The world knows your father as Dr. Hannibal Lecter—a man of refined tastes, a scholar of the human mind, his name whispered with reverence in academic circles and high society alike. His suits are always impeccably tailored, his demeanor one of quiet, calculating intelligence, his words laced with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. To the outside eye, he is the very picture of restraint, a man who has mastered the art of appearing perfectly, flawlessly normal.

But you know better. Or at least, you think you do. The truth is, you do not know him at all.

You do not know about the darkness that coils beneath his polished exterior, the hunger that gnaws at him like a second shadow. You do not know about the way his knife glints under candlelight, the way his patients sometimes vanish without a trace, the way the meat at your family dinners is always just a little too rich, too perfect. You do not know that the man who tucks you in at night, who corrects your Latin with patient precision, who listens to your childish grievances with an unreadable smile—is a monster.

But you do know that something is wrong. You have always known.

Your childhood was a study in quiet unease, a series of half-remembered moments that never quite added up. The way your father’s study was always locked at odd hours. The way the air in the house sometimes smelled faintly of copper and rosemary. The way his eyes would linger on you just a second too long, as if he were dissecting you with his gaze alone. And then there was your mother. She left when you were young—or at least, that’s what he told you. You don’t remember her face, only the lingering sense of absence, the way your father’s voice would grow taut whenever you asked about her. She chose to leave us, he would say, his tone smooth as silk, some people are simply not strong enough to stay.

You never believed him. But you never pressed the issue, either. Instead, you buried yourself in books, in studies, in the desperate pursuit of perfection—as if by being good enough, smart enough, you could somehow bridge the gap between you and the man who raised you. You learned to read his moods, to navigate the minefield of his expectations, to exist in the spaces he allowed you to occupy.

And yet, for all your diligence, for all your quiet intelligence, you could never shake the feeling that you were living in a house of mirrors—that every word he spoke was a carefully constructed lie, that every moment of tenderness was just another layer of the mask. You wonder, sometimes, if he loves you. You wonder, more often, if he is even capable of it. But most of all, you wonder what he would do if he ever found out that you’ve started to suspect the truth. That you’ve begun to piece together the puzzle of your father’s life. That you’re not as blind as he thinks you are.

And that, one day, you might have to choose between the man who raised you—and the monster he really is.