When I got out of the car, my legs were trembling so badly I nearly buckled. My assistant caught my arm.
"Donna Montecarlo, take it easy. She's right here, in this orphanage."
The building sat at the dead end of a road that didn't appear on any Family map. No territory. No protection. No one with connections would ever look here, and that was the point.
Through the rust-eaten iron fence, I spotted her almost instantly: a girl curled into the corner of a mud pit, nothing but skin and bone.
Her eyes were identical to mine.
Even the small red birthmark at the tail of her left eye was the exact same as mine.
Christmas had just passed, and the cold snap in Ashford still hadn't broken, but the girl wore nothing but a set of old thermals so filthy their original color was impossible to guess.
They didn't fit. Her wrists and ankles jutted out by inches.
On her feet, a pair of sandals with toes poking halfway out, grotesquely out of season.
My eyes burned. The orphanage director hurried over, choosing her words with visible care.
"Donna Montecarlo, this child, Maria, she comes from a bad background. She's somewhat autistic. Five years old and still can't speak. Are you sure you want to take her?"