“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.”

And Mila.”

Sofia. Lucia. Mila. The names were a benediction. They were pure.

“I would have burned the world down to protect them,” I pleaded, turning back to her.

“I know you believe that,” she countered.

My brow furrowed. “Believe?”

A flash of the old Elena—stubborn, defiant, utterly unimpressed by my wealth—flared in her eyes. “Dante, protection in your continue reading …