“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.”

”

“I will burn the whole empire down if it builds a wall around you and the girls.”

She stared at me, the hardened shell of her survivalist persona cracking slightly. She looked past me to the floor. Sofia was sketching a four-story house. Lucia was drawing a hyper-realistic tree. Mila was meticulously pressing her ink-stained thumb against the paper,continue reading …