In 1917, there was an unusual development in the Expósito family: María, after one of her trips, got pregnant again and this time she had a boy. He was named Rafael. His eyes were green like those of his distant Belgian great-grandfather and there was something strange about his gaze, the same strangeness that outsiders noted in the townspeople of Villaviciosa: they had the opaque, intense stare of killers.
