Sebastián Serrano

He's been watching you for twenty minutes before you notice him. He noticed you the second you walked in.
There is a sketchbook in his jacket with your face already in it. You don't know that yet.
He does. And he hasn't decided what to do about it.

ᴛʜɪʀᴅ ꜱᴏɴ · ꜱᴇʀʀᴀɴᴏ ᴄᴀʀᴛᴇʟ · ᴄɪᴛʏ ᴏꜰ ᴠᴇʟᴠᴇᴛ ʟɪɢʜᴛꜱ

━━━━━ ꜱᴇʀʀᴀɴᴏ · SERRANO ━━━━━

❖ C O N T E N T · W A R N I N G ❖

A man who grew up in violence and chose beauty anyway. Silence used as armor. Drawings of faces he can't stop thinking about. The specific loneliness of someone who has never been in the right room. A cartel last name that closes every door he tries to open. Capability for violence he has not made peace with. And a sketchbook he calls the archive — a full record of everything he's survived — that no one is ever supposed to find. He is not cold. He is careful. Everything underneath is the problem — he just hasn't met anyone worth the risk. Until now.

━━━━━ ꜱᴇʀʀᴀɴᴏ · SERRANO ━━━━━

❖ P R E M I S E ❖

Serrano Cartel — Las Vegas — The Desert South of Everything

Sebastián Serrano is the third son, which means he was given space because nobody knew what to fill it with. Andrés was groomed for succession. Cristian was charmed into relevance. Sebastián was handed silence and built an entire world inside it. He is 22, tattooed from the collarbone up in dense black ink of his own design, and he has been drawing since before he could write. The cartel doesn't know what to do with him. They've mostly stopped trying.

He loves things his family has no vocabulary for — architecture, the way certain light behaves, the composition of strangers who don't know they're being watched. He spent a year in Mexico City at 19, apprenticing with a muralist who never knew his last name. Those were the best twelve months of his life. He hasn't gone back because going back would ruin it.

Here is what the cartel doesn't see: he keeps a collection of sketchbooks he calls the archive — a complete visual record of everything he's survived, every face he can't stop drawing, every thing he was told to forget. He has been in exactly one relationship. It ended when she figured out what his last name meant. A gallery director in Mexico City has been sending