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CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR
publish date:
2026-04-09 16:04:24
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HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS) CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY NINE
"PLANNING A WEDDING WITH A SIX YEAR OLD IS NOT PLANNING A WEDDING. IT IS NEGOTIATING A PEACE TREATY WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS VERY STRONG OPINIONS AND NO INTENTION OF COMPROMISING."SOFIAI am not sure how the wedding planning comes up exactly, even though I have been married once, that marriage wasn’t something I had wanted to do and now that my dream of getting married to the only man I have ever loved every decision feels like it would take a lifetime to actually think about. One moment we are eating and the next Isabella is looking between us with the expression she gets when something has occurred to her and she has decided to pursue it immediately without waiting to see if it is an appropriate moment."When is the wedding," she says.Dante and I look at each other."We haven't decided yet," I tell her."Will there be flowers?” she says."Probably yes," I say."I should choose the flowers," she says. Very matter of fact. Like this is simply the logical conclusion and we are wasting ti
HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS) CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY EIGHT
"Some nights stay with you forever — not because of what happened in them, but because of how full they made you feel."The garden erupts the second Dante stands up and kisses me.Luca is first — practically launching himself across the space, pulling Dante into a hug that nearly knocks him off balance."FINALLY," he announces to everyone "Do you know how long I have been carrying this secret? I have been holding it for WEEKS. I am the worst secret keeper in this entire family and I did it. I did the impossible.""You told three different waiters here while we were setting up," Nico says, appearing behind him with far more composure but an expression that is unmistakably warm underneath it."That is not the same as telling Sofia," Luca says with dignity.I am still looking at the ring.I cannot stop looking at the ring.It catches the warm overhead lights every time I move my hand even slightly and something about that small movement of light keeps pulling my attention back to it like
HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS) CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN
"Some moments are so full that the heart doesn't know whether to laugh or cry so it does both at once." SOFIA I cannot move. That is the first thing. I am standing in the middle of this garden with lights strung overhead and flowers everywhere and my daughter in front of me holding a chalkboard sign and I cannot move a single part of my body because everything has stopped working simultaneously. Four words. Mommy will you marry Daddy? In chalk. In careful letters. Held by small hands that I have kissed every night for six years. My eyes fill before I give them permission to. Isabella is watching my face with the focused attention she gives things that matter to her — reading me, checking me, waiting to see what I do next. She is so serious about her task. So committed to it. Both hands on the chalkboard, chin slightly up, giving me the full presentation. She practiced this. The thought arrives and does something to me. She practiced walking across this garden holding this si
HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS) CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX
"The best moments are the ones you never saw coming."SOFIAIsabella talks the whole way home from school.This is standard. She has always been this way — the school day builds up inside her like pressure and the moment she sees me at the gate it all comes out in a rush. Today it is something about a project on the solar system and how Chiara got to be Jupiter and Isabella wanted to be Jupiter but she ended up being Saturn which she has decided is actually better because of the rings.I listen and nod and ask the right questions and carry her bag and walk beside her in the Italian afternoon and feel the particular fullness that this specific part of my day gives me now.School pickup.Such a small ordinary thing.Such an enormous thing to me.We get home and she has a snack and tells Dante about Saturn with the same intensity she told me and he listens with the same seriousness he gives everything she says, which she notices and absorbs and does not comment on but which I can see set
HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS) CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE
"PEACE IS NOT THE ABSENCE OF EVERYTHING THAT HURT YOU. IT IS LEARNING TO BREATHE PROPERLY AGAIN DESPITE IT."SOFIADante is hiding something.I cannot tell you exactly what it is or exactly when I started noticing it but it has been building for about two weeks now and I know him well enough to know that the particular quality of his distraction is not the usual kind.The usual kind — meetings, security, the endless machinery of being Pakhan — has a specific texture. He goes quiet in a focused way. His eyes go somewhere specific even when he is in the room. His phone is in his hand more than usual.This is different.This distraction has a warmth to it that the other kind does not. He will be in the middle of a normal conversation and something will cross his face — a thought, a plan, something he is working out internally — and then he will look at me and there is something in that look that is deliberate. Like he is confirming something.And then it is gone.And he says nothing.I h
HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS) CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR
"THE BRAVEST THING A DANGEROUS MAN CAN DO IS CHOOSE TO BE SOFT FOR THE RIGHT PERSON."DANTEI have sat across tables from men who wanted me dead and felt nothing.I have walked into rooms where the air was thick with threat and kept my pulse exactly where it needed to be. I have negotiated in four languages while bleeding from a wound nobody in the room was supposed to know about. I have done things that required a steadiness of nerve that most people spend their entire lives not needing.None of that prepared me for this.A proposal.I am sitting on Vivian's sofa thinking about a ring and the right words and the right moment and my palms are doing something that I am going to categorize as temperature related.Dante Valentino. Pakhan. Feared across countries.Nervous about proposing to a woman.Sofia specifically. Which should make it easier — she is Sofia, she is mine, she has been mine since we were kids — and somehow makes it considerably harder because it is Sofia and it needs t
HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS) CHAPTER THREE
“NOT ALL DEMONS LIVE IN HELL.”SOFIA.I must have dozed off at some point because I woke to the sound of my bedroom door opening.My eyes snap open and I sit up quickly, my heart already racing before I'm even fully awake. The room is still dark but there's a stream of light from the hallway, and M
HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS) CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE
"The problem with no strings attached is that someone always starts pulling at them anyway."VIVIANThe girls night was exactly what I needed.Sofia laughing across a table from me. Too much food. The comfortable back and forth of two people who knew each other before life got complicated and are f
HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS) CHAPTER TWO
IF I CAN STILL BREATHE, I’M FINE.SOFIA.I can't sleep.I should be sleeping. I should have taken a pill or had a glass of wine or done something to knock myself out so I wouldn't be lying here obsessing over things that aren't my business. But I can't. My mind won't stop racing, won't stop wonderi
HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS) CHAPTER ONE
SOFIA.IF I TOLD YOU MY SECRETS YOU WOULD NEVER LOOK AT ME THE SAME.The thing about living with a man who doesn't love you is that you become very good at reading silences.I can tell the difference between Marco's "I'm working" silence and his "I wish you weren't here" silence. Between his "I'm t
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