All Chapters of HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS): Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

153 Chapters

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO

"Sometimes the best part of a long day is the person waiting at the end of it."SOFIAVivian talked me into it and through it and out the other side of every insecurity I walked in with and by the end of the afternoon I was standing in front of the boutique mirror feeling something I have not felt about my body in a long time.Proud of it.This body that carried Isabella and survived a warehouse and a poison and is currently growing another person and has been through more than I sometimes let myself fully account for.It deserves to be in a beautiful dress without apology.Vivian was right.She usually is, which is one of the most useful and occasionally most infuriating things about her.I hear Dante's car before I see him.I have learned the sound of it — the particular engine, the way it pulls up to the compound, the pause before the door. I am in the kitchen when it happens and something in me that has been slightly low-key tense all day without fully acknowledging it releases.H

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE

"After everything — after all of it — here we are."SOFIAI keep looking at myself in the mirror. Like my brain keeps needing to check that this is real and that the woman in the mirror is actually me and that today is actually happening.The dress is everything.The ivory silk that Vivian talked me into. The bump visible and proud and exactly as it should be. My hair is pinned up in a way that took the stylist forty minutes and looks like it took no effort at all which is apparently the point. The earrings are small and gold and were Dante's grandmother's which Elena produced last week with no explanation other than he wanted you to have them and which I have not been able to think about too directly since without my eyes going blurry.I look like myself.The best version. The real version. The version I forgot existed somewhere in the years of making myself smaller."Stop staring at yourself and let me fix this piece," Vivian says from behind me.She is in the dusty rose that Isabel

HIS SWEETEST ADDICTION-1

"Every mask has a face beneath it. The question is whether the face remembers who it belongs to."VIVIANThe wedding was perfect.That is the last thought I have before my phone vibrates on the nightstand beside me and everything that felt warm and real and mine for one evening becomes something I have to put back in its box and close the lid on.2:04 a.m.The room is dark. The compound is quiet. I am in the guest room I have been given for the night because the celebration ran late and Sofia insisted and I said yes because I wanted to and because for one evening I let myself pretend that this is simply my life now. These people. This warmth. This table with too much food and too much laughter and Nico across from me pretending not to look at me while I pretended not to notice.The phone screen glows in the dark.No caller ID.One message.ALCHEMIST: Report.I look at it for a long moment.The warm thing in my chest — the thing that built up over a wedding and a garden and ivory silk

HIS SWEETEST ADDICTION-2

"THE MOST DANGEROUS PEOPLE IN ANY ROOM ARE THE ONES WHO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR."NICOThe office in the compound is one of the few rooms in this building that feels like actual work rather than home.That is by design. Dante set it up that way when we moved in — separate from the living spaces, separate from where Sofia and Isabella exist, a room that the business of being Pakhan happens in and then gets left in when the door closes behind you.Maps on one wall. A board on the other with the current operational picture. The particular organized chaos of a room that is being used by people who think in systems.The three of us are around the central table.The wedding was yesterday and Dante looks like a man who slept well for the first time in months and is trying to be responsible about it by coming to a morning meeting instead of staying in bed with his new wife which is what every part of him clearly wants to be doing.I appreciate the effort.I am also going to sen

HIS SWEET ADDICTION-3

"The greatest advantage you can have is being exactly what nobody expects."VIVIAN The office is quiet.Both of them looking at me.Luca with a grape suspended halfway to his mouth. Nico with that face — the one that gives nothing away and takes everything in simultaneously. The face I have been on the receiving end of enough times to know that behind it the calculations are already running.I keep my expression steady.This is the part where I have to be careful.Not because I am afraid of them exactly. More because I am standing in a room with two people who are genuinely good at reading situations and I am about to do something that requires me to give them just enough truth to make the lie around it hold weight.I have done this before.Many times.In rooms considerably more dangerous than this one.Nico speaks first."How," he says. Just that. The economy of it is very him.I step further into the room."I know how people like Shadow operate," I say. "The methodology. The decisi

HIS SWEET ADDICTION--4

"The most dangerous thing about underestimating someone is that they usually let you."VIVIANThe shooting range was in the basement of the compound.I did not know this room existed until Luca led me down two flights of stairs and through a reinforced door and flicked on the lights to reveal a full length range with targets at varying distances and enough weaponry on the side wall to make most people take a step back.I did not take a step back.I looked at it the way I look at most things that are supposed to be intimidating — which is to say I looked at it, assessed it, and decided what I needed from it."This is your test," Luca said. Watching my face for a reaction."Okay," I said.He handed me a gun.Not the one I would have chosen — heavier than my preference, a different distribution of weight than I am used to — but functional and clean and well maintained which tells me about the people who keep this space before it tells me anything else.I checked the magazine the way you

HIS SWEET ADDICTION--5

VIVIAN“You still have one more test to complete.”The words slid over my skin like a challenge wrapped in velvet. Nico’s hand remained locked around my wrist, firm and unyielding, sending a jolt of awareness straight through me. The shooting range suddenly felt impossibly smaller, the air heavy with the sharp tang of gunpowder and the warm, woody notes of his cologne—the one that always seemed to slip past my defenses and short-circuit rational thought. My pulse thrummed in my ears.I tilted my head back just enough to meet his gaze. Our faces were dangerously close; I could feel the warmth of his breath brushing my lips. “What other test?”His grey eyes darkened, a predatory glint cutting through the usual impenetrable control. I tried to shift backward, craving even an inch of breathing room, but his grip tightened—not painful, but deliberate. A silent reminder that he wasn’t letting go. My back pressed harder into the cool concrete wall behind me.“A physical one,” he said, his vo

HIS SWEET ADDICTION--6

VIVIAN. I hated how right he was. My body betrayed me instantly, hips rolling toward his hand despite every warning screaming in my head. Nico watched me with dark satisfaction, like he’d been waiting for this exact moment to crack through my carefully built walls. His fingers pressed firmer through the fabric, stroking with deliberate precision until I was biting my lip to keep from moaning.Then he slipped his hand beneath my waistband.The first direct touch of his fingers against my slick heat pulled a gasp from my throat. He was infuriatingly good at this—teasing my entrance, circling my clit with just enough pressure to make my thighs tremble, but never quite enough. Heat coiled tight in my belly, building fast.“Nico…” I breathed, half warning, half plea.He leaned down, lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Say please, princess. Use your words.”Stubbornness flared hot and immediate. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. “Fuck you,” I hissed, even as my hips chased his r

HIS SWEET ADDICTION--7

"The answers you chase are never as simple as the questions that started them."NICOShe ran.Not literally. Vivian does not do anything as undignified as running.But she was out of that basement with considerable speed the moment I gave her the opening and I stood in the shooting range alone for a moment looking at six perfect bullseyes and listening to her footsteps on the stairs and I smiled.Just once.To myself.In an empty room where nobody could make anything of it.I do not smile often. Luca would say I do not smile enough and Luca would be right and I would not tell him that. But standing in a basement with gunpowder in the air and the evidence of what Vivian just did still printed on those targets — I smiled.She is extraordinary.That is the simple fact of it. I have worked alongside extraordinary people my entire adult life. I know what skill looks like and I know the difference between trained and gifted and Vivian is both in a combination that does not happen often. The

HIS SWEET ADDICTION--8

"The most dangerous power is the kind that never shows its face."NICO"Who the hell is that," I say.He does not answer immediately.This is a thing Salvatore does — he holds information for just long enough to make you aware that he is the one choosing when to release it. A power move so habitual that he probably does not notice he is doing it anymore.I wait.I am good at waiting."You think Dante sits at the top of the food chain," he says finally.I look at him."He is Pakhan," I say."Yes." Salvatore tilts his head slightly. "Pakhan. Supreme authority over the families. The highest position in a network that spans four countries and touches every major criminal organisation in the western hemisphere." He pauses. "And you believe that makes him the most powerful man in his world.""I believe it makes him one of them," I say carefully."That is smarter than most," Salvatore says. Not a compliment. Just an observation. "Most people who work at Dante's level think Pakhan is the ceil

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