“I’m not wearing a suit.”
Margot stared at her father.
He stood in the doorway of his bedroom, tie in one hand, stubbornness in every line of his body.
“It’s not a funeral,” he said. “I wear suit only to funerals and weddings. And your cousin’s graduation because your mother forced me.”
She took him in. Navy blazer—good. Clean button-down—also good, if a little shiny from too many washes. Faded black jeans. The scuffed loafers he’d had since before the fall.
“It’s a meeting with someone who might save your shop,” she said. “You can sacrifice your hatred of ties for an hour.”
He grumbled something in Mandarin about strangulation and Western nonsense.
Her mother, standing behind him with arms crossed, clicked her tongue. “Listen to your daughter. She knows these rich people. They see you dressing sloppy, they think you stupid. Better to look uncomfortable than stupid.”
“I am not stupid,” he muttered.
“Exactly,” Margot said softly. “So let’s not give them excuses to treat you like you are.”
He sighed, dramatic and put-upon, and looped the tie around his neck.
His fingers fumbled.
She stepped forward. “Here,” she murmured. “Let me.”
He stilled, letting her work the fabric. The muscle memory was deep; she’d learned to tie a Windsor on his neck when she was twelve, standing on a chair, tongue between her teeth as she copied the diagram from some ancient men’s magazine.
“You remember,” he said quietly.
“I remember everything,” she said. “Unfortunately.”
He huffed a laugh that wasn’t quite.
When the knot sat straight, she smoothed it down, adjusted his collar, and stepped back.
“There,” she said. “Very respectable.”
He tugged at the fabric. “Feels like noose.”
“It’s just cotton,” she said. “The real noose is interest.”
He scowled. “You sound like your boss.”
She almost said, *Which one?* but swallowed it.
“Let’s go,” she said instead.
***
Priya’s office was in a building near Bryant Park—a glossy glass-and-steel monolith with a lobby that smelled like lemon and money. Not the ostentatious kind. The efficient kind.
Her father shifted uneasily as they rode the elevator up.
“Too fancy,” he muttered. “People here never get oil on their hands. How they know anything?”
“They know numbers,” she said. “Different kind of dirt.”
He eyed her. “You trust this woman?”
“More than I trust your bank,” she said. “Which is a low bar, but still.”
He grunted.
On the twenty-third floor, a receptionist with perfectly straight hair and a perfectly blank expression took their names and made a call.
“Ms. Shah will be right out,” she said.
Her father shifted from foot to foot, taking in the abstract art, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the silent people tapping at sleek laptops.
Margot watched him.
The last time he’d been in a space like this—corporate, gleaming, foreign—had been twelve years ago, sitting in a boardroom at NexTelis while they’d explained, politely, that his services were “no longer required.”
He’d come home that night with a stiff back and a ravaged face.
She gripped her bag a little tighter.
Priya appeared a minute later, crisp in charcoal trousers and a pale blue blouse, sleeves rolled to her elbows. No blazer. No tie. No unnecessary armor.
“Margot,” she said, with a brief, real smile. “Mr. Chen. Thank you for coming.”
Her father stiffened slightly at her accent-less English. Then seemed to relax a hair when she switched, smoothly, to unaccented Mandarin.
“Chen xiānshēng, nǐ hǎo,” she said. “Wǒ shì Shā Pǔ Lì Yà. Xièxie nǐ lái.”
His brows shot up. “Oh,” he said, surprised, answering in kind. “Nǐ huì shuō zhōngwén.”
“Yǒu yìdiǎn,” she said with a small shrug. “Wǒ bàba shì Yìndù rén, māmā shì Zhōngguó rén. Zài Jiālìfúníyà zhǎng dà. Jiào wǒ Priya jiù kěyǐ.”
That broke some of the ice. His shoulders loosened.
“Come,” she said, switching back to English, gesturing toward a glass-walled conference room. “Let’s sit. We’ll talk. No pressure. No signing today. Just understanding.”
He shot Margot a look. *We’ll see.*
They sat at a round table. No big desk. No height differences. Priya’s laptop was closed; she had just a notebook and a pen.
“I’ve looked at your files,” she said. “Your bank has been… unkind.”
“That’s polite way to say they’re vampires,” Margot muttered.
Her father’s mouth twitched.
“I see their side too,” Priya went on. “Not because I agree with it. Because I need to understand the system before I change it. They’re under pressure. Regulations. Shareholders. Incentive structures. It’s easier to push small guys like you than to fix their own models.”
He glowered. “So what, you fix their models by taking my loan and pushing more?”
“No,” she said calmly. “I buy your loan at a discount. Then I become your creditor. And my model is different.”
He eyed her. “Different how?”
She slid a single sheet of paper toward him. Big print. Simple lines. No dense paragraphs.
Margot leaned in with him.
> Current Bank: > > > – Principal: $450,000 > – Rate: 8.5% > – Term: 4 years > – Monthly: ~$11,000 > – Covenant: Bank can demand full payment with 30 days’ notice at their discretion. > > > Priya (proposed): > > > – Principal: $450,000 > – Rate: 6% > – Term: 10 years > – Monthly: ~$5,000 > – Provision: After 3 years, option to sell equipment and wind down with partial forgiveness.
His eyes widened as he scanned.
“How you make money?” he asked bluntly.
“Simple,” she said. “I buy your loan today for about $200,000. Let’s say you pay me $5,000 a month for ten years. That’s $600,000. Subtract my cost, my overhead, my risk premium—I still come out ahead. Not as much as your bank would squeezing you then selling your house at auction, but enough.”
He frowned. “So you… gamble on me not dying.”
She smiled. “I diversify. I have many loans. Some people default. Some pay early. Some, like you, are stubborn old men who will drag themselves to the shop even with pneumonia.”
He sputtered. “I am not old.”
“Sixty-five,” she said. “In small business years, that’s ancient.”
Margot bit back a laugh.
Priya turned to her. “What do *you* think, Margot?”
She forced herself to be clinical.
“It’s good,” she said. “Lower monthly is huge. The longer term gives him breathing room. The three-year wind-down option… makes me breathe easier. He won’t be trapped if his body gives out.”
Her father bristled. “My body—”
“—is not twenty-five,” Margot said sharply. “You told me last month your back hurts every day.”
“That’s normal,” he muttered.
“No, it’s not,” she and Priya said at the same time.
They looked at each other. Shared a grim, amused understanding.
“There is one thing you need to understand,” Priya said, looking back at him. “I am not your daughter. I am not your charity. I am your creditor. If you take this, you pay. If you don’t pay, there are consequences. They will be less cruel than your bank’s, but there will be some. I cannot change that.”
He nodded slowly. “I respect that.”
“Good,” she said. “Because if you thought this was a rescue, we’d have a problem.”
He sat back, rubbing his chin.
“Why you do this?” he asked again. “Really. Not money. Not… game. You already have money. I can smell it in this office.”
Priya smiled faintly. “My grandfather had a shop in Fremont,” she said. “Small parts. He lost it when his line of credit was called. He died two years later. My mother still says it wasn’t the heart, it was the shame.”
Silence dropped like a stone.
“I couldn’t save him,” Priya went on. “Too young. Too far. But I can make it harder for the system that killed him to keep killing people like him. Like you. And I can make money doing it. I like win-wins.”
He swallowed hard.
“You sound like my daughter,” he said roughly. “Always talking about systems. About fairness. About stupid rich people.”
“Some rich people are only stupid, not evil,” Priya said. “Some are both. I prefer the former.”
“And Declan?” Margot asked before she could stop herself.
Priya’s mouth twitched. “He’s… complicated. Not evil. Definitely not stupid. Sometimes reckless. Often arrogant. Usually right.”
Margot’s heart did a small, stupid thing.
“He cares,” Priya added. “More than he should. That’s why I took your email seriously. If he’d forwarded it with a ‘deal with this’ note, I’d have ignored it. He didn’t. He… asked.”
Margot looked down at the table, throat tight.
Her father studied them both.
“So,” he said slowly. “If I sign this… I still owe money. I still work. I still… fight. Just with different person holding leash.”
“Less leash,” Priya said. “More… bungee cord.”
He snorted despite himself.
“But yes,” she added. “You still fight. No one can stop that. Not me. Not your daughter. Not your old bank. Only you.”
He nodded once.
“Okay,” he said. “I will think. Talk to my wife. We don’t sign today, you say.”
“Correct,” Priya said. “Take a week. No more. The bank’s patience is not infinite. Neither is mine.”
“Bossy,” he muttered.
“Efficient,” she corrected.
He stood. So did they.
He hesitated.
Then extended his hand.
She took it.
His grip was firm. Hers, steady.
“Thank you,” he said, in English this time.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “I’ll have my associate send over a formal term sheet. No fine print. I don’t do tricks.”
“Good,” he said. “I’m too old for tricks.”
“Not old,” she said. “Just… seasoned.”
He chuckled.
As they left, Margot glanced back.
Priya caught her eye and mouthed, *Call me.*
Margot nodded.
In the elevator, her father was quiet.
She let him be.
Outside, the city roared.
They walked in silence for a block.
Finally, he said, “Your boss. He introduce you to her.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You tell him about… NexTelis,” he said. “About… us.”
Her stomach lurched.
She’d never said the name in front of him since that night, until yesterday.
Now, he was connecting dots.
She could lie.
Say she’d found Priya herself.
Say Declan didn’t know.
Or she could do what she’d decided, somewhere between the elevator and the conference room: stop protecting him from information he deserved to have.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “He knows.”
Her father stopped walking.
On the sidewalk, people flowed around them like water around a rock.
“He knows,” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said.
“And he still… works with them,” he said. “Still buys them.”
“Yes,” she said again. “Because he thinks he can change them.”
He let out a harsh breath.
“Americans,” he said bitterly. “Always think they can fix everything.”
“Baba—”
“He is… using you,” he said. “He takes your brain, your heart, your… care, and he points it at the people who hurt us. And you let him.”
The words sliced.
“He’s not NexTelis,” she said, anger flaring. “He’s trying to dismantle what they built.”
“And making money doing it,” he said. “Always money.”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Because this is capitalism, not a fairy tale. I can’t stop the deal. Neither can you. If he doesn’t buy them, someone worse will. At least with him, I have a seat at the table.”
“And that seat is more important than your family?” he demanded.
“No,” she said, stung. “But it’s the only leverage I have. Me quitting in protest won’t bring your shop back. It’ll just mean I have less money to help you when the bank comes knocking.”
He flinched.
She winced. Too far.
“Baba,” she said, softer. “I’m not choosing him over you. I’m choosing… to be where decisions are made. So when someone suggests screwing over the next Chen Precision, I can say, ‘No.’ And maybe someone will listen.”
He stared at her.
“You think he listens,” he said, something raw in his tone. “To you.”
She thought of Declan’s face when she’d said he couldn’t fix everything. The way he’d looked when she’d told him about her father’s loan.
“Yes,” she said simply. “I do.”
Her father shook his head.
“You always think you can change people,” he said. “First your high school boyfriend. Then that stupid start-up boy. Now this billionaire.”
She flinched. “I don’t—”
“You have big heart, Margot,” he said. “Too big for your own good. You give it away like it’s nothing. I don’t want to see you hurt again.”
Tears pricked her eyes.
“This is not like that,” she said. “He’s not… that.”
“How you know?” he asked.
Because he tells me when he’s wrong.
Because he sees me.
Because he told me he wouldn’t touch me even though he wants to.
“I just do,” she said.
He exhaled, long and weary.
“You’re stubborn,” he said.
“Genetic,” she shot back.
He snorted.
They fell into step again.
After a block, he said gruffly, “If I take this woman’s deal… it doesn’t forgive NexTelis.”
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t.”
“But it means… they don’t kill me twice,” he said.
Her throat closed.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He nodded once.
“Okay,” he said. “We think. We talk. We decide. *We*. Not bank. Not your boss. Us.”
“Yes,” she said again. “We.”
He slipped his arm through hers, an old habit he’d dropped when she was a teenager and picked up again when her mother had surgery last year.
“You hungry?” he asked. “We get noodles.”
She laughed through the lump in her throat.
“Always,” she said.
As they walked toward Flushing Chinatown, she felt something shift.
Not forgiveness.
Not acceptance.
But a tiny, begrudging acknowledgment that, maybe, sitting at Declan’s table wasn’t betrayal.
It was a bet.
On systems.
On leverage.
On a man who insisted he didn’t fall.
She hoped, for all their sakes, she hadn’t placed it wrong.
---