“My sister arrived trembling, br.uised, and begging me, ‘Don’t tell Dad anything.’ What she confessed about the woman living in her house chilled me to the bone. We looked so alike… that night I understood I could use my face to unmask the horror.”

I locked the door and guided her to the armchair, trying to keep my own hands from shaking as I poured her a glass of water. She was trembling so violently that the water sloshed over the rim, soaking her sleeves while she stared into space.

“What happened to you, Gen?” I asked softly, kneeling in front of her.

At first, she didn’t want to talk, opting instead to cry silently while hugging her knees as if she wanted to disappear into the upholstery. That silence terrified me more than the bruises because my sister had always been sensitive, but she had never been a coward.

After our parents’ messy divorce, I had stayed with my mom, eventually moving out to work at a local bakery while I finished my degree. Geneve had stayed with our father in a sprawling estate in Scottsdale, where he lived with his new wife, Francine.

Our father usually left the house before sunrise to manage a logistics firm and rarely returned before the sun went down. Francine stayed home, played the part of the devoted parishioner, smiled at the neighbors over the fence, and knew exactly how to fake a gentle soul.