All Chapters of HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS): Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

128 Chapters

CHAPTER NINETY ONE

“IT’S TEARING ME APART, HE IS SLIPPLING WAY”SOFIA."The succession." He stands up. Already reaching for his jacket. Already moving into the other version of himself, the Valentino heir, the family business, all the things that exist outside these four walls. "With Dante—" He stops. Starts again. "The other families are in chaos. There's an emergency meeting. Every major family head is being called in."I stare at him."You're leaving.""I have to Sofia. If I don't show up it looks like—""You're leaving right now.""I will be back as soon as I can." He is at the door. He turns back and looks at me and the conflict in his face is real — I can see it clearly. He does not want to leave. Not right now. Not like this. "Rosa is here. She will stay with you and the children. I will be back tonight and then we can talk about New York and—""Go." My voice comes out flat. "Just go Marco."He looks at me for one more second.Then he is gone.I hear his footsteps on the stairs. Hear him saying

CHAPTER NINETY TWO

"Some moments are so terrifying that your body forgets how to be afraid and just becomes it."SOFIA. I don't even have time to pull Isabella further back before the light hits us and there is a man standing there — big, masked, dressed in black — and his hand is already reaching in before I can do anything at all."No—"I grab Isabella and pull her behind me. Put myself between her and the hand reaching for us. Every instinct I have is the same one it has always been — her first. Always her first."Don't touch her." My voice comes out shaking but I make it loud. "Don't you dare touch her—"The man grabs my arm and pulls and I have no choice but to come with it or let Isabella's hand go and I cannot let her hand go so I come out of the wardrobe still holding her and suddenly the bedroom is full.Four men inside the room.Two more in the doorway.Six total.All masked. All in black. All holding weapons like they are extensions of their hands rather than things they are carrying.Isabel

CHAPTER NINETY THREE

"The most dangerous rooms are the ones you walk into without knowing you won't walk out."SOFIAI come back to consciousness slowly.Not all at once. In pieces. Sound first — a distant dripping of water somewhere, the low murmur of voices, the particular hollow echo of a large empty space. Then feeling — my arms pulled back and bound, something hard beneath me, the cold of a room that hasn't been warm in a long time.Then everything else.I open my eyes.The warehouse is enormous and dim. High ceilings with metal beams running across them. Concrete floors stained with things I don't want to think about. Small dirty windows near the top of the walls letting in the barest grey light that tells me it is either very early morning or a heavily overcast day and I have no way of knowing which.I am in a chair in the middle of the space.My wrists are bound behind me. My ankles are bound to the chair legs. The rope is not loose.I test it anyway. Pull against it until the rope bites into my s

CHAPTER NINETY FOUR

"THE MOST PAINFUL BETRAYALS ARE THE ONES THAT WERE NEVER MEANT TO BE BETRAYALS AT All."SOFIAThe cramping comes and goes.Each time it comes it is slightly stronger than the last and each time I tell myself the same thing — stress, exhaustion, the body reacting to fear and each time it is slightly harder to convince myself of that.I focus on Isabella instead.She has stopped crying in the last little while. I don't know if that means she has fallen asleep or simply run out of tears or found some small way to manage the fear that six year olds find when adults can't. I keep talking to her through the wall every few minutes. Just small things. Just enough to let her know I am still here and still present and she is not alone.She answers each time.That is everything.The guards have changed once since Salvatore left. Two new men at the main entrance. One near the side door. They don't speak to each other much. They don't look at me much either which I have decided to take as an advan

CHAPTER NINETY FIVE

(FLASH BACK)"EVERY DEAL MADE IN THE DARK CARRIES A PRICE YOU DON'T SEE UNTIL YOU'RE ALREADY PAYING IT."MARCOThe call comes on a Tuesday morning.I am in my study going through quarterly reports from the eastern territories when my phone rings and I see the name and I already know before I answer that whatever comes next is going to be complicated.The Pakhan's office.I pick up.The conversation is brief and formal. The kind that powerful old men have when they have already made a decision and are simply informing you of it rather than asking. The current Pakhan's health is declining. The succession process is beginning. Candidates are being identified and assessed.And Dante Valentino will be staying with me while he builds his case for the seat.The call ends.I sit in my study for a long time after.I have spent my entire adult life being careful.That is the thing people don't understand about me. They see the composure and the tailored suits and the measured way I move through

CHAPTER NINETY SIX

"THE THING ABOUT DEATH IS THAT IT ONLY WORKS IF YOU ACTUALLY STAY DEAD."DANTE"You moved again," Elena says from across the room."I breathed," I tell her. "That's all.""Your breathing looks a lot like trying to sit up.""Your medical opinion looks a lot like something I didn't ask for."She crosses the room and looks at me with the particular expression she has been wearing for three days — the one that combines professional concern with the very personal exasperation of a woman who has kept me alive through more situations than either of us can count and is tired of her work being undermined by my complete inability to follow simple instructions."The rib," she says."Is fine.""Is cracked in two places.""Which means it is mostly intact.""Dante." She puts her hands on her hips. "The burns on your left shoulder need to stay dressed and still. The head trauma needs rest. Your blood pressure this morning was—""Elena."She stops.I look at her directly."How long have you worked fo

CHAPTER NINETY SEVEN

"SOME MEN ARE TOO ANGRY TO DIE. SOME LOVES ARE TOO REAL TO LEAVE BEHIND."DANTE"Layout," I say.Nico reaches into the inside of his jacket without taking his eyes off the road and pulls out the folded paper and passes it to me. I open it in the dim light from the street and go over it one more time.Main entrance. Loading bay south side. East wall door. The two enclosed rooms on the north interior."My men confirm she is still inside," Nico says. "Both of them. No movement in or out in the last hour.""Guards.""Six confirmed outside. My best estimate for inside is four to six more based on the vehicles that came in with them.""Salvatore.""Inside. Has not left."I fold the paper.Put it back in my pocket.The rib is talking to me steadily — a low constant complaint that I acknowledge and then move past because it is not the loudest thing in my body right now. The loudest thing is something that does not have a clean name. Something that is part fury and part fear and part the parti

CHAPTER NINETY EIGHT

"SOME DEBTS CAN ONLY BE SETTLED ONE WAY."DANTEHe watches me walk back toward him.He doesn't look afraid.That is the thing about men like Salvatore. They spend so long being the most dangerous thing in every room they occupy that fear stops being something they reach for easily. They have had it beaten out of them by decades of being on the giving end rather than the receiving end.Or they are simply too old and too tired and too certain of how things will end to waste energy on it.He watches me cross the warehouse floor and his expression is the expression of a man who has already accepted what is coming and is simply waiting for it to arrive.I stop in front of him.I look down at him."My daughter," I say quietly.He says nothing."My daughter was in that room." I crouch down so we are at eye level. "Six years old. In a locked room in a warehouse because you decided that a child was a loose end." I hold his gaze steadily. "My daughter."Something moves in his eyes.Not regret.

CHAPTER NINETY NINE

"THE PROBLEM WITH RUNNING IS THAT YOU HAVE TO KEEP RUNNING FOREVER."MARCOThe apartment is a place nobody knows about.That is the whole point of it.I bought it three years ago under a name that is not my name through a company that cannot be traced back to anything that is mine. A small place on the outskirts of a city that the Valentino network has never had any significant presence in. No staff. No connections. No history.Just four walls and a window overlooking a street where nobody knows who I am.I have been here for a week.Seven days of waking up in a bed that is not mine in a city that is not mine looking at a ceiling that tells me nothing about who I am or what I have done and thinking about everything anyway.I have not spoken to anyone.I have not contacted anyone.I have stayed completely off the grid in the way that only people who have spent their entire lives inside a network like the Valentino family understand how to do. No phone that can be traced. No card that l

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED

“YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CAN NOT HIDE”MARCOThe airfield is small and private and grey in the early morning light. My car pulls to the side of the jet and I get out with the single bag I have been living out of for a week and I look at the plane and I feel the first thing in seven days that is close to relief.Just the sight of it.The particular relief of a person who has been holding their breath and can finally see the door.I walk up the steps.The jet is small and clean and familiar. I know every inch of this aircraft — the cream seats, the small table, the window that looks out over the left wing. I have been on this jet more times than I can count and it has always meant the same thing.Going somewhere.Getting away from whatever needed to be gotten away from.I put my bag in the overhead compartment.I sit down in my usual seat.I buckle the belt.And for the first time in seven days I let out a breath that is not entirely made of fear.Russia.Two weeks. Maybe three. Long enoug

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