Free Bittersweet Heroine by Yolanda Olson Page A

head. “You never were very empathetic though.”
    He threw his head back and laughed. I always did enjoy his laugh because it was a rare thing to hear. I smiled in amusement and waited for him to compose himself.
    “She isn’t here. She hasn’t been for quite some time.”
    “I know that,” I replied rolling my eyes. “I’m here because I want to know where to find her.”
    Kerstan eyed me for a moment before he shook his head. “You should know that I won’t tell you. However, if you’d like to work for me again, I have a place for you.”
    I got to my feet and looked into his eyes, “Never again will I ever ask to work for you. I paid off my debts and I’m a free woman now. But if you change your mind on letting me know where the American is, you know where I live.”
    I turned and started to walk away when he called out my name. Not the name he gave me, but my actual name.
    “Valentina! Wait!”
    With a sigh, I stopped walking and turned slightly to glance at him. Coming toward me, he rubbed the back of his neck uneasily as he stopped a few feet away from me.
    “This isn’t any of your business. I don’t understand your sudden interest in Amity—Lieve, but you should know that this is something completely different from your situation.”
    “Her name is Amity?” I ask curiously. “Amity what?”
    “Leave it alone,” he said finally losing his gentlemanly composure and sticking a finger in my face. When I opened my mouth to protest, he turned on his heel and stalked back to the front doors of his house, walked inside, and slammed them behind him.
    Crossing my arms over my chest I looked up at the windows. So there was something different about this American, Amity. This wasn’t a business deal; this was a vendetta. The perfect revenge designed to humiliate her and take away any dignity she had left.

Two
    I decided to walk around downtown Amsterdam instead of going home right away. Kerstan’s warning played over and over in my mind. He wanted me to “leave it alone” but I was a naturally curious person which was how I ended up in his house. He also knew that I was never one to really do what he said so I was left wondering how I was going to figure out this mystery. How was I going to get to this American girl without knowing where to start?
    With a sigh, I sat on a bench in a pleasant park that overlooked the Rhine River and weighed my options.
    The first was that I could knock on Kerstan’s door every day for the rest of my life hoping he’d answer. The second was that I could ask around and see if anyone knew where the Amity girl was. And the last option, the one I wanted the most to avoid, was to strike a bargain with Kerstan. My services for the information I was looking for.
    Redemption is such a bitch, I thought to myself wryly.
    I decided I would find a hotel in the area for the evening. Tomorrow, I would go back to Kerstan with my decision. Whatever that may be.

Three
    Amity
    I t took days, but I finally stopped crying. I was sitting in a room underneath the house alone and above me I could hear the other girls walking around, the front door opening from time to time. I would hear Luuk’s voice raise in anger causing the tears to spring to my eyes again. I fought them back every time; I refused to give him any further feeling of worth at the expense of myself. Instead I stayed where he put me after I stupidly made my way here and I stubbornly wouldn’t come out. Luuk told me that he would leave the door unlocked for me and that when I was ready to join the other girls, he would welcome me back upstairs into his home. Luuk, I thought bitterly to myself, where the fuck did you come up with that name?
    “Luuk” as he called himself was a ghost from my past. I understood now why the things were happening to me that were. I understood now that all hope was pretty much lost on any kind of redemption. The feeling of absolute shock and dismay when I looked up as he called out my name. The