“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.”

a debt you can collect just because you figured out they exist.”

For a millisecond, the mob boss inside me reared his head—the man who took whatever he desired through sheer force of will. But then I looked at the fragile, dying woman shivering against the brick, terrified for her cubs, and I shoved that monster down until he suffocated.

I raised both continue reading …