Holland

Two weeks ago, Dax fell off the face of the earth. We were so close to finding King and Juliette, and—poof—he just disappeared into thin air. I’m not stupid. I know King had something to do with it. Honestly, I was surprised he didn’t step in earlier. I’m sure he’s got someone watching my every step, waiting to see if I’ll go back to school, waiting to see if I’ll cave and give up on finding my little girl.

I just hope he didn’t hurt Dax. He was a good friend to me. I know he wanted more, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to remove the barbed wire surrounding my heart. But if I did, it would have been for Dax. He risked everything to help me, including his life. I’ll probably never know if he’s dead. King has professionals for that. When somebody wrongs him, they die, and there’s no trace, no tracks, nothing.

Dax educated me on the life of a kingpin. He taught me things I never wanted to know, things I try to put out of my head every day. King has proven himself to be a monster capable of anything. He’s ruthless and selfish and evil and egotistical. I can’t believe I ever loved him, and one thing’s for sure. I’ll never in a million years forgive him for stealing my baby and leaving me alone and broken. Never.

* * *

I miss my baby girl.

God, she’s not even a baby anymore. She’s three years old today. I fidget while the musicians around me shuffle their sheet music, preparing for tonight’s performance. Today is supposed to be a joyful day of celebrating with baby dolls and pink balloons, but instead, I’m well on my way to a migraine listening to my colleagues in the orchestra tune their instruments. I usually have butterflies in my belly before a concert, but every year on this particular day, the butterflies turn to cement.

I need to focus . . . these people are looking to me for direction and leadership. I can’t be distracted, not even today. But it’s impossible. The buzzing crowd wins my attention for the third Valentine’s Day performance in a row.

I scan the audience like I do every year on this date, and I pray I’ll see him sitting out there somewhere in the dimly lit auditorium with my little girl in the seat next to him.

It’s a dream I’ve been having every night for three long years. I’m sitting on stage in the Lincoln Center, consumed by the music, focused on leading my string section, when out of the corner of my eye, I see King sitting in the third row with our beautiful raven-haired daughter next to him. The room blurs and my violin slides from my hands, clattering to the floor in slow motion as I stand in shock. The members of the orchestra stop playing in waves, beginning with the musicians closest to me, until only the percussion people are left clanking and rattling awkwardly. The auditorium is silent when I call out her name and bolt backstage, but when I arrive at their row, the seats have been abandoned. I spin around to look up the aisle. No one is there, no one but the hundreds of glaring eyes that are now fixated on me. I glance back at the vacant seats in disbelief, and something glimmers there, catching my eye. If the lights hadn’t been turned up in the house because of my unheard of behavior, I would never have seen it. I push past the patrons decked out in sequins, fur stoles and tuxedos and lurch for the sparkle in the seat. I thread my fingers through the delicate chain and look at the dangling piece of jewelry that brings so many beautiful memories rushing to my mind. It’s a charm bracelet with a tiny diamond covered violin, a bow, and three round charms with the letters K, H and J stamped on them. My charm bracelet. King gave it to me right after I had our baby three years ago, before he took her and disappeared.

I considered canceling tonight. I’ve never cancelled. Being the concertmaster for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra makes me second in command of the entire orchestra, and I don’t take that responsibility lightly. I’ve worked myself to death night and day for three years. I barely graduated from Juilliard because of my grueling travel schedule. I doubled my classes and finished my bachelors in music in just two years. After that, I auditioned for concertmaster at the unheard of age of twenty-three, and after two weeks of auditions, I won the spot. No one was more surprised than me, and no one was more proud than my mama.

I’m a loner outside the orchestra. The people I work with are as close as anyone will ever get to me. I’m damaged beyond repair as far as relationships go, and I have become a music machine. I live it, I breathe it, but I no longer love it. I do it because there is nothing else—no boyfriend, no family beyond my parents, who have found new husbands and wives to spend their lives with, no close friends, no interests beyond music. Nothing.

I wonder if he knows what he’s done to my life. Did he ever realize that I needed more than music to make me happy? Did he ever know I would have walked through fire to spend my life loving them? The answer can only be no, because he never came back. He never even sent me a picture of Juliette. It was like he wanted to erase them from my memory—out of sight, out of mind.

It didn’t work, not at all. Out of sight only meant that they became burrowed deeper into my heart, woven into my soul where they will forever reside, reminding me of the incredible love I lost.

When King vanished and Dax went missing, I had two options: give up, or give King what he wanted and pray he would come back when he saw I was keeping my end of the deal. I knew if there was so much as a glimmer of hope of me seeing my child again, I had to try, so I went to Juilliard in the fall like King wanted me to. I was swept up in the whirlwind of school, travel, and performing so much that I never had a chance to quit when they didn’t return.

Now I’m living the life I always dreamed of. I’ve achieved everything I ever wanted, and I’m known all over the world as one of the youngest, most talented violinists of all time. I should be happy. I would have been happy if I had never fallen in love with King Tomas Romero.

I stand and face the musicians to lead them in an organized tuning. This requires me to turn my back on the audience, and I hate not being able to see them. If there ever were a day he would bring her back to me, it would be on her birthday. I don’t know why I believe this, but I do. Maybe it’s the dream, maybe it’s a vibe from the universe, or maybe it’s just me using her birthday as an excuse to get my hopes up year after year.

When the conductor enters and the applause dies down, I continue to torture myself, scanning the faces of every person in the crowd. He could look different now. He may be in a disguise. Sometimes there will be a man who resembles King in the crowd, and I’ll blur my eyes and imagine it’s really him, but like the cold, hard reality of life, the man will come back into focus and I’m still alone.

The lights turn up. It’s intermission, and everyone is buzzing around, taking a quick break when Rob, one of the production managers, touches my shoulder from behind.

“Oh.” I shout and jump a foot off my chair.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, Ms. Bennett. There is a phone call for you. He’s been holding for fifteen minutes. I told him I could take a message, but he insisted on waiting.”

“Who is it?” I ask, sucking in a breath to hold until he answers.

“He won’t say, but he told me to tell you three years is long enough?” Rob looks confused. Did I hear him right?

“What?”

“Three years is long enough. He said you would know what that means.”

Oh God, I’m going to be sick—no, I’m going to pass out. Shit I may be sick and pass out. It has to be King. I jump up and thrust my violin and bow into Rob’s chest, grab the long, full skirt of my dress into both hands, and hike it up so I can run. I weave in and out of the chairs, hop over a few obstacles, and snatch the phone lying on the counter in the lounge.

“Hello,” I say, panting into the phone and bowing my head to hide my face with my free hand. The voice on the other end of the line is calm and familiar.

“Holland?” My eyes fly open, and I stand up straight.

“Sebastián?”

“Yes, dear, I’m sorry if I led you to believe it would be King, but I needed to be sure you would come to the phone.”

I lower my head and shake it back and forth, squeezing my eyes shut tight. Why is Sebastián calling me?

“What . . . what do you want, Sebastián?”

“This is very important, Holland. I need you to pay close attention, all right?”

My head hurts. I’m dizzy, and if he doesn’t hurry up, I’m going to vomit.

“Sebastián, I don’t feel well.”

“It’s okay, just listen and everything will be fine. There is a stool behind you. Sit down.”

He can see me. I remove my hand from my eyes to look around instinctively, but the lights are blinding and they intensify my headache. I close them and feel around behind me for the stool and pull it close so I can sit.

“Good girl.”

“Where’s Juliette? You have to tell me where he’s taken her, Sebastián, please. I need her, I’m dying without her—”

“I know. That’s why I’m calling. He’s there, Holland, he’s in the theatre watching you play. He’s always there when you play. He’s been following you all over the world, secretly watching as many performances as he could attend. He has this warped, sick idea that you’re better off without him, and that he and Juliette would only distract you from your career.”

“No. No, Sebastián, that’s not true.” I slap the palm of my hand so hard on the marble counter that it stings.

“I know, that’s why I’m calling you. I’m going to give you the name of his hotel and the room number. He has Juliette with him, but you have to finish the show without letting on that you know anything so you can catch them. If he senses a problem or anything out of the ordinary, he will disappear again.”

“Okay, what hotel?”

“Can you go back out there and finish without him suspecting?”

“Yes, yes, I can do anything if it means I get Juliette back. Just tell me the name of the hotel.”

“He’s staying at The Ritz, room 211 . . .” I hang up the phone and call my driver and instruct him to be ready to leave the instant the show is over. When I hang up with him, I dial information and ask for the Ritz and they connect me to the front desk.

“Hello, I have a friend staying in the hotel tonight and I wanted to be sure I had the correct room number. Can you help me?” I ask.

A pleasant woman on the other end asks me for the guest’s name, and when I tell her it’s King Romero, she can’t find it.

“It’s room 211—are you sure?”

“Yes, Miss. There is no King Romero registered in that room or any other room here tonight. I’m sorry.”

“Can you tell me who’s staying in room 211?”

“No, ma’am. I’m so sorry, but we aren’t allowed to give out that information.”

“That’s okay, thank you anyway. Oh, and please don’t mention that anyone asked for King Romero. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

“Yes, ma’am, and thank you for calling the Ritz.”

The line is disconnected, and I cross my fingers and toes that I haven’t just blown my chance to see my baby.

The lights flash, indicating the intermission is almost over. When I return, I stand off stage with the conductor and wait to be introduced. I skipped my introduction earlier due to my headache, but I want the rest of the performance to seem as normal as possible so King isn’t spooked.

Oh my God, I could be seeing my little girl tonight. This doesn’t seem real. Juliette doesn’t seem real. I have no idea what she looks like. I have nothing but a few weeks of memories to go on and a string of pictures taken on my phone that I had printed and put into an album when I thought it was all I’d ever have of her.

I’ve never wanted a performance to be over more. I’m nervous, scared, thrilled, and torn between crying and shouting at the top of my lungs. It takes every ounce of my self-control to smile and play my solos; the long pieces of music that I usually love drag on forever until the last encore, when the audience is finally filing out of the theatre. I move around the stage, hugging and congratulating my colleagues on a job well done, and wish them all a Happy Valentine’s Day before heading to my office. When I open the door and turn on the light, I yelp when I see Sebastián sitting at my desk.

“Damn it, Sebastián, you scared the shit out of me,” I say, clutching my chest.

“I’m so sorry, Holland. You hung up, and I had to make sure you were going to the hotel.” He’s standing right in front of me now, with his hands on my shoulders.

“Are you kidding? Seriously, you think that after three years I would pass up an opportunity to get my daughter back?”

“Then why are you in your office and not in a cab on your way to the Ritz?”

“I always lock my violin in my office after a performance. You said to make it look normal so I don’t scare him off. God, Sebastián, he ruined my life by leaving me. I wouldn’t just . . . just . . .” The dam breaks, and I slump against Sebastián and sob.

“I know, shush, it’s going to be okay now.” His arms circle my shoulders, and he pats my back.

“I have to go, I have a car waiting,” I say, pulling away sniffling. He hands me a handkerchief. I didn’t know men still did things like that. It’s sweet. I blow and hold it up, scrunching my face.

“Am I supposed to give this back?”

The corners of his mouth curve into a small smile, and he shakes his head back and forth. He reaches behind me for my purse and thrusts it at me.

“Now go after him, and please, Holland don’t hate him. No one knows him better than I do, and I can assure you that he always thought he was doing the right thing. No matter how wrong he has been, he still loves you.”

“I’m not going after him. I’m going after Juliette.” My voice is stone cold, and the river of tears that were just falling dry up when Sebastián mentions King and love in the same breath. I’ve spent three years trying to come to terms with what King did to me. My therapist says forgiveness is important, but that I have to want it for myself, and so far, I’ve been okay with being angry and miserable. King broke the heart inside my heart. He abandoned me and took the most precious thing on earth, and for that, I will never forgive him.

The ride to the Ritz is a blur of hyperventilation and a churning stomach. I’m trying not to let my hopes get too high. King has been keeping Juliette and himself successfully hidden for years. He may have already left. He might have discovered the crack in Sebastian's loyalty. Maybe he sensed something was off during my performance tonight.

I can’t believe he’s been watching me perform all these years. How dare he spy on me? He has secretly been involved in my life—he never really lost me, and he never lost Juliette at all. While I suffered alone, he had the luxury of watching me play, knowing exactly where I was and that I was safe. It would have been so easy for him to send a picture or a letter, but he didn’t. He chose the cowardly way out. He hid in the shadows and watched me graduate and become famous. He got exactly what he wanted, just like a King.

Inside the hotel, I bypass the front desk and make a beeline to the elevators with my head down. I don’t take time to admire the luxurious lobby or the beautiful people wandering around. I’ve seen enough swanky hotels to last a lifetime. I’ve grown to hate the temporary fake sense of home they try to provide. I long for a place full of my own things. I want to step outside into my yard and hear the locusts buzzing in the trees and children laughing and playing, not car horns honking and pedestrians whistling for a cab. I want a home.

When the doors slide open and the car dings, my heart is pounding, my mouth is dry, and my stomach is flopping around like a fish out of water.

I take a deep breath and exit left down three doors to room 211. I raise my hand and knock on the expensive oak door and wait. Someone’s moving inside. Thank God they’re still here. I step to the side so he can’t see me through the peephole. That’s all I need—to get this close, only to have him lock me out.

The door swings open wide, and standing right in front of me, filling the doorway, is King, shirtless in only his suit pants. For a fraction of a second, my body betrays me and I take a shaky breath and lean forward. He is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. He hasn’t changed a bit. His hair might be a little shorter and his facial hair is cut into a goatee instead of his close-cut beard, but other than that, he’s the same perfect, sexy, chiseled man.

“Damn, Sebastián where did you go—”

The color drains from his tanned face and his eyes widen when he sees me instead of Sebastián outside his door. We stare at each other, speechless, for a long time before his shoulders slump and he drops his head back, sighing while he looks at the ceiling.

“I want to see my daughter.” I have to push the words from my lips. The longer we stand here, the angrier I get. The desire to cause him pain, any kind of pain, physical or emotional, is overwhelming. It’s a good thing that love is my driving force tonight and not revenge or retribution, because if I were armed, I’d shoot him in the heart.

He lifts his arm to block my entrance.

“Holland, she’s sleeping. We need to talk.”

“Fuck you, King. So now we need to talk? What was wrong with talking three years ago before you kidnapped my daughter and left me alone to pick up the pieces? Let me see her, now.”

“No, not when you’re like this. She’s never met you. If you wake her up like this, you’ll scare her.”

My nails are cutting into my palms inside my tightly clenched fists, and my entire body is vibrating with anger.

“And whose fucking fault is that?”

He reaches out to touch me, but I lean back and take advantage of the opening he just made by moving his arm and darting past him into the large, dimly lit suite.

“Holland,” he yells. I scan the room quickly, trying to guess which door leads to the room Juliette is sleeping in, but there’s no time. King just slammed the door, and I hear his bare feet pounding behind me.

I say a short prayer to God, asking him to point me in the right direction, and run to the second door on my left off the living room.

“Holland, stop, we have to talk first, damn it.”

I chose the right door. He wouldn’t be so frantic if I hadn’t. I know it’s wrong to let my emotions sweep me into her room late at night like this—he’s right, I’ll scare her—but I can’t help it. I’m so close, and it’s been so long.

I burst through the door, and there, in the center of a king-sized bed, is a tiny little raven-headed child, lovingly tucked under the duvet, fast asleep. The room is dark except for a stream of light coming from the en-suite bathroom. King is right behind me now. His heavy breathing blows the loose tendrils of my hair around my neck and ears, and the heat from his body reaches out to warm my back. I step forward, and he reaches out to take me by the arm. I look over my shoulder and glare at his hand and then into his eyes.

“Take your hand off of me,” I say between gritted teeth. He raises his eyebrows and inhales sharply before he releases me.

I approach the bed slowly. Part of me wants to wake her, and another part wouldn’t mind staring at her while she sleeps for the rest of the night. How do I start, what do I do?

King is right behind me again. He’s too close, but there is nowhere else for me to go but into the bed, so I sit down on the edge, several feet from Juliette.

“Does she know me? Have you even shown her my picture so she knows she has a mama?” My Texas twang naturally replaces my Yankee New York accent when I speak of her.

“Yes, every day. She has been surrounded by images of you her entire life. I made sure of it.”

She knows who I am . . . as much as I hate King, I’m grateful to him for allowing her that.

Now that I know I’m not a complete stranger to her, I can’t resist the urge to wake her up so I can look into her eyes.

“Juliette . . .” She doesn’t move. She must be a hard sleeper like King. I try again, a smidge louder.

“Juliette.” Nothing.

King’s hand is on my shoulder again. I wish he would stop touching me.

“Holland . . .”

“Why isn’t she answering me?”

“Holland . . .”

“Juliette,” I say, loud enough to wake even the deepest of sleepers, but she doesn’t move a muscle.

Her shoulder rises and falls with every easy breath, but she doesn’t stir.

King turns me in his arms and squats down until we are eye to eye.

“She can’t hear you.” He places his hands on my shoulders and shakes his head back and forth.

“What?”

“She’s deaf, she can’t hear you. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. She was born with a profound hearing deficit. She’s never been able to hear.”

“No, she was fine when she was a baby. Nobody said there was anything wrong with her hearing in the hospital, and they test for that.”

He releases my shoulders and drops his arms to his sides. His face clouds with sympathy, or maybe it’s pity. I don’t know, but I do know I want to smack the shit out of him right now. I have no choice but to believe him. I wasn’t allowed to be there for her. I didn’t even know my baby girl was deaf.

I watch my hand slap King across the face as if it had a mind of its own. His head snaps to the side, freezing thereafter the impact of my hand. His eyes are closed, and I can’t resist the urge to have another go at it. I slap him again and again until adrenaline has consumed me and I’m pounding my fists against his chest.

“I hate you, I hate you so much! I wish you were dead!” I yell while he stands there, taking every bit of abuse without defending himself, until suddenly he grabs my wrists firmly to stop me.

“Stop,” he says, turning me to face the bed, where two very big eyes watch me with horror. When King knows I’ve seen her, he lets go of me and leans over to turn on the light next to Juliette’s bed.

He crawls across the bed and sits directly in front of her and begins to sign.

She watches intently until he stops, and then her eyes are on me again. God, I want to hold her and caress her skin, smooth her tousled hair away from her face, and kiss every inch of her from head to toe. But I’ve gone and messed things up by freaking out on the only parent she’s ever known.