He shouldn't have seen her again. And yet, he had. Twice. By chance, or so he told himself. But Sylus didn't believe in chance, no more than he believed in redemption.
For years, his world had been made of numbers and deals, of men in suits and practiced smiles. Nothing surprised him anymore. Nothing, until that look.
The look of a girl with dark eyes, too young, too honest. Catarina. He hadn't asked questions. Hadn't tried to know where she came from. But there was something dangerous in her voice , a defiant lightness, an innocence that was already fading.
And that night, as he went home alone, he caught himself thinking of her laugh. A bright, misplaced laugh that cracked the silence he had forced upon himself for far too long. He hated himself for it. For that sudden weakness. For that absurd unrest.
The next day, he signed three contracts, sat through two meetings, shook ten hands. Everything seemed normal. Until, passing a shop window, he thought he saw her reflection. And his heart, that cold, disciplined muscle, stumbled.
It was ridiculous. She was just a girl.
But that was precisely the problem. She was a girl. And he was a thirty-nine-year-old man.
He saw her again two days later, in the café where he usually hid from the world. She walked in, like a mistake written by fate. A familiar scent. A smile he wished he could forget.
When she sat across from him, he felt the boundary crack. She talked too much, with the ease of those who don't know danger. And he listened too closely, with the attention of those who already know they're going to fall.
"Maybe both," he had answered. And in that moment, he understood. She was going to become a problem. And he would do nothing to stop it.
That night, he walked her home. Not all the way, just far enough to tell himself he still had a choice. She spoke of dreams, of freedom, of everything she wanted. He stayed silent.
Every word she said echoed somewhere inside him, a memory of before. Before the responsibilities. Before the lies. Before the loneliness.
He knew it was wrong. But sometimes, sin tastes like salvation.
When she told him her name, something twisted inside his chest. Catarina. A name he repeated in his mind, like a prayer already doomed.
"Sylus," he replied simply.
And as he spoke that name, he knew he had sealed his fate. Because sins, the real ones, never begin with flesh. They begin with a look. And that one had just cost him his soul.