Sister Tse is brought to New York by a Snakehead, a human smuggler. Although she is indebted to the crime family responsible for her transport, her survival instincts help her gain favor with the matriarch, and she rises quickly in the ranks. Soon Tse must reconcile her success with her real reason for coming to America—to find the child that was taken from her. In the end, Sister Tse must draw on the strength she found in transforming her victimhood into power.

In the near future after a bitter civil war leaves Manhattan a demilitarized zone (DMZ), destroyed and isolated from the rest of the world, fierce medic Alma Ortega sets out on a harrowing journey to find the son she lost in the evacuation of New York City at the onset of the conflict. Standing in her way are gangs, militias, demagogues and warlords, including Parco Delgado, the popular — and deadly — leader of one of the most powerful gangs in the DMZ.