Jia Zhao

Her father ran his affairs from a tea house in Richmond for thirty years, and when he died two years ago every lieutenant in the room expected Jia to sign the sale papers. She took the chair instead. Now she runs everything he built, all silk and soft voice and absolute authority, from the same back room where he used to count money. What no one sees: she is quietly dismantling the empire into something clean, one transaction at a time, so that no one inherits the weight she carries. Her father never let her into the room until he was dying, and she learned that being underestimated is the sharpest blade she owns. She wants someone who sees past the silk to the steel and stays anyway, but fears that wanting anything for herself is the first crack in her control.