All David craved in his childhood was the love and acceptance his parents would not give him. Their denial of affection festered in him, and bitterness and darkness grew until it consumed him. Shadowy secrets, manipulation and cruelty become the weapons of his vengeful nature. Control of a vast financial empire finally gives him the power he long coveted. Marty, a stunning femme fatale with a provocative tattoo reenters David's life. Her insatiable dark urges for male attention lead her astray from respectability and love with a good man. Through their twisted psychological attraction David and Marty discover they enjoy mutual sinister thoughts. Marty attempts respectability. She sets her eye and heart on a loving man who offers normalcy, but her wanton hunger keeps luring her to return to the depths of depravity. Another woman holds a prior claim on her love interest and simmering jealousies threaten to flare into open hostility. Marty is determined to destroy her. She commits herself to do the unthinkable to win her man. Controlled by the Devil in her DNA, Marty savors flashbacks to her iniquitous seductions of her teacher and other lovers. Conflicting inner voices wrack her emotions leaving her helplessly catatonic and crying. Her roiled feelings reach a shocking climax when David cleverly makes a spellbinding offer packaged with an irresistibly delicious choice. Escape from torment is within her grasp, or she may choose to reach for everything and risk upending her world. THE SECRET AND THE BUTTERFLY analogizes the birth and growth of corporate evil to the egg and pupa stage of a butterfly. The butterfly's egg and the milkweed upon which the emergent caterpillar feeds are both products of their parents. Evil's growth phase occurs stealthily, ever gathering strength and momentum. The chrysalis stage of evil takes place opaquely to its enablers, keeping its true intentions well disguised. The lives of Marvin, Susan, David, and Marty are the story's eggs, caterpillars, and fully fledged butterflies. Bob, the firm's employees, its sales agents, clients, and collateral victims are David and Marty's enabling milkweed leaves. The plot's first murders occur inside the transformative opaque cocoon of the firm, and all evidence of the macabre events escapes detection. Ultimately the mature evildoers emerge from their confining cocoons in full regalia, mesmerize their innocent victims, and consume their souls. THE SECRET AND THE BUTTERFLY will speak to your heart, absorb your soul and cause your thoughts to flutter in wonderment