"So, the black servant speaks our language. Interesting. Should we be more careful, Chairman?"
"No." Wei shook his head. "This is useful. If she understands us, we can provoke her, make her react emotionally. Then we claim she was spying on private conversations. We'll have leverage to renegotiate everything. And if she doesn't react, then we sign, take control, and push her out within a year." He raised his glass. "Either way, the Wei family wins, just like my father always won." He drank to the old ways, the right ways.
Simone sat alone in her hotel room. Her phone buzzed. A message from Whitfield's security team. They'd intercepted communications between Derek's phone and a Hashang server. The encryption was weak. Amateur hour. She read the summary. Her blood ran cold. Derek was a traitor. And Wei knew she spoke Mandarin. They were setting a trap. She stared at her grandmother's phrase book, traced the worn leather with her fingertips.
"What would you do, Grandma?"
The answer came clearly, as if Loretta was sitting beside her. Let them think they're winning. Let them say everything they truly believe. Let them hang themselves with their own words. Then take everything.
Simone picked up her phone, texted Whitfield. "We have a problem and an opportunity."
His reply came in seconds. "Tell me everything."
She started typing. Somewhere in the Chicago night, a trap was being set, but the trappers had no idea they were the prey. The servant's granddaughter was coming, and she was bringing 50 years of silence with her.
36 hours before signing, the emergency board meeting was a battlefield disguised as a conference room. Harrison Crane III led the opposition, grandson of the company founder, the kind of man who confused inheritance with intelligence and arrogance with leadership.
"Jonathan, with all due respect," he didn't have any respect. Never did. "Sending her to lead negotiations with a Chinese delegation is a mistake."
Whitfield's voice was ice. "What about it, Harrison?"
"They're traditional, hierarchical. They'll expect someone who looks the part."
"You mean someone who looks like Derek?" Silence. "Or someone who looks like you."
Crane's face reddened. "I'm simply pointing out cultural considerations."
"The decision is final. Simone leads. End of discussion."
The meeting ended, but Crane wasn't finished. He found Derek in the hallway, pulled him aside. "Keep me informed. If she fails, I want to know before Whitfield does."
Derek smiled, the smile of a man holding cards no one knew about. "Oh, she'll fail. I guarantee it."
Simone met with Whitfield privately. She told him about Derek, about the intercepted communications, about the trap being set. Whitfield's face darkened like a storm rolling in.
"You're certain?"
"Certain enough. But if we move on him now, we tip our hand. He runs to Wei. They adjust their plan. We lose the advantage."
"What do you want to do?"
Simone's eyes were steady, cold, focused. "I don't speak Mandarin for the next 36 hours. Not a word, not a hint, nothing. Let Wei think Derek's information was wrong. Let him get comfortable. Let him say things he would never say if he thought I understood. And then on signing day, when his guard is completely down, when he's revealed exactly who he is," she touched the phrase book, "I answer him in his father's dialect, and I show him what servants really learn when masters aren't watching."
That evening, Simone found Derek in a hallway. She cornered him, voice low, controlled. "Derek, I know you wanted this position. I know you think you deserved it."
He forced a smile. Smooth, practiced. "I'm just here to support the team, Simone."
"Good. Then support the team. Stay in your lane." She stepped closer. Close enough to see the sweat forming on his forehead. "And Derek, I know you've been talking to people you shouldn't. I don't know everything yet." She paused. "But I will. If I find out you've done anything to compromise this company, I will end your career in ways you can't imagine."
She walked away. Derek watched her go, then pulled out his phone. A text to Liu Pang. "She suspects something. Accelerate the plan."
That night, Simone sat alone with the contracts. Page by page, clause by clause, looking for the trap she knew was there. She found it in appendix 7, section 3, buried in technical language designed to confuse. A clause allowing Hashang to renegotiate profit sharing after 18 months unilaterally without consent. Hidden, intentional, a time bomb waiting to explode. They were planning to steal the company from the start. She photographed everything, sent it to Whitfield. Then she opened her grandmother's phrase book, read her favorite passage aloud in Mandarin, the one Loretta used to recite while washing dishes.
"I am not afraid. I am ready."