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I have a few questions, and I fucking bet that Destiny has the answers.
16
Destiny
For the first time in hours, I feel safe. Standing with Austin in his apartment, it feels that the real world can’t get to me here.
And even if it does, Austin would just kick its ass and send it on its way, just like he did in that alley. I don’t even want to think about what would've happened if he hadn’t showed up when he did.
I mean, Lester is out of control, and if he got ahold of me, knowing him as I do…I’m shuddering.
The commissioner has a mean streak to him, you know? He always had a knack for extortion, but I just took saw him as another dirty cop—dirty, but not evil.
But I was wrong.
Lester is looking more and more like a New York devil, and I’m starting to realize that extortion might be just be one of his pastimes.
“Thank you,” I mutter as I sit down on Austin’s couch and he hands me a glass of water. I take a deep breath, trying to steady my hands as I wrap my fingers around the glass.
“Hey, babe,” he says, sitting next to me, tucking a lock of hair over my ear. “No need to fucking thank me. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
I put the glass to my lips and start drinking—the cold water calming my nerves. I try to push Lester’s evil grin to the back of my mind, and then I look up at Austin. There’s relief in his eyes, but there’s also concern. By the way he’s looking at me, I know that he has a few questions dancing on the tip of his tongue.
“Just get it out,” I tell him, sighing. I place the glass of water on the coffee table in front of me and fold my hands on my lap, feeling that the time to come clean has finally arrived. I just hope it’s not too late.
“You asked for it,” he chuckles lightly before he starts, licking his lips while he looks for the right words. “What was Lester doing at your club? What was that all about? Because that dude came to fight a war tonight, not close down a fucking strip club.” Pursing my lips, I look into Austin’s eyes and swallow down all hesitancy. Time to come clean.
Here I go.
“He was carrying out his threat,” I say drily, breathing in as I prepare myself to tell Austin the truth. All of it.
“What threat?” he asks me in that patient tone of his, his eyes narrowing slightly. I notice his fingers twitching, and I’d bet a full year’s income that he’d like to choke out Lester as much as I do.
“Lester, he… Austin, he was forcing me to spy on you,” I finally tell him, the words tumbling out of my lips and blowing up in the air of his apartment. “He wanted me to tell him about what was going on in Python.”
Austin has nothing on his face. He’s quiet.
“Shit,”
he whispers, looking away from me and turning his gaze outward, to the New York skyline outlooking his wall-to-ceiling window panes. Even though it’s still night, the city keeps on glowing, its bright lights cutting through the darkness. “I should've known.”
“He threatened he’d close my club if I didn’t keep tabs on you,” I say. “And he wanted me to find someone… The woman you were talking to. Mistress Strokes, you called her, I think.”
“That fucking bastard,” he whispers again, balling his hands into fists, anger dripping out of his words. Oh, he wants to choke Lester, alright. “Destiny, why didn’t you trust me?”
He finally turns to me, his words making my heart feel smaller and smaller. Right now, I just wish I could vanish into the ether.
“I… I don’t know, Austin,” I start, that sadness inside of me turning into desperation.
What if he tells me to get out of his apartment?
What if he tells me that he never wants to see me again?
It’s in this exact moment that I finally realize something: I’m in love with Austin Price.
That’s right. I’m in love with Python.
I felt it in the way my heart beat every time our gaze met, and I felt it every time I thought of him, that soothing warmness blanketing my mind and taking over my dreams. I’m in love with Austin, I think to myself, the words echoing inside my head.
