| “ | "It doesn't matter! We'll catch up with them. We'll kill them! We'll kill all of them!"
"But the ransom!" "It doesn't make any difference, Guido. They'll pay the money anyway. The parents won't know the kids are dead. By the time they find out the truth we'll be on the other side of the world." |
” |
—Eduardo and Giovanni arguing with each other during the final hours of Steel Claw. |
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Giovanni and Eduardo Grimaldi are minor antagonists in the ninth Alex Rider novel, Scorpia Rising, and the main antagonists of the eleventh Alex Rider novel, Never Say Die. They are twin brothers and puppetmasters of Steel Claw.
Appearance- “Giovanni and Eduardo were strangely unattractive. They were neat and delicate, almost like schoolboys, with very round heads and black hair that could have been painted on, coming down in cowlicks over their foreheads. Their eyes were also dark and somehow always suspicious, even when they were looking at each other. They were cleanshaven but their cheeks and chin were covered in permanent dark stubble, like sandpaper. They had very small mouths. If the devil had a church, they would sing in his choir. That was the impression they gave.”
Criminal Lives[]
The Grimaldi twins were born and raised up in the Mafia by their father. They quickly learned how to kill, and became top members of the organization. They then saw their father as nothing else than a distraction, and killed him. They stayed in the Mafia, until they took notice of SCORPIA, which they soon joined. Unfortunately for them, SCORPIA soon collapsed under the defeat of Abdul-Aziz Al-Rahim, and they found themselves low on money, so they devised a plan called Steel Claw, a desperate cash grab.
Involvements[]
They first appeared in Scorpia Rising, where they just became new members of the executive board. Their first meeting was centered around Razim, and they watched as he explained his idea to blackmail England. Later in the book, the Grimaldi twins saved Jack Starbright from Razim, because they needed a nanny for Steel Claw. It is later revealed that the Grimaldi twins thought the idea of Razim dying to Alex Rider was quite humorous.
In Never Say Die, the brothers carry out Steel Claw. While doing so in the operation, they kill many of their workers, like Dragana Novak and Jane Vosper. Unfortunately for them, Alex Rider received a secret email from Jack Starbright, telling him that she was alive. He ended up at the abandoned coal factory, and found out about Steel Claw, and helps free the children. The twin brothers discovered the escape attempt and were quickly enraged.
The kids, Alex, and Jack got out of the factory by the school bus they were captured in earlier. They stayed along the tracks, which turned out to be a bad idea. Fury in their eyes, the brothers chased the bus down using a train called the "Midnight Flyer," shooting the bus as they came closer.
Deaths[]
As the Midnight Flyer, with the Grimaldi twins inside, came closer towards the bus Alex Rider, Jack Starbright, and 52 school children were in, Alex devised a plan. He leaned out one of the bus' windows, with a canteen in hand, and filled it up with diesel oil from the shot oil tank nearby. Then he crawled through the window, up onto the roof, and he tossed the canteen into the Midnight Flyer's chimney. The canteen clogged up the steam, causing it to heat up. The diesel fuel then exploded, sending the brothers spawling onto a nearby rock, spraying inferno-hot steam into their faces. Giovanni died instantly, while Eduardo had five seconds to realize that everything went wrong before he went with his brother.
Personalities[]
| “ | They're complete monsters. They want to encourage the parents to pay the ransom. And I think they're going to kill me too when this is all over. They seem to kill anyone who gets in their way. | ” |
—Jack Starbright telling Alex Rider about the Grimaldi Brothers and their ruthlessness |
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Giovanni and Eduardo are noticeable in where they were basically the same person, where they always wore the same clothes, they always ate the same food, they even finished each other's sentences. The only difference between the two is that Giovanni is left-handed, while Eduardo is right-handed. They have a cruel obsession, where they always hired people to do their dirty work, underpaid them, and waited until they asked for more money, and then they'd kill them. They might have wanted to kill their workers from the beginning, and used their understandable greed as a justification for their murders.
Trivia[]
- Eduardo died five seconds after Giovanni, which is the same time delay between their births. Eduardo was born five seconds after Giovanni.
- Alex Rider stuck up a middle-finger at Giovanni and Eduardo before being pushed off from Needle Point with a concrete brick chained to his foot.
- Even though they were Italian, they were born in America.
- They always speak strangely, with one twin saying half a sentence and the other finishing the sentence.
| Never Say Die Characters | |
| Main Characters | |
|---|---|
| Alex Rider • Jack Starbright • Grimaldi Twins • Tulip Jones | |
| Other Key Characters | |
| Wolf • Frankie Stallone • Skunk • Dragana Novak • Jane Vosper • Sabina Pleasure | |