“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.”

leaving tiny fingerprints in the margins.

“They used to ask me about their father,” Elena whispered, her voice thick.

My breath caught. “What did you say?”

“I told them he was a complicated man. That he loved very deeply… but that the world he lived in was too dark for little girls.”

Sofia suddenly looked up, her charcoal poised mid-air. “You told us continue reading …