2025-11-17 06:48:02The next morning crawled out of the sea, gray and slow. The brothers awoke in the damp shed by the docks, the air sharp with salt and iron. The cries of gulls cut through the mist like old ghosts arguing. Diego stretched first, grimacing at the ache in his shoulders. Harold was already awake, sitting by the broken doorway, staring out toward the water as if the horizon itself might tell him what to do next.
For a while, neither spoke. Words felt fragile, unfit for what had happened. The city behind them was silent now—no sirens, no fire, just smoke settling like dust on memory.
Diego broke the quiet. “We can’t stay here forever, Harry.”
Harold didn’t turn. “I know.”
“You think they’ll look for us?”
“Not if they think we’re ash.”
Diego exhaled, rubbing his arms. “Then what? We live like rats?”
Harold looked over his shoulder, his eyes darker than the morning. “For now, yes.”
It wasn’t defiance. It was calculation. Even at thirteen, Harold thought in patterns—how people moved, how power shifted. He could already sense the shape of a world that worked in secrets, and he wanted to learn its language.
They scavenged what they could along the docks: bits of rope, half-rotten bread from a trash bin behind a bakery, and an old wool blanket that smelled of fish. Diego found a cracked mirror and handed it to his brother with a grin. “Here. So you don’t forget how ugly you look.”
Harold smirked despite himself. “You talk a lot for someone with a split lip.”
Diego touched his mouth and laughed, the first real sound of humor since the fire. “Fair enough.”
---
By noon, the dockside came alive with movement—fishermen unloading crates, laborers shouting orders, the slap of waves against hulls. The brothers blended in, two stray boys pretending to belong. They learned to time their thefts between the workers’ routines: snatching a loaf when backs were turned, slipping a handful of coins from a jacket left on a crate.
It was Diego who met him first—the man they would later call Fox.
Fox was a thin, wiry hustler in his thirties with a face too young for his eyes. He caught Diego trying to lift a bottle from his bag and instead of anger, he laughed.
“You’ve got guts, kid,” Fox said, crouching so they were eye to eye. “But you move too loud.”
Diego straightened, defiant. “Didn’t hear me till you looked.”
“That’s because I was watching you before you tried.” Fox’s smile deepened. “You hungry or just stupid?”
Harold appeared behind his brother like a shadow. “Both,” he said.
Fox studied them. “Brothers?”
“Yeah.”
He scratched his chin. “You got names?”
“Diego,” said the older.
“Harold,” said the younger.
“Well, Diego and Harold, if you’re gonna steal, you might as well learn how not to get caught. Come on. I’ll show you where to hide when the dock cops walk through.”
Diego hesitated, but Harold’s instincts kicked in. The man was sharp, confident, but not dangerous—not yet. They followed.
---
Fox led them to a back alley where the brick walls sweated salt. He tossed a crust of bread to Diego and a small pocketknife to Harold.
“First rule,” Fox said, leaning against the wall, “you don’t trust anyone who gives you food without telling you the price.”
Diego frowned. “So what’s the price?”
“Information.” Fox’s grin widened. “I like to know what’s moving through these docks. Ships, crates, faces. You see something, you tell me. I keep you fed. Deal?”
Diego nodded too fast. “Deal.”
Harold said nothing, his eyes fixed on the knife. “What if we lie to you?”
Fox’s smile didn’t fade. “Then I stop feeding you.”
Simple. Cold. Honest. Harold respected that.
---
For weeks, the brothers lived under Fox’s wing. He taught them how to disappear, how to walk like you belonged, how to use silence like armor. Diego learned to charm the dock workers, flashing a grin, fetching tools, earning tips.
Harold kept to the edges, watching, memorizing. Every night he wrote in a torn notebook he’d scavenged from a dumpster.
He drew maps of the docks, noting where guards walked and when the gates opened. He sketched faces, listed names, and tallied debts owed.
One night, as they huddled beneath the pier, Diego watched him write. “What’s all that for?”
Harold shrugged. “Keeping track.”
“Of what?”
“Everyone.”
Diego laughed softly. “You are sounding like some little detective.”
“Maybe.” Harold’s pencil moved faster. “But someday, I’ll know enough to never be surprised again.”
Diego leaned back on the planks, gazing at the stars framed by the wooden beams above. “You’re strange, Harry. Always thinking. Doesn’t your head ever get tired?”
“Sometimes,” Harold admitted. “But thinking’s what keeps us alive.”
The waves slapped beneath them, rhythmic, steady. For a moment, Diego thought maybe they could make something of this—build a life from scraps and secrets.
---
One afternoon, a shipment went wrong. Fox had sent Diego to keep watch near a warehouse while he brokered a deal for stolen cigarettes. Two men showed up instead—cops or gangsters pretending to be. They spotted Diego immediately.
“Hey! You there!”
Diego ran. The sound of boots pounded behind him. He ducked into a side street, heart racing, but one of the men was faster. He felt the hand grab his jacket—then Harold was there, swinging the length of a pipe he’d picked from the trash. The blow landed hard across the man’s arm. The other lunged, but Harold kicked his knee, and they both bolted.
They didn’t stop running until they were three streets away, gasping behind a pile of crates.
Diego clutched his chest. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Harold’s hands trembled around the pipe. “You were about to get caught.”
“So you hit a cop?”
“They weren’t cops,” Harold said flatly. “Their guns didn’t match the holsters.”
Diego blinked. “You noticed that?”
“I notice everything.”
---
When they returned, Fox was waiting with that half-smile that never quite reached his eyes.
“Heard you boys stirred some trouble,” he said.
“They came at us first,” Diego replied.
Fox nodded slowly. “And you, little writer? You swing that pipe like you mean it?”
Harold didn’t flinch. “I don’t like being hunted.”
Fox chuckled. “Good. You’ll last longer that way.” He reached into his jacket and tossed Harold a small leather-bound notebook. “Keep writing, kid. You’ve got eyes like mine.”
After that, Fox started calling him “the Writer.”
The name stuck.
---
The days blurred into one another—gray skies, oil-stained water, the creak of ships at anchor. Diego grew bolder, stronger, his charm sharpening into something that could open doors. Harold grew quieter, his thoughts deeper, his eyes always elsewhere.
Sometimes at night, Diego would catch him staring into the distance, muttering under his breath.
“What are you thinking about?” he’d ask.
“The fire,” Harold would reply. “And the faces in it.”
“You gotta let that go, brother.”
“I can’t,” Harold said softly. “If I do, then it means they win.”
Diego had no answer for that.
---
One evening, a storm rolled in. The wind howled through the dockyard, tearing loose tarps and scattering trash. The brothers huddled in their shed while rain drummed against the roof. Fox hadn’t come back since morning.
Diego sighed. “He’s probably drinking again.”
Harold looked up from his notebook. “He’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“I checked his spot by the pier. His bag’s gone. The men he owed money to—they were asking questions.”
Diego frowned. “So what? We just start over?”
Harold closed the notebook and stood. “No. We start learning how not to need anyone.”
The rain hit harder, a steady roar like static. In the dim light of a flickering lantern, Harold’s expression had changed—colder, older.
Diego felt a chill crawl down his spine. “What are you gonna do?”
Harold’s gaze didn’t waver. “Everything they said we couldn’t.”
---
By dawn, the storm had passed. The brothers emerged into a washed-clean city, puddles glinting under the first light. The docks were empty except for the gulls and a few tired fishermen.
Diego slung his arms around Harold’s shoulders. “You know, we might actually make it.”
Harold allowed a faint smile. “We already are.”
They walked along the pier, their reflections flickering in the wet boards. Behind them, the smoke of the old neighborhood was long gone, replaced by the scent of salt and possibility.
But deep inside Harold, something had settled—a quiet conviction that survival was only the first step.
He had begun to see patterns in power. And patterns, once seen, could be rewritten.
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Chapter 10 - Diego’s Vow
The rain eased at last, but the streets of the south side still glistened with the memory of it - puddles in cracked concrete, oil swirling like bruised rainbows. The smell of smoke lingered in the corners, faint but stubborn, as though the city itself refused to forget what had burned.Diego Flinch walked alone through the old alley near the canal, his hands deep in the pockets of a worn leather jacket that used to belong to Harold. The collar was frayed, the smell faintly of ash and iron. Every step echoed against the wet pavement.He stopped beneath the overpass, where their old tag - Los Reyes del Barrio - still stained the concrete in faded red paint. Someone had drawn a crown over it since. Maybe Luis. Maybe some kid who didn’t even know the story behind the name.Diego stared at it for a long time, jaw tight.“You’d hate this, Harold,” he said quietly. “You’d say the crown’s a target.”The city murmured in response - the sound of passing trains, distant laughter, the hiss of ra
Chapter 9 - The Vanishing
The rain hadn’t stopped for three days. It fell in heavy, gray sheets, turning the back alleys into streams of mud and oil. The city felt quieter now, as though the fire had burned not just a warehouse, but a piece of its own heart.At the edge of Saint Rose Cemetery, under a crooked tree that dripped water like tears, Diego Flinch stood in a soaked black coat, staring at a small wooden box half-buried in the mud. The coffin was too small for truth. It was empty - everyone there knew it.Only four people stood with him: Luis, Cruz, an old priest whose eyes were too tired to ask questions, and Salgado’s replacement from the port, a man named Ramos who smoked through the service. The priest’s voice trembled through the downpour.“From dust we came, and to dust we shall return…”Diego wasn’t listening. His thoughts wandered back to the warehouse, to the blast, to Harold’s voice shouting Go! right before the light swallowed everything. He hadn’t seen any body. He hadn’t found a trace. But
Chapter 8 – The Betrayal
The night smelled of rain and gasoline — thick, uneasy air that clung to the skin like sweat before a storm. Harold stood by the riverfront warehouse, checking his watch beneath the flicker of a dying streetlight. Diego paced behind him, lighting a cigarette he didn’t really want.“Something feels off,” Harold murmured.Diego blew out smoke and tried to sound confident. “You always say that before a job.”“This isn’t a job,” Harold said. “It’s a deal.”Their mentor, Salgado — an old, scary enforcer from the port district — had arranged a meeting with a supplier from across the water. It was supposed to be the crew’s first real entrance into the big leagues, the kind of trade that could transform Los Reyes del Barrio from a local name into a citywide power. But the details changed too quickly. The place, the time, the people. Harold’s instincts twisted with unease.Still, Diego was set on it. He wanted respect, and Salgado promised it.The others waited inside the warehouse — Luis, Cru
Chapter 7 – Rise of the Boy Kings
The city was never quiet, not even at night. It breathed through the cracks of every broken streetlight and hummed under the sound of sirens far away. For Harold and Diego Flinch, that hum became the rhythm of survival.It began small — a series of daring robberies, no one expected from two teenagers. They didn’t hit banks or armored trucks. They hit the people who thought no one would dare — dealers too greedy to share, corrupt cops who skimmed extra from their own, low-level gangsters drunk enough to brag about their cash.Harold planned every move with surgical precision. Diego executed them with fire. Together, they created something the streets hadn’t seen before: discipline.--------One humid night, Diego crouched behind a stack of crates near the old freight yard, his breath fogging in the moonlight. Across from him, Harold knelt with a map spread over a crate, tracing lines with the tip of a pocketknife.“Three guards,” Harold said quietly. “Two by the gate, one in the office
Chapter 6 – Harold’s Notebook
The rain had stopped three nights ago, but the streets still smelled of rust and wet stone. The kind of smell that lingered like memory. Harold walked alone under a thin gray dawn, his hands tucked deep in his coat pockets, his eyes scanning the corners where no one else bothered to look.He moved quietly, as if the city might wake up and ask him what he was doing out so early. He wasn’t heading anywhere, at least that’s what it looked like—but his steps always led him to the same place: the old municipal library at the edge of the industrial district.The building was a ruin of its former self. Windows shattered, ivy crawling over its walls, and a door that never quite closed. It had become a shelter for stray dogs and drifters, but Harold had claimed a corner room upstairs as his sanctuary.When he pushed the door open, dust rose like smoke in the light from a cracked window. The silence was heavy, almost sacred. He liked that. Here, the world didn’t shout. It whispered.He crossed
Chapter 5 – First Blood
The city had a cruel rhythm that didn’t stop for pain. Somewhere in the south blocks, under a flickering streetlamp, Diego Flinch learned that lesson with his face pressed against wet concrete, his ribs cracking under a boot.“Where’s our cut, kid?” growled one of the extortionists—a thick-necked man with yellow teeth and eyes that glittered like broken glass.Diego spat blood, refusing to speak. His defiance made them laugh, a harsh chorus echoing down the empty alley. They beat him until the laughter turned bored, and then they left, kicking over a trash bin as if to punctuate the insult.He lay there for a while, tasting iron and dust, watching the orange glow of a distant window where someone else was safe, warm, and far from this kind of night.When Harold found him, dawn had started to bleed through the clouds.“Jesus, Diego…” Harold knelt, touching his brother’s bruised jaw. “Who did this?”“Doesn’t matter,” Diego muttered, half-conscious. “They just… wanted to remind me we don
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