Her Seven Little Bodyguards

Jude was like a wrung-out sponge, and he was earnestly soaking up all the knowledge that he could get his hands on. It was not surprising that he jumped at the opportunity to learn from Vania, and he quickly nodded in agreement.

Vania leaped for joy and immediately started making plans to mold Jude in her image.

She announced with a smile, “Let me go get dinner ready for all of you, and we can have a study session together tonight.”

The four children all nodded in response.

Vania grew more blissful in their presence, and soon enough, she had chucked all her worries out the door as she focused on preparing dinner.

Jude had only been with them for a few days, and he was still fairly thin compared to the others, but he was beginning to look a lot livelier. His melancholic eyes had a touch of aloofness to them, and even at a young age, his looks were extraordinarily striking.

He turned his puzzled eyes toward his three older brothers

the first to respond. He sighed and sat on the couch. “Jude, you don’t know about this, but before you came home with us, Mommy already tried to get one of us to inherit her designer dreams, but none of us liked designing, so we didn’t let her teach us. After we turned her down, Mommy would often bring it up again

brows creased a little when

of passing on his mother’s artistic genes? He was feeling a little unsure of himself, and

back. “Relax, it doesn’t matter if you’re not very good at drawing or if you don’t like it. Mommy respects our choices, so if you like something, then

he understood what James meant. After spending a few days with the other three children, he had become less reserved than he was when he first met them. Even though he barely spoke around them, he would still use simple movements and gestures to

clutching a lollipop as he declared, “Don’t worry, Jude. Our Mommy is

and Jake

and carefully

but most importantly, it smelled delicious. As soon as she set the food down on the table, the children started peppering her with