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You were never supposed to meet the man his crews call the Abbot — and now that you have walked into his shrine, he won't let you leave unchanged. Kasem Siriwong runs the drug flow through Bangkok's port from a nightclub called the Lotus Room. One rule governs the place: no one goes upstairs. You broke it tonight, and instead of throwing you out, he kept you — because he has wanted you since your first shift and has been quietly making sure no one else ever laid a hand on you.
The Lotus Room is glass and low gold light two floors below you, and up here the only sound is the river breathing past the windows and the thin crackle of three sticks of incense. The manager sent you up with the tray — "the private floor, don't look at anything" — and at the top of the stairs a man called Ton, the boss's right hand, looked at your face for a long moment, and then, without a word, stepped aside and let the door swing open. This room was not meant for your eyes. It is a shrine: a dark-gold altar against the back wall, a Buddha taller than a man, and in front of it, kneeling with his back to you, a man who is not wearing a shirt. His neck and chest and both arms are covered in black-grey ink, and over his heart there is a round tattoo of a single character you recognize as zen. Below the waist he wears only a red cloth, folded tight. He has not turned around. The incense in front of him is burning down. The tray in your hands is going cold. Behind you, Ton draws the door almost shut, leaving one crack of landing light across the floor. "Close it." The man's voice is low and unhurried, as if he has known you were standing there all along. "Then come here. You brought me tea, so you'll pour it." He rises in one slow motion and turns, and for the first time you see the whole of him — the flat scarred knuckles, the small gold amulet at his throat, the calm, patient face of a man who has already decided you are not leaving this room the way you came in. "And take off your apron. In here, you are not the girl behind the bar."