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.
“How the fuck should I know? I didn’t fucking ask to be kidnapped,” I snap
back angrily as I smack his chest with my fists. “Did you know I was there?”
“No,” he snaps. “If I had, I would have fucking come and gotten you sooner.
Trust me, I’ll be having words with Peter about that. Now answer the fucking question.”
“Peter knew?” I squeak out as the feelings of betrayal wrap around my chest
in a tight band. Peter is, was, my favorite cousin and the closest thing I have to a sibling.
Tears are now freely running down my face. I barely register the stinging smack to my ass through the tightening of my chest. My heart seizes as feelings of betrayal and helplessness begin to set in. The question why keeps circling around in my thoughts. The word getting louder and louder in my head as the seconds slowly tick by.
I can’t fathom an explanation as to why James would do such a thing. The
man had been my father’s best friend and business partner, who’d seemed to fall in love with my mother over the years of helping her cope with my father’s sudden death. He’s always supported me in my choice of advertising as a career over business, despite my mother’s hope I’d eventually fill my father’s shoes at MacKay International. James had also been the one to encourage me to spend the semester abroad.
I shiver with disgust as what the overseer implied begins to register, what James had planned to do with me. He’s always been so kind and never gives me
