They said the air in Madrid was dry in summer, but Carlos Sainz knew better. It wasn’t the sun that made the air heavy—it was the silence between empires, the tremble in the hush before a war.

From the stained-glass balcony of the Sainz estate, Carlos could see the old rooftops stretching like a mosaic of secrets. Terracotta tiles dulled by time, the city below moved in soft pulses: mopeds, market chatter, the faint screech of a hawk. But up here, in this house of legacy and violence, nothing moved unless his father willed it. Carlos Sainz Sr.—the consigliere of the Spanish mafia, the whisper behind every decision, the blood-slick hand behind every blade.