It is, in fact, almost always a mistake, because the moment you show a manipulative enemy that you cannot be intimidated, you tell them that their usual playbook has failed, and you make them adapt, and get careful, and treat you as a genuine threat.

An enemy who fears you is an enemy who guards himself.

An enemy who believes he has cowed you is an enemy who relaxes, and overreaches, and says things in front of you he should never say, because he has filed you, in his own mind, under handled. So I let the Prescotts handle me.

I climbed into their cruiser like a man who understood the balance of power and had accepted his place in it.

I sat across the sheriff’s oak desk and asked politely if I might leave, like a man being taught a lesson he intended to learn.