Buyer’s Market(332)

“Fuck him,” I say to Destiny, squeezing her hand in mine. “You don’t need to talk with him. And if he wants to come after Python… Well, I’ll fucking handle him, one way or the other.”

“Austin… I’m worried,” Destiny says to me. “I really am,” she starts, circling her glass with one fingertip and gazing down at the stage. Her eyes are empty, though, and I can notice that she’s thinking of everything that might go wrong. There’s something else there too, but I have no idea what.

“Lester is a corrupt asshole, but he’s not in the habit of making empty promises,” she says to me. “I still can’t forget how he shut down my club. Everything I ever worked for. I can’t see that happening to you. I just can’t… Not now.”

“Destiny, don’t worry… I’m handling this,” I tell her, trying to be calm in the face of this new bullshit.

It’s my turn now to calm her down.

I’m doing everything I can to reopen her club, but it isn’t easy. I put together a legal team so we could fight her club’s closure in the courts, but Lester pulled every trick in the book to keep that from happening.

Still, I’m not giving up. Of course, her words make me fucking worried, I won’t lie.

What if, somehow, Lester has managed to convince a judge that something’s going on in here? He never came after us like that before because it was a risky move for him. If he brought us down, Strokes and I would try and bring him down with us. He knows that, but he’s also growing desperate. He wants to stop us at all costs.

Fuck.

This isn’t looking good.

“Austin… I’ve tried to understand, and I do trust you,” she turns to me then, looking me straight in the eyes. I know that she has bottled these words inside of her for far too long, and now it’s time she comes asking questions once again. I’m just afraid I can’t give her any answers.

Finally, the questions come.

I bet you’re getting pretty curious now too, aren’t you?

“What is actually going in here?” Destiny asks me, looking at me directly. “Why is Lester so obsessed with that woman, Mistress Strokes?”

Fuck.

Well, there it is.

I’m wondering how to answer when Destiny continues. “Sometimes I worry,” she says to me. “You know I trust you, but...” she trails off.

Yeah, I knew that was coming.

“Let’s get inside.” I grab her hand and take her inside my office, closing the door behind us. I take her to the large couch at the end and I grab the bottle of whisky sitting on the coffee table. I fill both our glasses trying to gain some time as I ponder how much I should tell her.

It fucking hurts that I just can’t come clean with her, but it's Strokes’ story and I can’t dishonor my promise to her. Not even for the woman I think I’m fucking falling in love with.

I’m sorry, but that’s just not my story to tell, and I wouldn’t do it without Strokes’ permission.

And as paranoid as she is about our operation, I doubt she’d ever let anyone not involved in the nitty gritty of what we do to ever find out. There are just too many risks.

“I know you don’t want to tell me, and I just want to understand the why of it, Austin…”

“Look, Destiny, all I can promise you is that there’s no sex trafficking going on in here,” I look her straight in the eye, trying to make a believable face.

It’s so fucking hard to keep a straight face when you’re trying to have someone else believe you. “I swear to you, I’m not that kind of man. In fact, if you have ever thought Python is part of a sex trafficking operation, we’re just the opposite of it.”

Right.

You thought I was moving girls around because I was trafficking them, didn’t you?

Don’t fucking lie if you’re shaking your head.

Well, I’m not.

“I know what kind of man you are, Austin,” Destiny is saying to me. “And I don’t believe you’ve ever be involved in something like that, but this woman you call Mistress Strokes? Who is she?” Destiny asks me.

“I know nothing about what’s going on, Austin, and it’s making me fucking crazy!” She throws her hands up in the air in an exasperated motion, and then sinks in her seat, putting down her glass of whiskey after looking at it and almost giving a shocked look.

“Mistress Strokes,” I say and then trail off. “Fuck, Destiny, it’s complicated. I wish I could tell you all about Strokes, but her secrets and her story aren’t mine to tell.”

Destiny looks at me and raises her eyes. “But I fucking trust her, and that’s all I can tell you,” I finish.