Chapter 435: Undeniable

Mina entered President Lee's car without fuss. She did not make a sound unless he asked her a question, and even then, her answers were short. She was at complete peace with herself and for her family. President Lee had unknowingly done her a favor by cutting her off from everyone else. It gave Mina calm because she was unaware of what was going on around her, and she was finally able to convince herself that not knowing was okay. Suddenly, she felt the need to speak.

"My parents will be okay right?" Happy that Mina had said anything at all, President Lee answered in the affirmative. Mina released a deep breath, and Ian wished he could get a glimpse into what was going on in her mind.

"Are you sad?" he asked, not realizing that he and Mina were living in two different realities.

"Not as sad as I could be." Ian had spoken to Dr. Juan, and in his opinion, Mina was showing signs of extreme depression, and he wanted her to see a professional. Zane on the other hand thought Mina needed time to unwind. Ian sided with his friend, who seemed to know the woman much better than he did. "I'm sorry I snuck into your hotel room," Mina added, catching Ian off guard.

Ian did not know how to reply to Mina, because he was not sorry for what happened that night. In truth, he had forgotten all about how he and Mina had met. She had snuck into his hotel room, she was caught, they were drugged, and they slept together, but the passion they shared was something Ian did not regret. However, everything after; hurt him daily.

"It's all over now." The pair slipped back into silence, and Ian's car came to a halt in front of her apartment complex. She stepped out of the car and made her way into the building without looking back to see how President Lee was looking at her.

Mina barely had time to look up after stepping out of the lift when she was scooped into a pair of strong arms. She knew it was Cylus because she recognized his cologne. The man was rambling off questions at a rate that Mina was struggling to keep up with, and she knew it was a side effect of whatever drug Dr. Juan had given her. She had been right; President Lee was going to kill her with pills.

"Why did you come back here?" Cylus asked. It had been his intention to take her back to his home until he could figure out what happened to her apartment and he was terrified when his mother told him that she had sent Mina home.

"This is where I live," Mina said, pulling herself away from Cylus, who had left her once again. It did not bother her when he left her because he was tending to Olivia, but it did bother her that his actions seemed to be tied to the fact that he had a girlfriend and was no longer interested in her.

"But you didn't come straight back; I've been waiting on you for hours." Mina sighed.

"I went for a walk, and then to the hospital." Mina opened her jacket to show Cylus her new sling, but all he saw was the small hole in her blouse, and for the second time that day, Mina had a man lift her shirt as if it were his right to do so. He saw the bandage and if Mina had not stopped him, he would have pulled it off.

Inside of Mina's somehow spotless apartment, Cylus was shaking with anger. He had come to apologize for leaving her, and to talk to her about something important, but all of that was pushed to the side because of yet another attack and injury. Although Mina claimed the wound was nothing more than a scratch, Cylus found it hard to believe, because she had been prescribed medication to aid in its recovery, and scratches required ointment at best.

"Can we talk about something else?" Mina asked. She seemed tranquil in a way that made Cylus wonder if something were wrong with her, but he respected her wishes, knowing that it was his fault she had left without him.

"I'm sorry I left," Cylus offered and Mina gave him a small smirk.

"Is that why you came?" Cylus did not like how Mina deflected, but he pressed forward sensing something was seriously bothering her.

"I wanted to show you these photos." Cylus handed Mina his phone. Because he had been unable to find Mina, he called the photographer while he waited outside of her apartment, and the man texted him the retouched photos of his grandmother as proof they were of different people and that no unstandardized facial manipulation had been done.

"Wow," Mina replied. She had not seen the photos of Cylus' grandmother, because they were supposed to be kept hidden until the anniversary event. "I look beautiful. Is my face shape really that round or did they retouch it?" Cylus gagged, and Mina shot up worried. "Are you sick?" She asked. Emotion finally making its way back into her voice.

"Mina that is not you," Cylus responded and the woman looked back down at the photos in her hand with a perplexed expression. The backdrop had been changed, but that was an easy thing to do in photography. Her body was also a little more elongated and slimmer, but those were common beautifying techniques.

"What do you mean it isn't me?" Cylus showed Mina another set of photos and this time she recognized herself. She looked up at Cylus who looked sick.

"Is this me?" she asked, unsure of what was going on.

"One set is of you and the other is my grandmother." Mina's eyes widened.

"Were they manipulated?" she had to ask because the similarities were undeniable. Cylus did not answer her though. He slid down in his seat, covering his face with his hands, groaning loudly.

"Do you know how many dreams I've had?" he asked, and this time Mina coughed.

"What?!" She questioned excitedly.

"Oh, come on, don't act like you haven't had dreams before," Cylus said, still covering his face.

"I have, but the person in them is-" Cylus cut Mina off, not wanting to hear the rest of her statement.

"Don't! Talking to you has suddenly become the same as talking to Olivia, and I don't want to hear about your dirty dreams." Mina's mouth hung open.

"You asked me!" she shouted, but once again Cylus ignored her. "What do we do?" Mina inquired, because it was one thing to have a person look like another, and something completely different to have two sets of doppelgangers from the same families.

"Mina, you look just like my grandmother, and I know you will not like to hear this, but you have to consider all the possibilities." Mina looked at the man, running the other options through her mind, but only one made sense in the context.

For her to look exactly like Cylus' grandmother would mean they shared a mother, not just a father and if that were the case, then had she been put up for adoption or had something else happened?

"Did your mother give me away, or did someone take me?" Mina had always been closer to her father, and she couldn't help but to wonder if that was because her mother was being made to raise another woman's child.

"What if my father knew the truth and switched you at birth?" Mina stood up and left the room, she held a notebook in her hand when she returned, and she flipped it to a specific page.

"That would make sense," she said as she handed the open notebook to Cylus who stared at the image of a girl, maybe no more than fifteen, who looked like him. "Some of the things you say and do remind me so much of her that I thought I was projecting, but after Connor's party, I came back and looked at this photo for the first time in years."