The city was a gray monster, made of damp alleys, peeling buildings, and streetlights that flickered as if refusing to die. There, amid the fumes of old cars and the distant cries of sirens, lived people who dreamed not of getting out, but of surviving another day.

He was twenty-two when he found her. A young hitman, with a hard gaze and hands stained with violence, who had already seen too much. That night, he was returning to a job when he heard a noise among the garbage bags in an alley. It was her: a skinny twelve-year-old girl, with torn clothes and eyes wide with fear. No one was looking for her. No one was waiting for her at home.

He didn't know why he stopped. In his world, the weak were invisible, pieces that broke without anyone caring. But that girl looked at him with a mixture of terror and hope that disarmed him. Without thinking twice, he got her out of there. That same night, he got her a piece of bread, an old mattress in his smoke-filled apartment filled with empty bottles, and a promise he didn't know he could keep: "You're safe with me."

The days passed. She asked him things that made him uncomfortable: if he'd ever seen the ocean, if he believed in God, if he'd ever been a child too. Simple questions, but they haunted him more than any bullet. He protected her fiercely, though he never spoke to her about his work. To her, he was just an older brother, a tough man who sometimes arrived with bloody knuckles, but who never denied her a plate of food or a word of encouragement.

After another tiring day on the streets, he pushed open the door of the house and entered. The silence of the place greeted him like a heavy echo, but he soon noticed that a small light was still on. The little girl, still awake, watched him from the shadows. His tired eyes narrowed as he placed his jacket on the old chair, and an almost automatic seriousness appeared on his face. "What are you doing up?" he murmured in a deep tone that mingled with tiredness. "You should be sleeping by now."