There we are met by the overseer and are forced to stop.

“Sir, I am sorry, but you cannot take her. I get you more experienced girl, you like better. On the house.” The overseer tries to placate the man, and I take a deep breath, fearful of what his response will be.

“No,” he states, and I relax as he pulls me closer to his side.

“Sir, I have very important client coming. I keep her here for him as special favor. I only let you have her because he wanted her used before he arrived.”

As the overseer unwittingly answers the question that has been circling my mind all night, I feel much more confident leaving with this man finally knowing for sure that he was no way involved in my kidnapping.

“My other clients do not want to fuck girls like her, they get them free at home. He come soon for her, so now you must go,” the overseer continues.

“Who is your client?” The man growls out his question.

The lobby is beginning to fill with other men, girls, and the hired muscle of

the house. The ones who laughed as they beat me. I shudder at the sight of them and inch my way closer toward the man.

“What’s going on?” the man’s pudgy friend asks loudly in French, stepping

forward as he disentangles himself from one of the women.

“She is not here by choice. So I’m taking her home,” my man responds in the

same language, and the other scowls angrily, nodding his head slightly in understanding.

“Who?” he demands loudly of the overseer, returning to English.

“Sir, I can’t tell you,” the overseer replies haughtily.

I gasp in fright as the overseer reaches behind his back and takes out a gun

from the waistband of his pants and points it at the man, saying, “Step away from girl and leave. Driver take you to hotel, you not welcome back.”

“No,” the man says lazily, taking one large step forward and disarming the overseer by executing a move straight out of a Jason Bourne film, where suddenly he’s now holding the gun. I’m not even sure if Matt Damon could have performed such a perfect move. The rest of the room collectively gasps, while I exhale the breath I’ve been holding.

Suddenly the house’s muscle all pull out their weapons. It’s now my turn to

gasp in fright as they point them at us. I stand there stupidly, wanting to do something but completely at a loss as to what.

The man moves his hand to the back of my neck and whispers in my ear,

“Trust me.” No sooner than his words have registered, I feel the gun pressed against my temple.

“Oh God, please don’t,” I cry out in shock, and my knees begin to weaken. I

shake with fright.

“Who is your client?” the man asks the overseer coolly, his grip tightening on the back of my neck almost painfully, but all I can feel is the cold metal of the gun against my skin.

“Sir, I can’t tell you,” the overseer repeats, growing impatient.

“The girl won’t be any use to him dead, will she?” the man taunts, unrelenting in his faceoff with the room, which has begun to fill with nervous whispers.

Standing there with false bravado, the overseer answers him saying, “Mayer.

James Mayer.”

I gasp in horror at recognition of the name. Suddenly my vision becomes blurry with the shock. I almost miss seeing the man taking a step forward and backhanding the overseer with the butt of the gun, knocking him unconscious to the ground.

“We’re leaving,” he states firmly to the room at large.

I am barely aware of the shouting both in English and Mandarin that follow

the man’s pronouncement. Several of the women rush forward toward the overseer, and the man’s pudgy French-speaking friend steps around from behind us and hisses loudly, “Go,” before he turns back toward the crowd and enters the confusion.

The man grabs my arm, and no one makes a move to stop us as we back our

way out of the already open door. To freedom?

I stumble on my heels as we quickly make our way down the cracking cement driveway, under the locked gate, and into the bustling street beyond. The man pauses momentarily to look right and then left before deciding we should head to the left. With his hand still firmly around my arm, he pulls me quickly down the block. I go blindly, in a daze and unaware of my surroundings. I barely register the clang as the man tosses the gun into a trash bin as we pass. We are several blocks away when we hear shouting behind us. I don’t have to look to know that the muscle from the house has finally decided to pursue us—most likely after the overseer regained consciousness. They are followers and aren’t the type that thinks for themselves. They do what they are told to do, nothing more.

“Fuck,” I hear him mutter as we quicken our pace. If it weren’t for the man’s hold of my arm, practically dragging me along, I would’ve fallen over attempting to run in these useless pair of shoes.

Although the streets are fairly crowded, we don’t exactly blend into the population. The man is a head taller than most, and they’ll quickly be able to pick us out in a crowd.

“You should’ve kept the gun,” I argue as we hear them quickly approaching

on foot.

“I’d rather not get arrested on a weapons charge,” he mutters angrily. “I have no desire to see the inside of a Hong Kong prison.”

“It’d be better than going back there,” I reply as he steers us toward the edge of the sidewalk, and I realize there’s a bus pulling up just ahead.

Turning my head slightly, I also see a black car quickly weaving through traffic and coming toward us.

“Get on.” He pushes me in front of him up the stairs and into the already crowded bus. He wraps his arm around me and pulls me further inside, no doubt attempting to hide us in the crush of commuters.

Once the bus has begun moving through the busy streets, the man turns my

body to face his. There are anxious whispers all around us as he fists the back of my hair and tilts my head back and asks angrily, “Why would your stepfather have you kidnapped and brought to a Hong Kong brothel?”

I gasp, my eyes wide at the knowledge that he knows exactly who I am. That

he’s known the entire time we were together! “You know who I am?”

“Yes, now answer the question, Lily,” he shakes my head with unnecessary

roughness.