Hanh's POV

My head was pounding. I slowly opened my eyes, but it was dark, and I could barely make out anything. I was already laying on my side, and my hands were feeling a bit numb. I tried to roll my wrists around, but it only made the rope that was tying them together, dig a little deeper into my skin. I winced, only to find that there was a pressure on my month, like there was duct tape, as my vision was getting adjusted to the dark.

"She's awake," I heard a voice say. I tilted my head up, or really sideways since I was laying on my side, to the voice that belonged to a bald man wearing a black suit and a gray fedora. He was sitting on a crate, and was holding a gun in his hand. It wasn't long when I heard a set of footsteps walking towards me, and I came across a set of shiny black leather shoes.

"Good morning, princess. Did you enjoy your little nap?" He asked, taunting me, since the only thing that could come out of my mouth was a grunt. This guy didn't look that much different from the one sitting on the crate. He was also bald, but the only difference that I could make was that this guy had a scar on his right eyebrow.

"You would think a triad princess from Hong Kong would be dressed in a cheongsam or qipao at least. I heard that Simon Lee was a stickler for tradition. They said she was wearing them everytime Simon had allowed her out," said the first bald man. So, they had kidnapped me thinking that I was Mei Ling, but I wasn't going to reveal that I wasn't. I was confident that they would have no trouble killing me if they figured out I wasn't their target.

The man with the scar replied, "They also said that he barely allowed her out, and that he treasured it. I guess you would, when she has quite the pretty face."

I tried my best to take a quick look around as they were having that conversation, but it wasn't easy. Not only where my hands bound behind my back, but my ankles were also tied together. I could only really move my head to take a look around, seeing that it looked like an abandoned warehouse. It was already dark, with minor moonlight coming in through the windows closer to the roof. There was almost nothing in it, besides the 3 of us, and some wooden crates that they were using to sit on. My purse was already thrown to the side, with its contents spilling out. My phone wasn't there, making me more disappointed.

The man with the scar then grabbed my face and pulled me up so I ended up sitting up. I winced again, feeling the blood rush through the arm and leg that I was laying on for so long.

"You're not going anywhere, sweetheart. You're our golden ticket, so behave, or things will get unpleasant," he said. I don't know why I wasn't as scared as when I first met Soryu. Maybe Soryu was scarier. Or maybe it was the aftereffect of the drug. But I do know that my head was still pounding, and my patience was running a little thin. I had just decided to give up my sufferings to God and let Him take care of my troubles, and now I am guessing, it was His will that I get kidnapped under the assumption that I was someone that I was not. I did an internal chuckle, noting that God had never worked this quickly in my entire life, giving me one absurd way to suffer before my death.

"How long do you think we will be here?" fedora man asked.

"Dunno, boss said that he was reaching out first to the Ice Dragons," the man with the scar said as he walked away.

"I am going to check the parameters one more time," fedora man said, getting up to leave the warehouse, leaving me with the man with the scar.

The man with the scar only grunted in reply, his eyes lingering on me for a little longer, before he turned away and sat on a crate a few feet in front of me. He was facing the door and exit to the warehouse, and pulled out his phone to go on it. I stretched my neck side to side since he yanked me up, making me pull a muscle. I also tried to rotate my wrist to see if it would loosen more to get some blood circulating. It only helped a little, before I glanced to my side with my purse and its contents. I was actually a little closer to it now, but all I had were lipstick, a compact mirror, and my lucky rosary. I moved my legs to kick my rosary over so I can grab it from my bound wrist behind my back. I wanted to get another rosary in if I were to die soon. As I took it in my hands and started praying, a memory from my college days arose.

It was Aidan, Ainsley's brother, who had just learned ropes and knots, and the ways you can untie them traditionally. At the time, I was so confused about this obsession that he and his friends had to tie each other up, try to escape and show us, but I was happy for it now. Each rope and knot has fibers. Fibers that can be used to loosen the whole thing if there was something there to create friction and make the fibers loosen from each other and making the whole knot unstable for me to free myself. My fingers ran over the crucifix on the rosary, praying that this was going to work before using it to ease its way into the knot that was responsible for tying my hands together. I was really lucky that the knot was on my left hand, which was the one furthest away from my body, since I was right handed. I didn't have to seriously cramp my hand to try this plan out.

It definitely wasn't a quick process, and I was starting to lose hope due to how much the rope was digging into my skin. My hand had started to cramp, and I had to drop my rosary for a little bit, and shift my wrists to try and get a different stretch. But I was met with something greater with that shifting and tugging, the knot was loose! Loose enough to now shimmy hands free. I had kept my eye on my kidnapper, but he was more concerned over what was playing on his phone to realize what I had done. I quietly bent my knees so my ankles would be out of sight if he decided to take a look at me. I worked quickly to untie my ankles as well, before I slowly peeled the duct tape off of my mouth. Now the only problem was leaving the warehouse without my kidnapper realizing it but I'm sure he would have noticed if I were to leave in front of him. And earlier, I saw the glint of a gun in his waistband, and I was not about to find out if he knew how to use it. I glanced back at my purse, and I was grateful that it was also leather with thick straps.

I slowly grabbed that purse and put my rosary back in it before I started to creep up behind my kidnapper. I had made a loop with the purse strap in one hand and the duct tape in another. I managed to get close enough behind him, before it felt something was off and looked up. I slapped the duct tape on his mouth before throwing the purse strap over his head and yanking it as hard as I could when it was over his throat. My other hand, that was holding the duct tape, quickly grabbed the other side of the strap and criss-crossed it, so that it was choking him. I also yanked him off his crate, and tried my best to continue to pull him around, so he doesn't have a chance to think about how to get out of the situation. He had kept squirming, his hands going straight to his throat trying to get the strap off, but he couldn't manage to get a good grip to free himself since I was constantly moving him.

It felt like forever, until he stopped squirming, and I dropped everything. I could still see his chest rise, but just to be sure that he was unconscious. I stepped on his fingers to see if there was a response, and poked his face, but he was out cold. I reached for his gun in his waistband, and he was still out. For men that were supposed to kidnap a person that lived in the underground world all her life, they were quite careless in my opinion, especially since this guy didn't even go to remove the duct tape I had slapped on him.

"This isn't even inspirational to write a scene in my book," I muttered as I checked his gun to see if there were bullets. It was a basic glock, one that even I knew how to use, a perk of living in the South of the US was the gun-loving culture. I grabbed my purse again, put the gun into my purse, and slung it over my shoulder. I grabbed the rope that tied my ankles and used it to tie his hands together to give myself more time if he were to wake up.

I jogged towards the exit as quietly as I could, pulling the gun out, making sure the safety was off in case I ran into my other kidnapper. I couldn't hear any footsteps from inside, so I opened the door, looked around to see if the other kidnapper had made his way back, but he hadn't. I stepped outside, moving more slowly since I didn't want him to accidentally see me. I stayed close to the wall of the warehouse, and looked around the corner. This warehouse was just one small warehouse among more warehouses, all lined up. I didn't know where I was going, but I certainly wasn't staying here. I could make out a street a little further down, and there were about 10 large warehouses that I would have to sneak past, since I was held in the one at the end.

I said a quick prayer, and made my way towards the backs of the warehouses, since the aisle in front of the entrances were too wide for my comfort. I kept walking and stopping at each warehouse, and as I was passing my third warehouse, my anxiety kept increasing, because I was still surprised that I hadn't run into trouble. I then heard footsteps a few distance from my side. I stayed at the back of that third warehouse, holding my breath, as I could hear that kidnapper, talking to someone.

"It wasn't easy, sir. She put up quite a fight," he said.

"And you said that she didn't have a bodyguard with her?"

"Well, she had 2 other women with her, and the boss of the Japanese branch of the Ice Dragons, but none of them were there when we grabbed her."

"That seems careless on their end. Are you sure this wasn't a trap?"

"Yes sir! The other women appeared to be Americans. They were speaking in English, but we grabbed the one that confirmed that she was going on the blind dates."

I stayed where I was, not going to risk my life, by looking at them. I was relying on my sense of hearing to figure out when they were going to pass any potential risk of seeing me. Once it seemed to me like that had made a good amount of distance, I broke into a jog towards the street, my adrenaline kicking in the first time this night. I managed to make it to the sixth warehouse, when I heard a voice scream out, making it clear that my escape had been discovered. I sped up, and I managed to pass the eighth warehouse, when I was having deja vu, and getting my wrist yanked. The swift in that momentum spun me around and I ended up with another hand on my mouth and the hand that yanked my wrist was moved to wrap tight across my arms and chest, lifting me off my feet and holding me securely to a chest. A very muscular chest.

"Don't move," that voice said, and I looked up to see a familiar face. Soryu.