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Nervously, I bumbled my hands around each other, trying to force my finger back into place. I couldn't accept what I read, it was some sort of trick, some type of tactic he was trying to use to against me.

“You're wrong you know. I didn't write that, that didn't happen.”

“I would love it if you were right, but I can't ignore the truth, and you won't be able to ignore it either.” Taking the paper, he bundled it up with the diary and went to the door. Opening it enough to stick his head and shoulder out, he whispered to someone in the hall.

“What are you doing with that?”

“We're going to analyze the handwriting, see if it's a match.”

“I'm not that girl, there's no way I wrote that. That shit didn't happen, not to me.”

Crooking his jaw, his brows softened. “Does that mean you're willing to finally tell me your name now? Are you ready to tell me the truth?”

“No, that's not what I mean. I just. . . I just. . .” I had no idea where I was going with that.

How could he drop this shit on me like this?

I came in here expecting to be interrogated about a murder. I expected to be grilled about Birch and Nick and what they had done. I thought I had lost everything all over again. My heart was breaking at the idea that Birch was going to prison.

But I got this instead. I was being tormented with diary entries from a poor little girl who had been through hell. Notes from a girl who had watched her parents die and the man who executed them had taken her away.

I didn't remember that. I remembered the family that had cared for me and given to me like I was their daughter. I felt the love and affection of a father and mother when mine were nowhere to be found.

I felt trapped, pinned against a wall without an exit. My legs trembled, eager to flee, my muscles shook, filling with hate for all the memories I couldn't recall.

“You just what? Go on, finish what you were going to say.”

Taking in a deep breath, I focused on his face. “I just don't remember writing that. And Nicholi has been nothing but good to me, I can't imagine him doing something like that.”

“Sometimes things aren't always what they seem, Cyprus.” Opening a green folder, he pulled out a small photo and kept it upside down. “Sometimes, what we see is only what they want us to see.” Placing the image on the table, he slid it in my direction.

“What's this?”

Rolling his hand in the air, he frowned. “It's reality.”

Thumbing the sharp edge, I picked it up off the table and flipped it over. I went numb, the world around me fading into black as my brain swelled and throbbed against the inside of my skull.

Oh my God. . .

Gaping with wide eyes, I couldn't believe what I was looking at.

It wasn't possible, not after all this time.

I had no past before the Rottera's, there were no memories or images of anything but Birch and Nick's faces the day I woke up.

But I couldn't deny what was peering back at me from behind a glossy, one dimensional window. . .

The girl was me, and I did have a family.