“Please mister, buy this painting so we can buy bread,” three dirty triplets begged. The billionaire mafia boss stared at the canvas, his heart stopping. The woman painted on it was the wife he mourned for years. With shaking hands, he pulled out a black card and whispered, “Take me to her.”

name, Elena was completely paralyzed. And then, her face contorted in a way that shattered my heart. I realized in that terrible instant that she had never actually escaped the fire seven years ago; she had just been living in its smoke, perpetually bracing for the day the arsonist returned to finish the job.

The children smelled the panic in the air continue reading …