But Folarin had been in business a long time, and he had done the kind of business that leaves a person always listening for the particular footstep of the law.

He understood, the instant I said it, that a preservation order meant records had already been secured — that somewhere, before this party ever started, a court had already been persuaded that evidence existed and might be destroyed, which meant a prosecutor had already seen enough to ask, which meant this was not the beginning of something but very near the end of it.

He understood that you do not get a preservation order by bluffing.

You get one by walking into a judge’s chambers with enough to convince them.

And he understood, watching my calm face, that the woman his daughter had spent three months and two million dollars trying to destroy had spent those same three months quietly building a case, and that the case was already, at this moment, locked and beyond his reach.

That was the fear I saw crack across his face.