All Chapters of HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS): Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

"SOME GOODBYES CARRY THE WEIGHT OF EVERYTHING THAT WAS NEVER SAID."SOFIAI am in the kitchen when I hear Dante come downstairs.Not just Dante. Nico and Luca too. Their voices are low in the hallway, the particular energy of men who are preparing to go somewhere and have already switched into that focused operational mode that means the decision is made and everything now is just logistics.My stomach drops before I even know why.Marco comes in from the sitting room and we look at each other briefly and then Dante comes through the kitchen doorway and the way he is dressed tells me everything before he opens his mouth. Not the casual clothes he wears around the house. Not the expensive but relaxed way he dresses when he is just present. This is deliberate. Suit jacket. Controlled. The way Dante dresses when he is walking into something that requires the full version of himself.He looks at Marco first."I'm going to New York," he says. "And then Colombia. The succession vote is clos

"THE CAGE DOESN'T ALWAYS HAVE BARS. SOMETIMES IT JUST LOOKS LIKE A MARRIAGE."SOFIAI need to tell him.I need to tell him right now before he gets on that plane and disappears to the other side of the world and I am left here again with something enormous and no way to reach him.I am not doing this again.I am not carrying this alone again.I go downstairs quickly, my phone already in my hand, already pulling up his name. My heart is going faster than normal and my hands are not entirely steady but I am moving and that feels better than sitting still with this.I press call as I reach the bottom of the stairs.It rings.Once.Twice.Three times.My stomach is tight. I stand in the hallway and listen to it ring and count the rings and tell myself he will pick up, he has to pick up, he cannot be on the plane already it has not been long enough—The ringing stops.A click."Sofia—"His voice. Just those two syllables and I feel my whole body exhale with relief."Dante," I say quickly,

“THE GREATEST LUXURY A MAN COULD HAVE IS A BROTHER.”DANTEI look between them."Who is Vivian?" I ask."Nobody," Nico says."She is absolutely not nobody," Luca says simultaneously, with great enthusiasm. "She is a very beautiful, very interesting woman that Nico has been thinking about non-stop since we saw her at that bar three weeks ago. He thinks about her constantly. I know because I share a work space with him and he has been distracted and weird and—""I have not been distracted.""You spelled your own name wrong on a document last week.""That was a typo.""Nico. You have been spelling your name for thirty one years."I look at Nico.Nico, who is the most composed human being I have ever met in my life. Who has sat in rooms with people pointing guns at him and maintained complete emotional neutrality. Who approaches every situation — every single one, without exception — with the calm calculation of a computer running numbers.Nico, who is looking at his twin right now with a

"THE QUIETEST MOMENTS ARE THE ONES THAT CHANGE EVERYTHING."SOFIACleaning is something I can control. Something that has a beginning and a middle and an end and produces a visible result. The hallway is clean or it isn't. The kitchen surfaces are wiped or they aren't. There is something enormously comforting about that kind of simplicity when everything else in my life is complicated beyond what I know how to manage.I have done the hallway and the kitchen and I am working on the sitting room when I hear Marco come downstairs.His footsteps pause at the sitting room doorway.I feel him looking at me before I look up."What are you doing?" he asks."Cleaning." I don't stop moving the cloth across the bookshelf. "Maria had a family emergency. The others are on their scheduled break. I didn't want to call anyone in."A pause."Sofia.""The shelves were dusty Marco. It needed doing.""You are pregnant."The word lands in the room and sits there between us. It is the first time either of

"GRIEF DOESN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO BE READY. IT JUST ARRIVES AND TAKES EVERYTHING."SOFIAThe ceiling is the first thing I see when I wake up.White. Still. The ceiling of my bedroom that I have stared at on so many sleepless nights that I know every mark on it.For exactly two seconds I don't remember.Two seconds of just existing. Just breathing. Just the ordinary feeling of waking up in a familiar room with light coming through the curtains.Then it comes back.All of it.The television. The red banner. The fire on the bridge. His name in the newsreader's mouth.I close my eyes again immediately like I can push it back out if I try hard enough.I cannot."She's awake."Marco's voice. Close.I open my eyes.He is sitting in the chair beside the bed — the one that is usually just decorative, the one nobody ever actually sits in. He looks like he has been there for a while. His jacket is off and his sleeves are rolled up and there are marks under his eyes that weren't there this morning.