He could have leaned on their lenders.

He could have spread word through his considerable network that Caldwell Construction was failing, and made the failure a self-fulfilling prophecy overnight.

He could have used the full, ugly arsenal available to a very rich man who has been wronged and wants revenge.

And he refused all of it, explicitly, in front of ten witnesses, not because the Caldwells deserved his restraint — they did not — but because he refused to let them turn him into what they were.

That was the thing Victoria never understood about the man she had mocked.