So Adrian filed the civil unlawful detainer lawsuit.

It was not a swift, cinematic victory.

Real legal battles rarely move the way they do in the movies, where a single dramatic document ends everything in an afternoon.

There were formal court filings, and process servers, and verified answers, and motions, and hearing dates that got scheduled and then rescheduled, and legal fees that mounted, and long, agonizing, ordinary weeks of simply waiting.

Justice, it turns out, is mostly paperwork and patience.