When I was six years old, my father held both my arms and shook me so that I would look into his eyes.

“Who do you want to stay with, Brooklyn?” he seethed. “Who do you choose? Me or your mom?”

I looked between both him and my mother. She was standing there with tears running down her face, her hands covering her mouth, and her eyes screaming what her mouth wouldn’t. I didn’t want to choose between them. Truthfully, they were both a terrible option, even in my six-year-old mind I knew that. They were always arguing, always fighting, always screaming—my mother always throwing items at my father. But they were my parents and I loved them both. They were all I knew.

In the end, I never had to end up choosing because they chose each other. They always did. One thing I learned from seeing my parents is that some people would rather stay in a toxic relationship than experience the fear of the unknown. I understand that now. They chose that life and I have made an effort to choose to not become that with anybody. As much as I have to love them because they’re my parents, I never want to marry someone like my father, and I sure as hell never want to become my mother. I’ve tried so hard to distance myself from them and their exuberant lives, yet here I am, waiting to speak to my father. Waiting to see what favor he’s going to ask of me, because there’s always a favor to ask. That’s the thing about my parents: I love them because they gave me life but in return love me under conditions—always theirs. And they don’t leave room for interpretation when I don’t agree to their favors. They threaten me with taking away things like my education. My mother is the queen of threats, amongst other things, and she uses that to her advantage. Boyfriends, cars, concerts, school, clothing, friends … you name it, she has taken it away from me.

At the sound of heels clinking on the marble floor, I rise out of my seat.

“Your father will see you now,” Sherry, his assistant informs me as she turns to usher me to his office.

I roll my eyes at her when she turns around. I don’t need somebody to walk me to his damn office. I’ve been coming here since I was a child. Despite the three mansions he owns, this building (along with three others) is where my father lives. Sherry suddenly jolts to a stop, the short red bob that frames her face swaying into her eyes. She pushes it back quickly and presses down on her earpiece to speak.

“Yes, sir. I’ll be right down,” she says to whomever is on the other end then she turns and smiles at me. “You can make your way in now, Brooklyn.”

“Thanks,” I mutter as I push the two massive iron doors open to enter the foyer that leads to my father’s lair. When I reach the threshold of his office, I stop and look around. Everything is as manicured as it always is: the wooden shelves filled with LPs that adorn the right side of his office are spotless, matching the larger-than-life stark wooden desk that sits in the middle. It’s simple yet masculine, but the thing I love the most about his offices, all three of them, is the stunning view that the floor-to-ceiling windows hold. This one is the most impressive, in my opinion, as it showcases Hollywood. The bold iconic letters on the canyon are as clear as a postcard from here. I’ve always been drawn to those letters. That sign is the one thing that makes me smile, despite the burden the word holds.

“Hey, Baby Girl,” my father croons as he swivels his chair to face me.

“Hey, Pops,” I say, retuning his smile as I round his desk to greet him.

He opens his arms for me, as he always has, his green eyes bright as he examines my face. The thing about my father is that as much as I want to despise him for some of the things he’s said to me in the past, and for making me feel like I’ll never be good enough for … anything, I freaking love him. I return his hug and breathe him in; he smells like cigarettes and honey. He always smells like honey for some reason, I think it’s the shampoo he uses. When I pull back I dust some little white flakes from his light brown wavy hair and smile.

“What’s up?” I perch up on the edge of his desk.

He exhales a long breath. “Are you still dead set on that microphone company?”

The swinging of my legs die down as I wait for the impending question. Because in my family, there’s always a question. A favor, usually. I blink away the tears I know are bound to form in my eyes.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

I have an issue when speaking to authority. For some reason my eyes well up when they speak to me. I can sit here and psychoanalyze myself the way I’ve done, the way others have done, and say that it’s because the authoritative people in my life never paid attention to me when I was a child, but that would be an odd reason for the water in my eyes. Regardless of what the reason behind it is, they’re there, swimming in my sockets, burning before my iris, and threatening to spill out. Blinking one last time, I tear my gaze away from his face and look out into the horizon. My parents know how to twist my arm hard enough to see that I agree to what they ask of me, so it’s not as if delaying this any longer will make a difference. Growing up, my mother wanted me to follow in her footsteps and be a model, as if anybody can just snap their fingers and become one. When she saw that I didn’t have a model body like her, despite her efforts in making me diet from a young age, she gave up on me—with much dismay, I might add. I decided to study business because I wanted to start my own empire—of anything. I just wanted to be part of something big that I could call my own.

Petty dreams, I guess, even for an eighteen-year-old that had just gotten out of a stint at rehab. When I declared my major to be business, I had to convince my mother that I would use it in fashion one way or another. That was the only way she would agree to continue paying my tuition. My father, of course, defended me, saying that business was a great option. He didn’t care much about what I did, he had my older brother to hound and make an employee of his. Still, the fact remained that as much as I hated the music industry, I was good at it. At scouting for talent, anyway. I was responsible for signing most of your favorite artists, though you’d never know it. Dad’s label, Harmon Records, takes all the credit.

“The microphones, Brooklyn. You still set on that?”

“Yes,” I say, my voice steady. “We’re doing really well. I really believe in my brand.”

I’ve been working with my best friend Allie on a line of microphones. Obviously, my parents think it’s a joke, but ever since one of the biggest entertainers, Shea Cruz, started using them, our line has taken off.

“I know that, sweetheart. It’s an amazing brand.” He exhales. “But I need you in Harmon.”

I turn my face back to him, feeling those words like a jab in the gut. “You know, all my life I’ve done everything I’ve thought you guys wanted me to do.” I pause when he raises an eyebrow and gives me a look. “I’ve done these things hoping you guys would notice me, be proud of me. And it’s never mattered because everything I’ve ever done gets overlooked. I know that I’ll never be as good as Hendrix, but anytime I find something that I think I can finally excel at, one of you takes it away from me. When will you be happy with what I’ve done? What do I have to do?”

He walks over, moving his seat in front of me. When he stops before me, he cups my chin so that I’ll look into his serious eyes. “Bee, I am proud of you! We’re all proud of you! Look at how far you’ve come in just a few years. You turned your life around. You quit all your bad habits and got back on your feet. Do you know how hard it is for some people to do that in this city? It’s because of how much I value you that I need your help. I need you to help me find new artists …”

He lets the question hang between us. His eyes tell me that he’s not really asking me to do this—he’s telling me that I will. I roll my neck and look outside again. The sunny sky that’s slowly clouding, the cars stuck in traffic on the highway, the nightclubs that I used to frequent, the streets that made me crazy once and restored me to believe in myself again.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I need you to move to New York. You can work out of there. Hey, maybe on your free time you can work with your Aunt Mireya. She can help you out with that line of yours,” he offers with a smile.

“How thoughtful of you,” I quip.

“Always the smart alec.” He chuckles. “You can leave tomorrow. I’ll have the plane ready for you. You can stay at our place in the city, and your brother will walk you through anything he needs you to do in the office. What time can you be ready?” he asks, getting up from his chair and shrugging on his suit jacket.

He’s effectively dismissing me, knowing he just got me to agree to something that I never concretely said yes to. Knowing that he’s asking me to give up everything I’ve been working on. For a second I wonder what would happen if I turn him down, and then I have a flashback to things that have happened when I’ve turned him down in the past. I know it’s not worth it.

“Good seeing you, Dad,” I mutter, turning to walk out of his office.

I hear his footsteps follow me and stiffen when he grabs my bicep and turns me around to face him. “Hey. Be happy, you’re going to change people’s lives.”

I guess in a sense he’s right, I do change people’s lives when I offer them a chance to sign with Harmon Records. I also effectively screw over a lot of them, but I try not to dwell on that thought.

“I’ll be ready at ten,” I say, in response to his previous question. “I’ll call Hendrix to let him know I’m coming.”

He smiles his empty yet charismatic smile. “He already knows you are.”

That doesn’t surprise me and as I turn to walk away, one last thing occurs to me. I turn around and ask him before I lose my nerve. “Can we maybe not tell anybody in the company who I am?”

His eyebrows furrow. “You don’t want people to know that you’re my daughter?”

“Nope. I want to do this for me, to prove myself worthy of working there.”

His mouth pops open and I know he wasn’t expecting that one. The first chance he got, my brother Hendrix took the job of CCO and ran with it, never looking back or wondering whether or not he was a good candidate for it.

“But you’re a Harmon, of course you’re worthy of working here. It’s your company, Brooklyn,” he says, frowning.

I shake my head. “No, Dad, it’s your company. The artists that I sign from here on out are my artists.”

. “Are you saying you want a commission? Because that’s already assumed, Brooklyn, you’ll get a commission.”

“I never did before,” I say quietly with a slight shrug.

He lets out a laugh. “Whose commission would you have wanted, BK? Let me guess … Shea?”

I grind my teeth together in hopes that I won’t lash out.

“From what I remember, you got a lot more than signing brags with Shea,” he says. He knows he’s hitting a nerve there, and it’s a low blow, even for him.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” I say, my voice a broken whisper as I take a step back.

“Yeah, well, it is what it is, right? Be at the airport tomorrow by nine.” He shoots the last part over his shoulder as he turns and walks away. I hear him tell Sherry he’s headed to his next meeting.

The difference in the way he treats me and all of his employees is incredible, you would think he fathered them and not me. I don’t call him out on it though. I just let it be like. My best friend Ryan used to get mad at me for that, but somehow I always find a way to excuse his behavior and berate my mother’s instead. She is much worse, after all. My father comes from nothing; he’s the oldest of three children of a cocaine addict and a deceased father. Growing up in Brooklyn wasn’t a walk in the park for him and he doesn’t take anything he has for granted. I think he’s done a pretty good job in instilling those morals on to us. My mother, on the other hand, thinks everything is owed to her. The air she breathes should pay her because she allows it to go into her golden lungs, that’s how she sees it. I’ve always wondered what attracted my father to her to begin with because I just don’t see it.

I take a moment to gather my breath and make sure my tears aren’t going to spill over before I begin to walk quickly. He stops to pick up some papers from Sherry and I make my way to the elevators. I know he has to walk by me on his way to the conference room, so I take a deep breath and click the down button when I see him approaching.

“Hey, Dad,” I call out and wait for him to acknowledge me. “For the record, nobody knows I signed Shea. I gave you all the credit.”

Thankfully the elevator door closes before I get a chance to glimpse his face one last time. It’s not like he would ever apologize to me. He’ll never tell me I’m right, and he’ll never thank me. And I think I’m okay with that now.