December came with dirty snow and a Christmas tree that looked like a decorated corpse.
Three broken ornaments. Lights flickering like they were having seizures. A yellowed plastic star on top, leaning to one side—defeated.
Well-managed poverty.
Simón was hypnotized by the lights. I was hypnotized by something else.
Elora headed to the basement.
I watched her open the gate. I watched her go down. I watched her disappear.
And there was my chance.
I moved fast—well, as fast as a nine-month-old baby who still pretended to be clumsy could crawl—toward my parents' room.
Simón stayed on the rug, watching me with those eyes that always tracked me. Like he knew I was about to do something interesting and didn't want to miss it.
But he didn't follow.
He still hadn't learned to disobey on his own. That would come later.
The room smelled like cheap detergent and something else—old sweat, tobacco filtered through clothes, that metallic scent I associated with badly cleaned guns.
Double bed. Two nightstands. A window facing the snow-choked forest. A built-in wardrobe that looked older than the house itself.
I dragged myself to the left nightstand. The one closest to the wardrobe.
My fingers were shit. Thick. Clumsy. But I'd learned to use the drawer's edge as leverage.
I pulled. It squealed. Opened half a centimeter.
I pulled again.
It opened.
Inside was too high to see. All I could do was reach in. Feel around.
The first thing I touched felt like a notebook. I slid it out carefully.
A phone book. Old. Yellowed pages. Numbers handwritten in the margins.
I memorized it. Put it back exactly where it had been.
I reached deeper.
Plastic. Something long. Like a baton.
I pulled it out carefully.
And I choked on my own breath.
It was a fucking dildo.
Skin-colored. Textured. Fake veins molded into the plastic.
Christ.
A shiver ran through me when I realized how carefully I'd been feeling it up—knowing, probably, where it had been before.
I dropped it back like it burned.
Closed that drawer. Took a slow breath. Crawled to the other side of the bed.
Right nightstand. The one by the window.
This drawer opened easier.
And there it was.
Bingo.
Loose cash. Not much. Five quid in crumpled one-pound notes. Some coins.
And a photograph.
Black and white. Bent edges. Thick, high-quality paper.
Gregory stood with three other men. All in dark suits. All wearing expressions I knew way too well.
They weren't mates having a beer.
They were partners. Or temporary enemies. Hard to tell sometimes.
I heard a sound on the stairs. Figured Elora was coming up.
I quickly shoved the photo and the money inside my onesie. I was about to close the drawer when I heard a voice that made me jump.
"What are you doing in here, Luca?"
I turned. Elora was in the doorway with a basket of damp laundry and an alarmed look.
I did what any baby would do: pointed at the open drawer, babbled something incoherent, and smiled with the purest innocence I could fake.
"That drawer isn't for you, love," she said, walking over to shut it and pick me up. "That's Daddy's."
But I caught the nerves in her voice.
It wasn't just a motherly scolding. It was like she was scared I'd seen something.
A chill crawled up my spine when I remembered the other nightstand.
That night I heard them talking in the kitchen.
I was in the crib, Simón snoring softly beside me. But my brain was wide awake.
Their voices came through muffled, but I'd learned the patterns. The tones. The silences. The little shifts in rhythm that meant something important was being said.
"The boys are growing really fast," Elora said. "They crawl without fear now. They grab things. They open drawers."
"That's good," Gregory answered. His voice was deep. Distant. "It means they're strong."
"Do you think it's normal? Sometimes I feel like Luca… knows things. He looks at me like he understands what I'm thinking."
Silence.
Long.
Footsteps. Coming closer.
"Kids are more perceptive than we think," Gregory said finally. "But we need to be careful. Some things are better not… understood too soon."
I didn't know what he meant then.
But something in his tone put me on alert.
The next months were a silent war.
Me versus my own body. Me versus the limitations of being a useless baby.
By the eighth month, I'd had enough.
I stood up.
I started walking.
Clumsily. Bow-legged like I'd just shit myself. But I walked.
Simón tried to follow.
He couldn't.
He fell on his arse three times before giving up and going back to crawling.
It took him two more months to catch up.
By then I'd memorized every corner of the house. Every loose floorboard. Every drawer that could open without making noise.
And every time I looked at the basement stairs, I felt that pull.
Constant.
Patient.
But I had a bigger problem.
I needed real autonomy. Not just physical.
I needed to communicate.
I couldn't keep crying and pointing like a trained monkey. It was driving me insane.
So I did the only thing I could.
I turned Simón into my accomplice.
During naps, when Elora thought we were asleep, I trained him in whispers.
"Simón," I said, pointing at the crib, "repeat after me. This is a crib. Crib."
At first he answered with babbling.
But he mimicked the way my lips moved.
It took him three days.
And then he said it.
"Crib."
I almost screamed with joy.
"That's it. Perfect. Now…" I pulled out Gregory's photo, the one I'd hidden in the corner of the crib. "That's Dad. Say 'da-da.'"
He said it on the first try.
"Da-da."
I stared at him.
That wasn't normal.
Not even for a smart kid.
"Simón… can you understand what I'm saying?"
I tapped his shoulder, trying to turn him so he'd look me in the face.
He just babbled and started drooling on my hand.
Alright. Guess not.
Unless he was playing me.
Which would be disturbing.
But useful.
Day after day, I taught him words.
Not just how to say them—how to use them. How to combine them.
Simón absorbed them like a sponge.
By ten months, he could put two words together.
By twelve, full sentences.
I don't know if it was our weird twin connection or if the kid was genuinely a genius.
But he was fast.
Too fast.
And I used it.
I told him, explicitly, not to speak in front of Elora until I gave the signal.
And he obeyed.
Like a soldier waiting for orders.
At fourteen months, I decided it was time.
We were strapped into our high chairs. Trapped. Elora fed us porridge with a tired expression.
I gave Simón the signal.
He nodded.
"Mum, is Dad coming today?" I asked, with the careful pronunciation of a kid who'd just learned to talk—except the sentence was way too complex for my age.
Elora froze.
The spoonful of porridge hung halfway to my mouth.
"What… what did you say, Luca?"
"Is Dad coming today?" I repeated, slower. "Simón wants to see him too."
Her gaze flicked between Simón and me.
My brother stared at me with that curious look he always had, like he was waiting for his turn to shine.
"Luca talks really well," Simón said, exactly like I'd taught him. "I can talk like that too."
Elora's face drained of all color.
The spoon hit the floor.
That night, when Gregory got home, Elora was waiting with her arms crossed and a tight expression.
"We need to talk about the boys."
"What about them?"
"They talk, Gregory. They're not even two and they're forming sentences. They talk like… I don't know. Like they understand more than they should."
Gregory took his coat off slowly.
Without taking his eyes off us.
"What kind of things do they say?"
"Questions. They ask questions about you. About food. About everything."
Gregory went quiet for a moment.
Then he walked toward us.
He crouched in front of the crib.
Looked at both of us.
Straight on.
Like he was evaluating livestock.
Or soldiers.
"It's fine," he said finally. "Smart kids ask questions. That isn't bad."
But something in his voice told me he wasn't as calm as he wanted to sound.
And when he stood up, I saw something on his neck.
The scar I'd noticed before.
But this time I caught something else.
It wasn't an accident scar.
It was a knife scar.
Clean. Precise.
Made by someone who knew exactly where to cut.
One afternoon, while Elora made dinner, I crawled over to Simón on the animal-hide rug.
He was playing with wooden blocks. Stacking them into towers, then knocking them down with a satisfied grin.
"Simón," I said softly, "want to play a new game?"
His eyes lit up.
"Yes! What game?"
"It's a spy game. We're spies, and the house is our territory. You're my partner. Understand?"
Simón nodded eagerly.
"As spies, we can't tell anyone about our identity. Because it would put our parents in danger. We don't want that, right?"
"No," Simón said, suddenly serious.
Perfect.
"Then I need you to make a distraction. When I tell you, I want you to start crying and throw yourself on the floor. Like I taught you. Remember?"
Simón smiled.
Nodded.
And when I gave the signal, he threw the tantrum.
Perfect.
I moved fast to our parents' room while Elora rushed out of the kitchen to see what the hell was going on with Simón.
I opened the drawer.
Grabbed a few more notes.
And then I saw another photograph.
This one was different.
More recent. Color, though faded.
Gregory with the same three men, but there was a fourth with them now. They stood in what looked like a warehouse. Metal framework in the back. Polished concrete floor. Industrial lights hanging from the ceiling.
I checked the faces one by one.
And then I saw him.
The guy in the middle. Shorter than the rest. Crooked smile. Hands in his pockets.
Alright, Gregory… what exactly are you mixed up in?
I put the photo back exactly where it had been. Closed the drawer. Moved to the other nightstand.
Pulled out the phone book again.
Flipped through it page by page. Looking for something. Anything. A name. A number. Something that connected me to Palmer.
Nothing.
Not a single bloody hint.
Frustration. Pure baby frustration.
If I was going to rebuild my empire, Palmer was a key piece. A contact like that could open doors I didn't even know existed.
But there was no way to reach him. Not yet.
I put everything back. Closed the drawers.
Crawled back to the living room just as Elora came up the stairs with Simón in her arms, still sobbing dramatically.
Good actor, the little bastard.
The next day, I ran it again.
Simón already knew what to do. I gave the signal. He started his meltdown.
But this time I didn't go to the bedroom.
This time I went to the basement.
Because something told me the answer was down there.
My instincts are usually right. And this place… something was off. Something didn't fit.
I worked the baby gate. Went down the stairs carefully.
It was dim. Smelled of damp. Cold cement. And something else I couldn't place.
I reached the bottom.
And there it was.
A reinforced metal door. Locked.
Not a normal basement door. A security door. The kind you use for things you don't want anyone to see.
I tried to push it.
Nothing.
I searched for a way in. A tool nearby. Somewhere a key might be.
Nothing.
Shit.
I went back up. Shut the baby gate. Crawled back to the living room right as Simón stopped crying.
He looked at me like: Did you get anything?
I shook my head.
But I didn't quit.
The next months were a systematic hunt.
While Elora dealt with Simón, I searched. Every drawer. Every high cabinet that needed a chair to reach. Every coat pocket. Every corner Gregory might've stashed something.
The key had to be somewhere.
But I also focused on something else.
Money.
Loose coins. Wrinkled notes Gregory left on the dresser. Pennies between sofa cushions. Quid forgotten in trouser pockets Elora washed.
Little by little. Without them noticing.
Under a loose floorboard in our room, I built my first stash.
By the time we turned three, I had twenty pounds. One-pound notes—surprisingly still a thing—some fivers, and a pile of coins.
Not much.
But it was a start.
And in this fucked-up world, a start was all I needed.
That night, Gregory came home earlier than usual.
He brought toys. Children's books. Like he always did on our birthdays.
But something was different.
His expression.
It wasn't the happy mask he normally wore. It was something else. Something he didn't even bother hiding.
Worry. Real worry.
That put me on edge.
Gregory almost never showed what he actually felt. If it was leaking through now, it was big. Very big.
After the gifts and the birthday song with a half-melted candle he pulled from God knows where, we got put to bed.
Earlier than usual.
I waited five minutes. Then I crawled to our bedroom door.
Left it slightly open. Just a crack.
And I listened.
"Elora," Gregory said, "we need to talk."
"What happened?"
"Nothing yet. But… I might have to travel more often. For work."
"More often than you already do?"
Silence.
Footsteps. Wood creaking.
"The boys are growing," Gregory said finally. "Soon they'll start asking more questions. Questions we can't answer easily."
More silence.
"Maybe it's time they start nursery," he said. "It'd do them good… socializing with other kids."
I went cold.
Nursery.
Other kids.
Forced socializing with little goblins who probably ate their own snot and cried about everything.
Brilliant.
That was the first time I knew something big was coming.
And it wasn't going to be anything good.