Chapter-3 The Sin - 3

“You used to hate rules, old lady,” I said before I could stop myself. “You said they were excuses people used to feel important.”

Her lips curved faintly. “I was younger then.”

“So was I,” I murmured.

For a moment, neither of us spoke. The dining room felt too large, too full of echoes. I noticed how Catherine positioned herself angled toward the doors.

“You don’t laugh like before,” I said suddenly.

She blinked. “What?”

“I mean… you used to laugh when I used to call you an old lady,” I corrected softly.

Her gaze dropped to the tablecloth. “You notice too much.”

“I learned from the best.”

That earned a real smile but gone almost as soon as it appeared. She exhaled slowly, then straightened.

“My life in this house isn’t as unkind as you think,” she said, a little too quickly. “It’s just… too organized.”

Organized.

I nodded again, though my chest felt tight. “Do you ever miss home?”

Catherine’s jaw tightened. Just slightly. “Which one?”

I didn’t know which home I should remind her of. The one where our father died, one where our mother dragged us to, the one where she fell for another man, or the home I bled in. Catherine knew what I meant. But neither of us wanted to acknowledge it.

Some ghosts and memories were too deep to forget, yet dark enough to taint the eternity.

I flinched as she touched my arm. “You’ll get used to it,” she said. “We all do.”

The certainty in her voice frightened me more than doubt would have.

I swallowed, the question pressing harder now, aching to be asked. And I knew, before the words ever left my mouth, that whatever answer she gave, it wouldn’t be the truth.

Not entirely at least.

Both of us were liars.

“Are you happy?” I asked, without meaning to and Catherine’s eyes widened before she masked it with a smile.

The question surprised us both.

Her smile didn’t falter, but something in her eyes did. Just for a second. A shadow passed through them before she nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “I am.”

I nodded, because that was what we did in our family, we nodded at lies the way other people nodded at prayers. With reverence. With understanding. With the unspoken agreement that survival mattered more than honesty.

I had heard that yes before. In my mother’s mouth. In my own.

Happiness, I realized then, wasn’t a feeling. It was a performance. One you perfected when the alternative was punishment, abandonment, or worse… being seen.

We, as humans, hated to being seen.

Catherine’s smile stayed in place, it was flawless and familiar, but I could see the strain now. The tightness around her eyes. The way her breath caught before settling again. She hadn’t lied to me to deceive me. She’d lied to protect herself. Maybe to protect me.

And that made it hurt more.

Because if she wasn’t safe enough to tell the truth, if my sister couldn’t admit unhappiness aloud, then what chance did I have?

Like I said, we both were damned liars.

But God rewarded silence.

God loved obedience.

God loved endurance.

But…. what kind of God required women to lie so well?

The thought frightened me. I crushed it immediately, the way I’d been taught. Doubt was temptation. Questions were disobedience. Pain was proof of faith. I bore the marks now.

Still, the image of her eyes burned itself into me.

I opened my mouth to ask more before footsteps echoed from the staircase. Male voices followed.

My breath hitched. My thoughts scattered, colliding into something sharp and uglier than scars. I straightened instinctively, spine locking, shoulders pulling back the way I’d been taught.

Don’t look small.

Don’t draw attention.

Don’t exist.

But it was too late.

Heat crawled up my neck, my skin suddenly too tight, and aware. I hated myself for it. Hated the way my body reacted before my mind could catch up at the familiar voice between blend of bland ones.

I hated how easily I recognized it despite hearing it few hours back.

I turned slowly as four men descended the stairs. Power swathed around them like silk and steel combined but it was the man in the center who unraveled me wholly.

His presence pressed into my chest, leaving me breathlessly still.

Pakhan Sokolov.

The flaps of his coat moved with each step, cut form the part of his soul.

There was a saint in the Bible, and then there was Satan.

Father Christian used to say temptation was never loud. It didn’t yell but it did whispered. Sometimes dressed in beauty, wrapped in authority, carrying fear so sharp it felt like veneration.

He said the devil was not chaos, but order twisted just enough to feel unavoidable. Unholy not because he lacked light but because he knew how to use it.

I never understood how could the devil of hell be wrapped in beauty, or respected or worshiped. There was no reason to give him a title.

As Pakhan Sokolov descended the stairs, I understood now.

Evil did not look as bad as I had been taught to imagine it. There were no grotesque edges, no visible rot, but edges that scratch. Composed evil. Immaculate evil. Evil carved from castigation and dominion and madness.

And I realized that evil could be a God, an angel, and…. a man.