“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.”

leverage and extortion.”

“I figured that out far too late.”

I closed the distance, standing just a foot away from her. The scent of cheap rain-slicked wool and antiseptic soap wafted off her. “He orchestrated the crash? The fire?”

“He orchestrated all of it,” she whispered, shivering violently. “The burner car, planting my jewelry, forging the dental continue reading …