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Chapter 1: A Genius Born in Chaos

The house on Calle Estrella wasn't much—a crumbling facade that struggled to hold back the sun and a tin roof that rattled whenever the wind howled. Yet, to Lex, it was home. The smell of his mother Rosa's cooking, the quiet hum of his father's tools in the garage, and the occasional burst of laughter from his younger sister, Sofia, gave the place a warmth that defied its bleak exterior.

Lex had always been the odd one out in the Navarro family. While Sofia played with her dolls and skipped rope, he spent hours poring over old manuals his father brought home. His fascination with puzzles and mechanisms set him apart, and though his parents didn't fully understand it, they were proud of their "genius niño."

Rosa often called him into the kitchen, her hands dusted with flour, to quiz him on math problems she scribbled on scraps of paper. "If you're so smart, mijo, tell me how much change I'd get if I spent thirty pesos and gave the vendor a hundred."

"Seventy," Lex answered without hesitation.

"And if you bought three bags of rice for twenty pesos each?"

"Forty left."

She beamed at him, wiping her hands on her apron. "That's my boy. Smarter than all the men in this barrio combined."

His father, Diego, was less vocal about his pride but showed it in small ways. He would let Lex tinker with the broken radios and clocks customers brought to his shop, even if it meant enduring a lecture when the pieces didn't fit back together. "A man should know how to fix what's broken," Diego would say, "but more importantly, he should know why it broke in the first place."

Lex absorbed these lessons like a sponge, but his sharp mind also made him acutely aware of the fragility of their lives. The neighborhood was ruled by whispers of extortion and violence, and no one was immune to the cartels' reach—not even his father.

Diego had always been a proud man. He refused to bend to the gangs that demanded a cut of his meager earnings. "I don't work for thieves," he spat one night when Rosa begged him to reconsider.

"But they'll kill you," she pleaded, her voice trembling.

"I'd rather die standing than live on my knees," Diego replied, his jaw set in defiance.

Lex sat in the corner, pretending to be engrossed in a dismantled clock, but he listened to every word. For the first time, he questioned his father's strength. Was it bravery, or was it foolishness?

The answer came a week later.

Lex had been walking home from the corner store when he heard the gunshots. Three sharp cracks, like firecrackers, echoed down the street. His heart leapt into his throat as he sprinted toward the garage. The scene that greeted him would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Diego lay face down on the oil-stained concrete, a pool of blood spreading beneath him. Rosa knelt by his side, sobbing, her hands pressed to his chest as if she could will the life back into him. Lex froze, the world tilting on its axis.

A man stepped out of the shadows, his pistol still smoking. He was young, barely older than Diego's apprentices, but his eyes were hard and devoid of remorse. He looked at Rosa, then at Lex, and smirked.

"Tell your neighbors," he said, his voice cold and flat. "This is what happens when you don't pay."

Lex's legs refused to move as the man walked past him, his boots crunching on the gravel. When Rosa screamed for help, Lex didn't run to her. He stood there, numb, his mind racing with thoughts he couldn't yet articulate.

Later that night, after the police came and went with their empty promises of justice, Rosa clung to Lex and Sofia as if they were her lifeline. "We'll be okay," she whispered, though her voice cracked with doubt.

But Lex wasn't okay. Something inside him had shifted.

The funeral was small and quiet, attended by a handful of neighbors who murmured condolences before scurrying away. Lex sat through it all with a blank expression, his mind replaying the moment over and over. He didn't cry. Tears, he decided, were for the weak.

In the weeks that followed, Rosa did her best to keep the family afloat. She took on more cleaning jobs, leaving early in the morning and returning late at night. Lex took on the role of caretaker for Sofia, but the weight of his father's death pressed heavily on his young shoulders.

One evening, as Sofia slept in the corner of their shared room, Lex sat at the small desk by the window. He stared at the broken clock in his hands, the gears and springs mocking him with their intricacy. He wanted to fix it, but his hands trembled with frustration.

"Why did he have to be so stupid?" Lex muttered under his breath.

He hated himself for thinking it, but the thought wouldn't go away. His father had been proud, yes, but that pride had cost him his life. It had left Rosa a widow and Sofia fatherless. And what had it accomplished? Nothing.

That night, Lex made a vow. He would never be weak. He would never allow pride or morality to dictate his choices. The world didn't reward honor; it rewarded power. If he wanted to protect his family—if he wanted to survive—he needed to be smarter, colder, and more ruthless than the men who had taken his father from him.

As the moonlight filtered through the cracked window, Lex set the clock down and picked up a notebook. He began scribbling plans, his young mind churning with ideas. It was the first step in a journey that would take him far from the boy he had been.

By the time Rosa returned home that night, Lex had already decided. He wouldn't let the world crush him like it had crushed his father. If survival meant becoming the thing he despised, so be it.

He would rise. No matter the cost.