He had more money, so he had more law.
That was the whole logic of his campaign: that in a fight conducted on paper, the richer party wins, because the richer party can generate more paper.
What he never imagined was that the paper could be turned.
That a shirt could be a document.
That an eight-year-old with a marker could produce a record more damning than anything his private investigators had manufactured, and that the same court system he had been renting could, in the space of an afternoon, stop being his tool and become the thing that held him accountable.
He had brought the machinery of the law into that room believing he owned it.
He discovered, too late, that the law is not for sale in the way he thought — that it can be gamed for a while, by a man with enough money and enough patience, but that underneath the gaming there is still, sometimes, on a good day, in front of the right judge, a simple willingness to look at the truth when a child holds it up.
He had bet his entire war on that willingness not existing.
He lost.
Chapter 10 — The Ruling