I lean toward Mistress Strokes in my seat, ready to finally find out what’s really happening.

Since Lester asked me to come into Python, my life has never been the same, and it all started because of this woman. I respected the fact that Austin didn’t want to share a secret that wasn’t his, but now she’s here, right in front of me with that bright blue hair of hers.

And I’m ready, I’m ready for the truth.

Mistress Strokes’ lips are pursed, and she is looking down at her hands, trying to gather her thoughts. She looks slightly pale, and I can tell that talking about whatever’s going on isn’t easy for her. So I just reach for her, placing one hand on top of hers. Right now, she looks so frail and vulnerable, and I just want to comfort her.

“Take your time, sweetie,” I tell her, and she managed to look at me and show a faint smile.

“Thank you,” she whispers, and then clears her throat. She balls her hands into fists, takes a deep breath and then starts. “Austin told me that you were worried about Python being involved in human trafficking… Only Lester could dream up something like that,” she mutters then, shaking her head, but then continues. “There’s nothing of that sort going on around here, Destiny, I can promise you that.”

“I know,” I tell her, squeezing her hand. “I trust him.” I look at Austin and he smiles at me, gently nodding.

“You’re lucky to have her,” Strokes tells Austin, and then squeezes back my hand. She then turns her gaze to me and continues her story. “You see, Lester is after me because I’m fighting against all the sex trafficking going on in this city,” she says in a quiet voice. “I live for it, Destiny. I do my best to find the women who have found themselves trapped by traffickers, and I do whatever it takes to set them free and give them a chance at a new life. Money, new identities… Whatever it takes.”

“Mistress Strokes is a modern-day saint, Destiny,” Austin tells me, looking at her with pride. “She’s done more for women than most politicians will ever do, even if they could live multiple times over.”

“None of this would be possible without Austin, though,” the woman continues as I feel my heart start to thump. “He’s been financing me, and Python has served as the headquarters of this operation. We hide women here, if it’s needed, and a lot of Python’s profits are used to do a lot of good.”

Her thin smile has widened and she’s even looking better now, some color in her cheeks. She’s proud of Austin, proud of Python, and proud of the work they have been doing.

God, and to think that I had my suspicions about Austin. It must've been hard for him, to know that I didn’t trust him when, in fact, he was actually the hero in this story.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand, though,” I ask, “what does Lester have to with all of this? He’s the Police Commissioner, for God’s sake. He should give the two of you a medal, not hunt you down,” I say.

They go quiet. I continue. “Sure, he’s corrupt, but I don’t--” That’s when I see anger flaring up in Mistress Strokes’ eyes. She hates his guts, and that’s putting it lightly.

“Corrupt? He’s not just corrupt! He’s a fucking scumbag, that’s what it is! I wish he--”

“Calm down, Strokes, we’re between friends,” Austin cuts her short, speaking in an appeasing tone.

“Sorry… Sorry, I… I hate him. It’s hard for me to talk about him,” she sighs, and Austin hands her a small bottle of water. She opens it and takes it to her lips, drinking almost half of it in one single gulp. “Lester is not just corrupt, Destiny. His corruption knows no limits,” she spews at me, her hatred showing through.

“I don’t know if he’s hungry for money, or for power, or whatever it is… But he has no limits, he really doesn’t,” she continues. “He’s been profiting millions by allowing sex trafficking rings to operate right here, in New York while he takes kickbacks on a weekly basis. I’m betting that he even has a stake on a few of them… He’s that low of a human being.”

I suddenly feel nauseous, remembering how I used to allow him to have sex with me and then paid him protection money. I feel repulsed, disgusted… I don’t even know how I feel right now, to be honest. I just wish I could get him in here now and break his cock in half. Sex trafficking? Jesus fucking Christ.

“No wonder you hate his guts…”

“That’s just part of it,” she says to me and takes a deep sigh.

I can tell there’s another bombshell coming.

“You see, Lester is my stepfather,” she whispers in a resigned tone, and hunches her shoulders as the word stepfather falls out of her lips. I don’t even want to imagine how it’d be to have the devil for a stepfather. “He has been trying to shut me down through unofficial channels, but I’m not making his life easy. That’s why he pressed you into all of this. He can’t get the police inside Python without a valid reason, and Austin already spends a lot of money on security so that none of Lester’s criminal dirt bags can ever step a foot inside here. But he’s growing reckless and Austin and I, we’re making a real dent on whatever operations he has a finger on, and we’re hurting is wallet. And I figure he’s pretty pissed about that.”

“You figure right, yeah,” I say, thinking back to how he stormed my club, raining hell on me. “I’m so sorry, hun… I can’t even begin to imagine how it’d be like to have someone like him for a stepfather.”

“My mother was a fool,” she whispers, and tears start welling up in her eyes. She takes a deep breath and recomposes herself, looking at me as if nothing had happened. She’s tough, I have to give her that. “But she loved him. She never knew anything about this and, by the time I discovered what he was up to… I couldn’t bring myself to tell her,” the woman that I know as Mistress Strokes says to me.

“She had cancer, you see? She was thin and sickly, and she almost never left the hospital… I just couldn’t do it to her, tell her the truth… So I sucked it up. I played along,” she says, reliving the memory. “Lester never found out how I always snooped around his office whenever he was out, gathering whatever piece of information I could put my hands on. Back then, I didn’t know why I was doing, I just knew I had to. I couldn’t stand still while that dirt bag was… was doing all that.”

“You were very brave,” I tell her, speaking in a soothing tone.

“Thank you. But you’d do the same.”

“I’m not sure. I’d probably just freak out and pummel him into submission with a fireplace poker.”

“I should’ve have thought of that,” she says with a chuckle, and I notice that she has relaxed her hands, her palms now resting easily in her lap. “Anyways, I haven’t seen him since my mother passed. The day I came home from the funeral, I just emptied one of his bank accounts and took off. I wandered around New York for a whole day, not knowing what I was going to do… So I just grabbed one of the addresses I had found in his office, and headed there,” she recounts.

“I thought it’d be one of the places where they were holding women, but it wasn’t. It was just a warehouse filled with street hookers, and I realized then that he was shaking them down so that they could keep working,” Mistress Strokes continues. “I talked to them anyway, and one told me that she was actually thinking of leaving the life; she had a son, you see? She wanted to be better. Anyway, she told me she was coming to Python, because the owner had a reputation between the street hookers: if you really wanted to straighten up your act, Austin would help you without asking for anything in return.”

“And that was when she showed up in here. Nervous and shaking, clutching a backpack to her chest,” Austin laughs, and I finally realize how much he cares for Strokes. She’s his protegé.

Mistress Strokes sighs.

“I’m tired of it always being women who get persecuted, Destiny,” she tells me and I nod. I’m the same way. Remember? How I said I could have sex with anyone I wanted to? And fuck off if they didn’t like it?

Well, while I was going out spreading my legs, Mistress Strokes was putting herself in danger to free women.

We could all be more like her.

“With the information I stole from Lester, and with Austin financing things we started saving as many women as we could and we were making a difference,” she goes on. She stops and pauses. “We still are, and Lester wants to stop us at all costs. He’s not going to give up.”

“Well neither are we, goddamit,” Austin says, first looking at me and then exchanging a glance with Strokes. “We can’t let him destroy what you’ve fucking built. Whatever it fucking takes, we’ll bring that motherfucker down.”

“And how are we going to do that…?” Mistress Strokes asks him, looking at me.

I see where she’s going and I chime in, not sure what Austin is thinking either. “Lester’s got the entire NYPD at his fingertips,” I tell him making it seem like I’m worried about whatever Austin is planning, but what I’m really thinking of is the child I’m carrying inside my belly.

Is it really a good idea to go to war with Lester when I’m expecting Austin’s baby?

“All I know is we’re looking at Python right here,” Austin grins gesturing to the three of us, the confidence in him making him look as handsome as a movie star, “and Python is where dreams come true, ladies.”

He gets up and looks at us before finishing. “Let’s make this dream fucking come true as well.”