criminal ever could be.

I let Preston underestimate my whole family, for years, on purpose, and I want to explain that choice, because it is the quiet strategy at the center of everything, and it is available to far more people than use it.

There is a deep instinct, when someone underestimates you, to correct them — to prove your worth, to make them see you accurately, to refuse to be diminished.