Summery: I woke up seven years ago, a young woman in my late teens, no memories what so ever. No family. No self knowledge. No real language! I was adopted into the family that found me, treated like one of their own. I made myself a new life, created new memories, remade who 'me' was. And then HE came along… and he changed everything.

A/N: I know where I want to go with this, I don't know if I can write it. I'd like to know what you guys think of it, and if I should bother continuing with this plot line, it'll probably just end up being a plot-dust-bunny. Let me know please!

Chapter One

Looking Back On The Present

It's a strange thing, hindsight. You can look back on an event and simply think 'wow that was stupid… I should have done this', when you know all too well that you had no idea, and therefore could not have done it. Still… it's good to look back and think what you could have done- even should have done!

With me? If I knew in advance, I would have worn a shorter dress, probably a cheaper one. And brought flat pumps with me, instead of just relying on my gigantic six inch pointed stilettos that had taken me three years to learn and walk on. Though admittedly now I'm a pro… I can't stand them.

Thing is… I had no idea what was going to happen that night. I had no idea that one minute I'd be sipping drinks and rubbing shoulders with the filthy rich, famous and infamous, next running for my life from these… I'm getting ahead of myself. I always do this, my family always told me off for it. Understandably, starting a story from the middle? Never made sense… not to anyone else that is.

But again, that is hindsight's gift isn't it? I should have started from the beginning… and now I've confused you. So… I think I should start from the beginning, the very beginning, of how I ended up where I am today.

Amnesia.

That is fundamentally it. Amnesia. I have it. Or had it… until recently. My memory when… when I first met my family I suppose, first started that day. About seven years ago (although to be honest time at the moment is beginning to get a little skewed to me), Uncle Ricky found me wandering the country side outside of New York, the tri-state area really. My clothes were in rags, white as a sheet and blank expression. I looked like a zombie.

Now uncle Ricky very rarely stops to help someone. He's been brought up in a dog eat dog society, where the nice guys finish last, as it were. So the fact he stopped to help me goes to show how bad I must have looked.

According to him, and Cristoforo (I call him Chrissi) his son, they pulled up next to me and asked if I needed a lift. I looked at them blankly, and collapsed to the floor. Chrissi got worried, and their immediate reaction was to pick me up to take me to a hospital.

Uncle Ricky paid for my care for the three days I was out, intending to make me pay him back. In those three days, Joanna heard about me, and came to visit me everyday, with Chrissi. On the fourth day, I woke up.

That's when my memory kicks in. I remember feeling a hard bed beneath my back, uncomfortable sheets and not liking the light directly above my head, it made me feel sick. I lifted and arm to cover my eyes, when I heard a cry out. I glanced to one side to see a girl sitting there, she flung her arms round me as though she had known me all her life.

Turned out to be Joanna. See- I know that now… I didn't know that at the time.

By this point I knew I had no memories. I couldn't quite remember the names for objects or sensations. Their words sounded really strange to me. As they spoke I listened, trying to understand them.

I understood the concept of amnesia, though I can't quite remember the word I thought it was, and I immediately figured there must have been an accident. I was in hospital after all. Again, I knew the concept, the word was a different matter.

Uncle Ricky figured that my language problems had something to do with loss of memory, before the doctors told him their diagnosis, it was their only real explanation considering I understood nothing of other languages presented to me, yet I seemed to have an affiliation with English.

Weeks passed, and I think uncle Ricky grew a soft spot for me. So did Joanna, Chrissi did too, to a certain extent, it's always taken him longer to warm up to people. Uncle Ricky happily paid the bills, putting me on his insurance, and helped me regain the language I had lost.

Joanna and I got closer and closer, she helped me learn to read again. Chrissi was shyer, but he too would hold conversations with me to help.

Those weeks were terrifying for me. I felt like I was in a new world, I didn't recognise anything and I had no recollection of what I did have experience of. At the same time, I had the people who would soon become my family around me, looking after me.

They tried to find people that I belonged to, a family, a community… hell even a gang! Nothing. There was no one who knew me, or perhaps no one wanted to know me. I was beginning to get worried for when the hospital said to would be safe for me to go home. But go home where? I had no ID, no memory, nothing!

On my last day there, uncle Ricky presented me with loose jeans, a shirt and underwear. He told me to change into them, that I wad going home. I had thought that he had found my family. Instead he pulled up to his own mansion, and told me to call him uncle, that his children and nieces and nephews were my cousins, and as far as any local authorities were concerned, I was one of them. Using the only name I could remember for myself and his own imagination for a surname, he had managed to get me a social security number, a green card, license- everything I needed to function as an adult in American society.

I couldn't believe it, and because my language skills were still in progress I had no idea how to express my gratitude. It seemed my instincts took over and I flung my arms round him and kissed his cheek several times before I collected myself.

It was over the next year that I started making new memories. I found myself reading more and more, I consumed literature as much as I could. As I spoke to elders in the family I found I was political, opinionated and, not to sound immodest, very intelligent.

As a result, two years after I had woken up and become apart of my family, I joined the police force. NYPD. Good metal and physical capacity, I was immediately seen as an asset.

Fitting into the law enforcement was fairly difficult without a past, and with the only present I had being my family… I knew I was strange. Hell I looked strange. No one could place where I was from exactly, my features, my hair, even my accent was incongruous.

Still… five years on from that, here I am. Living in my own flat, making my own money and moving up in the ranks of the police force as fast as I could. Personally I wanted to be a detective, combination of mental stimulation and physical prowess, but I was patient. I could wait. I didn't want to have to rely on my uncle to get everywhere.

As things turned out… No- wait, can't give that away. Not just yet. Everything really started the night uncle Ricky was throwing a party. For the bosses. There were a few politicians, high up coppers and business CEOs, but it was predominantly the bosses involved. So I had to dress… nice.

*

Joanna had come over to my flat. I don't really know why. I think she just wanted to make sure I would dress nice. I have been known to get lazy when going to a party and simply where patterned jeans and a clean top. Uncle Ricky never gets mad with me about it, but he'd always be very disappointed. I think Joanna wanted to make sure that wouldn't happen.

She sat on my bed in my tiny bedroom, her cell in her hands as she texted people rapidly. As I sat before the mirror, I watched her in the reflection. She was a stunning woman, about a year younger than my own estimated age. She was tall, reaching about five foot eight or nine, with a willowy build, faint but clear curves at her waist, and a generous bust. She had a fair olivey complexion, with clear skin, though in some colours it did make her skin look a little yellow. Her rich chocolate brown hair fell in waves about her cheeks and hung till almost her small waist. Her wide eyes were hazel, sometimes more green than brown. Her mouth that was painted a light red were small and pouted.

She was a stunning woman, and she knew it. But at least she was generous, friendly and loving on top of the beauty. Otherwise even in my confused memory-less state I doubt I would have taken to her.

"What are you going to do with your hair?"

I froze. I had put on the dress, pulled on six inch spiked stilettos, found a matching bag and now I was sitting here painting my face. I had to do something with this lot of dead cells around my face as well? I groaned and let my head hit the table.

"Do I have to?" my voice came out muffled.

Joanna laughed at me. "Finish your make up, Zizi," she grinned at me, I could hear it in her voice, "I'll deal with your hair if you can't be bothered."

"Jojiiii," I whined.

"No! Uncle Ricky wants us looking nice tonight. You're not going to embarrass him like you did last time."

"I looked nice! I was wearing heels wasn't I?"

"Only because I made you."

"That's besides that point! Dresses not my thing!"

"You look good in them."

I turned round and looked at her. She was in a midnight blue tight fitted cocktail dress and heels that were half the size of mine but made her long legs look even longer. I raised an eyebrow.

"Next to you, I look like the hunch back of Notre Dame."

"The what of where now?"

Joanna was a lovely girl, she was stunning and she was the closest thing I had to a sister. But she wasn't the most intelligent of girls. The most reading she tended to do was reading fairy stories to younger cousins, siblings, nieces or nephews, or simple glossy magazines.

I sighed and shook my head. "It doesn't matter. I just meant that I looked ugly when I'm anywhere near you."

She stuck her tongue out at me. "Enough self-esteem issues! Just finish! We gotta go soon."

I growled and looked back at the mirror. Then stood, and walked the few steps over to my wardrobe, to take a look in the full length mirror. I studied myself.

I was only about five foot two, maybe five foot three, gentle hour glass shape, flat stomach due to all my training, but with enough chest for there to be cleavage to be seen in the strapless. The dress itself was a deep royal purple and nearly floor length with a long slit up to mid-thigh, showing shapely legs appearing significantly longer due to six inch black heels on my feet. I studied my face. It was heart shaped, with slanted luminously bright green eyes, yellowish in some lights, the colour was highlighted by the black eyeliner and the dark purplish smokey eye shadow and the black thick lashes that framed them. My mouth was wider and fuller than Joanna's, with both lips as full as each other, thus no illusion of a pout, and now painted with a pinkish nude colour. My high cheekbones were highlighted by a light brown blusher, it made me look almost gaunt depending on how the light fell, especially with my pointed nose and chin.

I turned my attention to my hair. It was predominantly dark chestnut brown, tawny in colour in some places. That day it seemed to have been unable to make up its mind and had dried into a strange middle ground between wavy and straight.

"Done!" I announced, walking over to the bed to pick up my little diamonté encrusted purple clutch bag.

"Good!" she looked up at me, "uh uh, no way." She stood up and walked over to my wardrobe to rummage about at the bottom of it. "We've made all this effort with the rest of how you look, for God's sake don't mess it up with doing nothing to your hair." She pulled out my pair of hair straighteners. They were fairly good, I've just never been all that bothered about my appearance.

"You can't make me," I said pointedly, sitting on my bed obstinately.

She pouted at me, her large hazel eyes widened at me, her entire face softened at me as she walked towards me her arms out stretched to envelope me in a hug in her slim arms.

"Please please please!" she begged.

I hated it when she did that. She could make me do nigh anything when she did that. And I have a bad feeling she was well aware of it.

"Fine!" I grumbled, "but you do it for me. I honestly can't be bothered."

"Sounds good to me! We don't need you burning your hair… again…"

I rolled my eyes as she let go of me to check on the straighteners and to search for my hair spray. I flopped backwards onto my unmade bed staring up at the ceiling, trying to make out patterns in the stains in the paint.

That was when I first heard it. This strange sort of… wheezing sound, that was nothing human, and too loud to be real wheezing. It slowly got louder and louder. I frowned and crawled onto my bed properly to look out the window. I caught a glimpse of this strange blue light.

I pressed my face to the glass, aware of the make up I was wearing, but still trying to get a better look outside. The sound had died down… and now the blue light was fading.

I didn't live in all that good of an area, but it suited me fine, cheap rent, and I was independent. Still… it did mean I was more cautious about being my natural curious self.

Just as I thought I had caught a glimpse of something, light spilling out of somewhere where a door should not have been, I heard Joanna call my name. I looked back at her, hitting the back of my head on the glass.

"What?" I asked.

"What are you doing?"

"Just… checking something…" I looked back out the window, trying to get a better look. There was nothing there any more. I assumed I had been imagining things. Or else it was a new game the local kids had come up with. You never know around here.

"Stop checking," she snapped at me, "c'mon! We gotta go!"

"Then don't bother-"

"You're not getting out of it that easily. Sit sit sit!"

I obeyed, sitting back by the dressing table, letting her do her thing with the straighteners (which where being used as curlers), brushes and hair spray. As she worked she filled me in on the latest gossip in our large family, to make sure I didn't make any silly blunders. Reminded me of the major guests that would be there so I didn't say anything to upset politicians or people of importance.

I listened intently, agreed with her and gasped at all the right points. Strangely enough, I'm not the sort of person who can deal with gossip or an over loading of so much information, I ended up phasing out for most of what she said, but managed to take in the main points.

Just as I had began to feel nauseous from the amount of hair spray that Joanna was using on the hair she stopped announcing, "Tadaaa!"

I looked at what she had done. Curled all my hair by for my fringe. I had to admit that even with my strange patchwork of chestnut brown and tawny hair, it looked good.

Result really. Uncle Ricky would be happy with me. He was the only person I really worried about pleasing. He saved life after all…

*

The main reason I wasn't sure why Joanna turned up at my place was the fact that we both drove in separate cars. We never liked relying on the other to be able to get back home. Although according to tradition I wouldn't be going home that evening. I'd head back to the main house where Uncle Ricky and his brothers lived, most of their children had left by now, but we'd all come back after one of these parties.

We'd have a few drinks, catch up, and I'd make an ass of myself. I could never take my drink the way the others could. Much to their entertainment. The photographic evidence never gets old.

We arrived at the hotel, and I pulled up beside the valet in my little red Prius. I caught the valet giving my car a strange look as I climbed out of the driver's seat.

"I like the environment," I snarled at him as I snatched the number he was holding and pushed my keys into his chest.

"Y-yes ma'am," he stammered, and quickly clambered into the car.

I smirked as I paused at the front to slip the number into my little clutch bag. I didn't have to tip, my car was not only a Prius, thus not worth all that much, but also second hand. There was little point in getting revenge against me using my car. Normally I would, but I hated it when they'd judge my little car, I liked her.

Moments later I caught sight of Joanna climbing out of her car, accepting the hand the valet gave to her. She smiled brightly at him, tipped him generously and took the number that he handed her. She drove a silver Merc, there was no way she'd get away with not tipping. Though I never understood how she could be so nice all of the time, even to people she clearly couldn't stand.

"You know," said a deep voice from behind me making me jump, and almost fall unless he hand automatically reached out to grab me, "you should take a leaf out of her book."

I looked up at uncle Ricky's son and heir, Christoforo. He was a handsome man, a little older than myself. Tall reaching over six foot three, almost black curly hair, getting a little long and falling into his dark brown mysterious eyes. He was darkly tanned, and solidly built with wide shoulders. His face had a fairly square jaw line, but it suited him. He was the classic tall, dark and handsome Italian man. At least on the onset… I knew that he was immature, childish and loved a prank. Of coarse he knew how to act in the right situation, he knew how to attract women, and he was one of uncle Ricky's most intimidating henchmen. Still, it was nice to know he had a soft side to him.

I clung to his arm and glared. "Thanks, try and make me break my neck. You know damn well I can barely walk in these."

He grinned at me and laughed as he bent to pick up my bag for me. He handed it over, and kissed both my cheeks. "It's good to see you Zizi, it's been a long time."

"It's been three days," I grumbled, "I thought you were better at covering your tracks!"

"Hey, we smoothed it all out," he shrugged, "we make a good little team with that."

"Thanks… you'll get me fired or worse one of these days."

He pressed a kiss to my forehead, and offered me his arm. I growled, but accepted it. I couldn't stay mad him. Him and Joanna were the only two in the entire family who could get away with anything with me.

Joanna joined us, having finally gotten off her phone. "Sorry sorry sorry!" she announced, "Carlos got lost."

"Again? How many times has he been here?" grumbled Chrissi.

"Too many…" I replied, "come on, we should go in."

Chrissi offered Joanna his other arm, and together the three of us entered the hotel. The hall was a few seconds walk into the hotel. And the moment we walked into the room, heads turned.

Joanna was immediately snatched up by multiple admires, sons of politicians or other bosses. The same when for Chrissi. Both were incredibly good looking people, and powerful in their own right.

Chrissi was the heir to a great fortune and an immense influence of most powers in the city. I was surprised that his head had not been intoxicated with the power he had. It made him attractive to not only women, but men who needed to stay on his good side.

Joanna was stunning, but approachable. I hate to say it, but I get the feeling it's due to the… lack of intelligence. It made her reachable. At least that meant she did not have a misplaced sense of arrogance.

Still the same thing happened again and again, I was left to my own devices. Which I didn't mind, I knew Chrissi and Joji made it a point on nights like this not to leave with an acquaintance so they could spend time with family on a more social level. I'd have their, and my other cousins' undivided attention for the rest of the night.

I sauntered over to the bar and promptly confused to the bar tender by demanding orange juice. He looked as though he was about to tell me to order something for real until he seemed to recognise me. I was known for being uncle Ricky's adopted niece, and there were very few people who would cross me for fear inciting his wrath. I was surprised the NYPD hadn't picked up on it yet… then again, it was likely they were using it to their own advantage.

I sipped at the drink, sitting down, looking over the party, studying the different people there. You could tell who was who by the attitude to the position they were in.

Rival gangs were looking fairly nervous, as were a couple of those in our own circles. Most of the business men were looking fairly comfortable, though the coppers didn't seem to be able to make up their minds. They were jumpy when first greeted but relaxed after the initial greeting.

I kept an eye out for uncle Ricky, to find an opening to come and greet him myself. I didn't want to interrupt him if he were making an important business deal.

"Not joining in the festivities?" asked an accented, unfamiliar male voice.

I looked over to find a man standing a couple of feet away from me, a beer in one hand, the other stuffed into his pants pockets. He was of about medium height, fair skin, light brown hair sticking up at odd angles, friendly brown eyes and a fairly large aquiline nose. He wore a brown suit, plain shirt, plain tie, there were white converses on his feet, and a long tan over coat over all of it.

It was his accent that got to me. Despite the fact I had to relearn all my words from Italian Americans, somehow most of my words, the majority of my words, sounded British. And this man had a British, more accurately an English accent. Like my own.

"I will," I replied, trying a smile, "I just like starting slow."

I wish I could say that I sensed something at this point. You know, a sense of fate, a foreshadowing of what is to come. I'll be perfectly honest, I was utterly oblivious. I thought he was a friend of one of my cousins, and an associate, or even just a foreign business man. Unusually friendly, but hey you get some like that at these things.

At the same time, I did not like the way he was looking at me. Studying me, closely. Like he knew something. Considering I still felt like I knew nothing about my past, I felt wronged in some way. Even though I knew it was impossible. No… even though I thought it was impossible.

"Don't like alcohol much?"

I laughed. "I can't take it to be frank. I'm a lightweight. Everyone finds it very amusing."

"Humm… let me see… a nicotine fiend?"

I shrugged. "Only occasionally," I admitted, "though don't tell her," I jabbed my thumb over at Joanna, "she'll shoot me on the spot. She thinks I've given up."

He glanced over at her, but his attention was back on me in moments. That had never happened before. Most of the time their attention would linger on her while they talked to me, or they would immediately excuse themselves to go and speak to her. Very rarely would someone have their attention on me entirely with Joji in the room.

"Your sister?"

I simply looked at him with an eyebrow raised.

"That would be a no?"

"A firm no. I don't think I'd live as her sister- too many beauty and the beast jokes." He made an attempt at a confused expression. I ignored it I couldn't be bothered with such sympathies just then. "She's my cousin, we're just really close."

"I can see the resemblance."

Two eyebrows raised. "I'm adopted."

"I know," he shrugged, "I can still see a resemblance."

I was beginning to like this stranger less and less. He was cocky, smiley and he knew things, I could tell he knew things. I didn't like being left in the dark, and I very rarely was. Considering most people knew what I was capable of doing.

"Look here, I know most of uncle Ricky's friends. I do not know who you are." He just carried on smiling at me… smirking at me. I didn't like that. "Well?!"

"Well what?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"A friend," he replied, sipping his drink.

"A-"

"Zizi? Zizi! There you are!" It was Tony, one of uncle Ricky's lackeys. A good naturted guy to those he liked, a violent bastard to those he didn't. "Ricky wants to see you-" he hesitated as I stood up, then he grinned, "you scrub up nice."

"Ah you only ever see me in uniform," I replied, "it's just a shock."

"Stop putting yourself down," Tony offered me his arm, "c'mon."

I accepted it but stopped my steps and looked over at the lanky man. "It was nice to meet you," I said.

"I'll be seein' ya, Zarmina."

I frowned, but turned and followed Tony's steps. Not many people knew me as Zarmina. Even in the office, everyone knew me by my surname, Marinetti, a name Ricky came up with.

As Tony lead me over to uncle Ricky, I asked him to keep an eye on that man, that I didn't trust him. He promised that he would, though deep in my heart I knew if I didn't trust him, there would be a good reason for it, Tony would not be able to keep track of him. That stranger would loose him faster than I told him to keep an eye on him.

We reached uncle Ricky, he was surrounded by other bosses and three of his brothers. He broke off the conversation as he caught sight of me, and he opened his arms wide beaming at me.

"Bambini!" he announced, "ah bella, you look beautiful. You kept your promise to your old uncle!"

"Of coarse uncle Ricky," I smiled, "I make a promise I keep it." I flushed red, "besides, what I usually wear is hardly very flattering."

I was quickly snapped up by my other uncles, who greeted me just as warmly as uncle Ricky had. I might have been adopted into the family, but it took only a year, maybe eighteen months after my adoption that the entire family didn't question my loyalty and took to me as one of their own.

Soon after they were all introducing me to friends and associates. I played nice, plastered a smile on my face, offered opinions and thoughts where I felt I should, and kept quiet when I knew to. I had learned how to play nice for these people, and while under normal circumstances I didn't have to play so nice, and many of these people knew it, in this environment it was full expected of me, as a result, I played by the rules. We all had to. It was the way our society functioned.

I finally managed to escape into the garden. I knew smoking inside the hall was allowed, simply because uncle Ricky had paid off the staff to allow it. But no one had started yet and I didn't want to be the one to turn that room into a smokey hell hole. I like my cigarettes, the occasional one, but not when it turns the place into a den.

I lit up a thin little Vogue, usually described as lady cigarettes due to their thin size and long length. It was the lightest one I could smoke without feeling that it was pointless, and meant to I was sort of keeping my promise to Joji.

I sat down on a bench on the grounds and looked up. We were too deep in the city to be able to see the stars properly, but I could vaguely make out the faint white dots against the dark black mass, and the moon shone brightly towards the right of my vision.

I suddenly missed Italy. We had been only months before, and we were staying on the outskirts of Rome. The sky was so bright with stars I would stay outside for hours after people thought I had fallen asleep. I'd loose myself in my thoughts, and the wondrous beauty of the stars and planets. I always was a dreamer.

Even then, sitting in the middle of the city, with the sound of talk, movement, people, traffic… of the city in my ears, I still found myself loosing myself in the cosmos above me. I could not help myself.

I smiled gently and took a drag from my cigarette.

I think it was that action that made the difference. I habitually look down when I take a puff, so I know I won't burn myself, it's a habit from after having drunk too much I'd smoke the wrong end. That was when I caught sight of something that… well… that shouldn't have been. It was only minor really.

The light was on in the basement.

I frowned. That was wrong. The kitchens were on the ground floor. And the basement was purely used for storage. I'd had to raid this hotel enough times with the squad to know that, and come here as a guest enough times to confirm it. The lights were never left on longer than five minutes. Even then that was unusual.

I frowned at it, as I finished my cigarette off, as slowly as possible. Just to make sure I wasn't jumping to conclusions. The lights never went out. And what was more, was there were large shadows bouncing off the walls.

That was it. My curiosity was lit and there was nothing else for it. I had to see what was down there no matter what.