HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS)

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 tired" silence and his "don't talk to me right now" silence. Seven years of marriage teaches you these things. Seven years of sleeping in separate bedrooms, of polite nods across the breakfast table, of existing in the same space but never really touching.

Tonight, though, this silence is different.

I watch him from across the dining room table, a fork paused halfway to my mouth. He's barely touched his food, which isn't unusual. 

Marco eats like it's a chore, something to be completed efficiently—but there's tension in his shoulders that wasn't there this morning. His jaw is tight. He keeps checking his phone, the screen lighting up his face in brief flashes before he sets it down again.

"Is everything okay?" I ask, and immediately regret asking.

His dark eyes flick up to me, expression neutral. "Fine."

One word. That's all I get. I should be used to it by now, but something in my chest still tightens. Everyday I still hope that maybe today will be different. Maybe today he'll actually talk to me like I'm a person and not just a piece of furniture he's stuck with.

I set my fork down and try again. "Isabella's parent-teacher conference is next Thursday. At three. I thought maybe you'd want to—"

"I don't need to be at the PTA," he interrupts, not looking up from his phone. "You know this better than anyone. I'll make sure the money for her fees is paid on time."

The dismissal hurts so much, even though it shouldn't. Even though I knew exactly what he'd say before I asked. "It's not about money, Marco. She'd like you to be there. She asks about you."

"She's six. She'll forget."

"She's your daughter."

The lie tastes bitter on my tongue, but it's a lie I've told so many times it almost feels true. Except she's not his daughter. Not really. She's the daughter of a boy I loved when I was nineteen. A boy who whispered promises in my ear and then disappeared the next morning, leaving me pregnant and alone. A boy whose name I still can't say out loud without feeling like I'm choking.

Marco finally looks at me fully, and there's something almost pitiful in his expression. "Sofia. I gave her my name. I give you both everything you need. A home, protection, respectability. That's what I agreed to. Don't ask me for things I can't give."

Can't or won't. I never know which one he means.

I nod, looking back down at my plate. The pasta has gone cold. I should have known better than to push. Marco doesn't do family dinners and school conferences. He does business meetings and territory negotiations and whatever else it is he does when he leaves the house in his expensive suits and comes home smelling like cigar smoke and other people's cologne.

Our marriage is a transaction. I gave him the appearance of a normal life, a wife, a child, the picture of a settled man. He did me a favor when I needed it most. Seven years ago, when I was nineteen and pregnant and my parents were looking at me like I'd destroyed everything they'd worked for, Marco Valentino walked into our lives with an offer: marry him, let him claim the baby, save the family's reputation.

 I never asked why he needed a wife so badly. I was too desperate to care. And my parents, God, my parents practically shoved me down the aisle, so grateful that someone, anyone, would take their ruined daughter off their hands.

We both got what we needed. Love was never part of the deal.

"I'm sorry," I say quietly, because that's what I always do. Apologize for wanting more than what we agreed to.

He sighs, and for a moment something that might be guilt flashes across his face. "It's fine. Just... you know how things are, Sofia."

I do. God, I do. I know exactly how things are. I know that Marco Valentino married me not because he wanted to, but because I was pregnant with another man's child and desperate and he needed a wife for reasons he's never fully explained. I know that he sleeps three doors down from me and has never once tried to come to my bed. I know that he's kind in his own way, he's never cruel, never raises his voice, always makes sure Isabella and I have everything we need. But he doesn't love me. He never has, and he never will.

And I accepted this. I had to. Because the alternative was being cast out by my own family, labeled a whore, my baby branded a bastard. Marco saved me from that. He gave my daughter legitimacy, gave me a place in a world that would have destroyed me otherwise.

I should be grateful. My mother certainly reminds me of it often enough.

The silence stretches again, but this time I don't try to fill it. I pick at my pasta, moving it around my plate, while Marco goes back to his phone. This is our normal. This is what seven years of marriage looks like when there's no love in it. Just two people sharing a space, sharing a name, sharing a daughter who doesn't know that the man she calls Papa isn't really her father at all.

Sometimes I wonder if Isabella can feel it. The distance. The coldness. She's only six, but children know things. They sense things. She stopped asking why Papa doesn't tuck her in at night. Stopped climbing into his lap for hugs. She learned early, just like I did, that Marco Valentino doesn't do affection.

Isabella is with my mother tonight, which is why Marco and I are having this awkward dinner alone. Usually, she's here, telling me about her day at school, and I can focus on her instead of the emptiness of my marriage. She fills the silence in a way I never can. She makes this house feel like a home instead of a museum.

"She got an A on her spelling test," I offer, trying once more. "She wanted you to know. She was very proud."

Marco's lips twitch in what might be a smile. Might be. "That's good. She's smart."

"She is." I wait, hoping he'll ask more. Ask what words were on the test, or what she's learning in math, or anything that shows he cares even a little. But he doesn't. He just nods and goes back to his phone.

She has his eyes, people say. Dark and expressive. She doesn't, of course. She has her father's eyes. But people see what they want to see, and it's easier to let them believe the lie than to explain the truth.

I give up. I finish what I can stomach of my dinner in silence, then stand to clear the plates. Marco doesn't move to help. He never does. I carry everything to the kitchen, scrape the leftover food into the trash, load the dishwasher with practiced efficiency. The housekeeper could do this tomorrow, but I need something to do with my hands. Something to make me feel useful.

When I come back to the dining room, Marco is standing now, adjusting his cufflinks. He's already wearing his jacket, which means he's going out. Of course he is. It's barely eight o'clock and he can't stand to be in the same house with me for more than an hour.

"Going somewhere?" I ask, even though I already know the answer.

"Business meeting." The lie comes easily to him. It probably isn't even fully a lie, I'm sure there's business involved. But mostly he just wants to be anywhere that isn't here.

"Okay. I'll wait up."

"Don't." He wears his coat. "I'll be late."

I nod, wrapping my arms around myself. The dining room suddenly feels very large and very empty. "Marco?"

He pauses at the doorway, glancing back at me, his expression bored and tired, like he just can't wait to leave. 

"Thank you," I say, because I feel like I should. "For dinner. For... everything."

Something flickers in his expression. Guilt again, maybe. Or pity. "You don't have to thank me, Sofia. We had a deal. I keep my word."

Right. The deal. The arrangement. The favor he did me that I'll never be able to repay. The favor my parents still talk about at every family dinner, reminding me how lucky I am that Marco Valentino agreed to marry me despite my condition. Despite the shame I brought to the family. Despite everything.

He starts to leave, then stops. He turns back. There's that tension again, tighter now in the set of his shoulders. "Actually. I should tell you, I'm expecting a visitor tonight. Late. Around eleven."

I frown. "Here? At the house?"

"Yes. Family business. I'll handle it in my study. You don't need to worry about it."

Family business. That's what he always calls it when he doesn't want to explain. The Valentino family has their hands in everything, legitimate businesses, not-so-legitimate businesses, connections that run deep through the city like roots. I learned early not to ask too many questions. Wives don't ask questions. Wives smile and nod and look the other way.

"Do you need me to arrange som—"

"No." He cuts me off firmly. "Stay in your room. Don't come down. It's better if you're not involved."

The way he says it sends a chill through me. Marco does plenty of business from home, has meetings in his study all the time, but he's never told me to stay away before. Never used that tone, like whatever's happening tonight is dangerous. Like I need to be protected from it.

"Marco, what's going on?"

"Nothing that concerns you." He adjusts his coat collar, won't meet my eyes. "Just... stay upstairs tonight. Please."

Please. He never says please. Never asks, always tells. The fact that he's asking now makes the knot in my stomach tighten.

"Who's coming?" I press. "Who is it?"

He hesitates, and for a moment I think he might actually tell me. But then he shakes his head. "Family. That's all you need to know. Stay upstairs, Sofia. I mean it."

He leaves before I can ask anything else, and I hear the front door close with a heavy thud that echoes through the too-big house. Then it's just me and the silence again. The kind that presses in on all sides, making it hard to breathe.

I walk to the window and watch his car pull out of the driveway disappearing into the darkness. My reflection stares back at me from the glass, a twenty-six-year-old woman who looks tired despite the expensive dress and perfect hair. My mother would say I look elegant. The perfect mafia wife.

She has no idea how empty I feel.

I think about what Marco said. A visitor. Late. Family business that I need to stay away from. The tension in his voice. The way he couldn't quite look at me when he said it. The way he said please, like he was genuinely worried about what might happen if I didn't listen.

Something is wrong. Something beyond our usual wrong.

I should listen to him. Go upstairs, take a bath, read a book, go to sleep in my too-large bed in my too-empty room. Mind my own business like a good wife should. Like I've been doing for seven years.

But I can't shake the feeling that whatever is happening tonight is going to change everything.

I press my hand to the cold glass and wonder who could possibly be visiting at eleven o'clock that would make Marco Valentino, a man who never shows fear, never shows weakness, sound so tense. So worried. Family, he said. But the Valentino family is very large, It could be anyone. An uncle, a cousin, a business associate. Someone dangerous, clearly, from the way Marco warned me to stay away.

I've met most of Marco's immediate family over the years. His father, his mother, various cousins and uncles and associates who come and go from our home like it's a hotel. None of them have ever warranted this kind of warning before.

So who is this?