Mariella moved fast. Surgical. Quiet. The kind of move that belonged in courtrooms and newsroom basements, not in the glossy playbook of billionaires.
First she sent the preservation letters. Metroline, Ardent Lex, the major outlets that had sniffed around the story, every relevant inbox got a legal demand to preserve servers, emails, drafts, CCTV, and anything that might later prove motive or coordination. It’s boring paperwork until it isn’t. It immediately put the other side on notice: destroy this stuff and you lose whatever credibility you had left.
Next came the motion. Narrow, precise, targeted. Mariella asked the mediator for limited, expedited discovery: Metroline’s internal memo on reputation risk, board minutes around the scandal, and any communications between the company and
