Chapter 3 - THE UNRAVELING
Dominic began to haunt his own home. He stopped traveling. He spent his days watching the security feeds, observing the way the house felt empty without Elena. The triplets had regressed entirely. They stopped eating. They sat in the garden for hours, staring at the spot where Elena used to sit with them.
The guilt was a rot in his stomach.
He found himself wandering into the kitchen, looking at the purple butterfly drawing on the wall. He reached out to touch the crayon marks, his own fingers heavy and clumsy.
"She told them stories," Rosa, the head housekeeper, said from the doorway, startling him. "Not fairy tales, Mr. Russo. She told them about how the butterfly has to break its own cocoon to become something new. She told them it hurts, but the pain is what gives it the wings."
Dominic looked at her. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you weren't listening, sir. You were too busy being the man who owns everything, to notice you were losing the only things that mattered."
Dominic left the house that night. He didn't go to a meeting. He went to a run-down apartment complex in the city where Elena was staying. He stood outside her door for an hour, a man who could command armies, unable to knock on the door of a woman who owned nothing.
When he finally knocked, she opened the door, looking tired and pale. She didn't look surprised to see him.
"They aren't talking," she said, her voice devoid of triumph. Only sadness.
"I know," Dominic said.
"Why are you here?"
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"I need to know how you did it," he said. "How you got them to trust you. I’m their father, and they look at me like I’m a ghost."
Elena stepped aside, letting him in. The apartment was tiny, sparse, and smelled of lemon tea. "They don't see a father, Dominic. They see a man who is always leaving. They see a man who is angry at the world because he can't control it. You want to fix them? You have to stop trying to be a boss to your own children."
