All Chapters of HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS): Chapter 141 - Chapter 150

"The most exhausting thing about living two lives is remembering which one is real."VIVIANA message comes in on my burner phone at eleven forty at night.My phone screen lights up.It was not the Alchemist's channel, like i expectedDifferent.Xander.I look at the message for a few seconds.The stage is ready.Four words.I read them again.Then I lock the phone and set it face down on the bed beside me and I sit in the dark of the guest room in Sofia's home and I breathe.The stage is ready.I know what that means.I have known it was coming for weeks — have been moving pieces toward it, have been making the right appearances and building the right trust and positioning myself exactly where I need to be when the moment arrives.This is what I do.This is what I was sent here to do.I lie down on top of the covers and I stare at the ceiling in the dark and I think about a lot of things that I should not be thinking about.Sofia's happy face at her wedding and how surprised she saw

"The most inconvenient thing about feelings is that they arrive without asking permission."VIVIANThe apartment is dark when I got upstairs after Xander dropped me off.Or it should be.The lights are on.I stop in the doorway for exactly one second — the particular stillness of someone whose body recognises a situation before their brain has fully processed it — and then I step inside and close the door behind me because standing in the doorway is not safer than being inside and at least inside I can control the space.Nico is in the armchair.Again.I have changed the locks four times since he first appeared in my apartment like furniture I did not order. Four different locksmiths, four different mechanisms, one of them a brand that the security firm I used to work for rated as near impenetrable.Because we have had that conversation and it goes nowhere and I have accepted that Nico Barbieri exists in a world where locks are more of a suggestion than a rule and fighting that partic

"The most exhausting lies are the ones you have to maintain in rooms full of people who trust you."VIVIANNico does not question me further.That is the thing that catches me off guard.I prepared for questions. Had the answers arranged and ready in the particular way I arrange answers when I know what is coming — layered, each one able to support the next, nothing that contradicts itself under pressure. I was ready for Dante's scrutiny through the phone, for Luca's instinctive suspicion of anything new, for the general wariness of people who have been operating in dangerous spaces long enough to know that good information from unexpected sources is also the shape that traps take.I was ready for all of it.What I was not ready for was Nico looking at me across the kitchen table and saying simply:"We are going to brief Dante."And then picking up his phone.Like that was settled.Like the decision had already been made before the sentence finished.I watched him dial and felt someth

VIVIAN“Fuck, princess—strip.”The command lands like a slap and a caress at the same time. My pulse is still racing from the kiss, from the way he pulled back and looked at me like he was deciding whether to throw me out or fuck me senseless. I don’t move fast enough for him. Nico’s eyes darken.“I said strip.” His voice is low, rough. “Every piece. Now. Or I do it for you and you won’t like how I do it.”I hold his gaze for three stubborn heartbeats, then start unbuttoning my blouse with deliberate slowness. His jaw tightens. When the fabric slides off my shoulders he steps in, fists the material of my bra and yanks it down so my breasts spill free. The cool air hits my skin a second before his hands do—rough palms, thumbs dragging over my nipples until they harden under his touch.“Already so responsive,” he mutters, almost to himself. “And you still tried to tell me you’re just a good time.” He pinches one nipple hard enough to make me gasp. “Liar.”I open my mouth to snap back, b

"The worst lies are the ones you tell people who would never expect them from you."VIVIANThe SUVs pull up without headlights..Nico gets out first. He steps out and the space immediately reorganises itself around him — soldiers reading the shift, already adjusting their positioning, the way a room adjusts when the person who is actually in charge arrives.I get out behind him.Xander is already there. Standing with three of Dante's men near the warehouse entrance, arms loose at his sides, looking at the ground with the posture of someone waiting to be briefed. He does not look at me. We agreed he would not look at me and he does not and the professionalism of it is the thing I respect most about him.One of the soldiers moves toward Nico."Boss?"Just that one word. Not a question about what to do. Just the word that means we are ready and we are looking at you. Nico looks at the building. At the dock. At the roofline. The assessment takes about four seconds."Perimeter," he says. "