And I understood that if I cut a single corner, if I did one thing that was even arguably improper, I would hand her exactly what she needed to make her story true.

A self-help lockout, however justified, would let her say: see, she’s ruthless, she threw us out illegally, she’s exactly the monster I told you she was.

But if I did everything by the book, if every single step was lawful and documented and clean, then there would be no story left for her to tell.

There would only be the truth: that I owned the apartment, that they knew it, that a court agreed.

I did not just want to win.