Page 109 of Savage Vows
“I’m sorry—I’m so sorry—I never meant for any of this to happen.” She looks up at me, tears streaming down her face. “I regretted running away with Luka every single day. I was lost. I was scared. Then I saw Adriana, how happy she was here, with you, and it broke me. I wanted my life back. I wanted to come home. Your father promised he could fix everything if I just helped. He said it was the only way.”
She buries her face in her hands, the pain and regret shaking her whole body. “I didn’t know what else to do. I never meant to hurt her—I never meant to hurt you.”
I look down at Julianne, kneeling and sobbing in the gravel, and for the first time I really see her—not as a traitor or a pawn, but someone as broken as I am. Someone desperate for a way out. Someone who wants to make things right, even if she doesn’t know how.
“There’s still time to fix this,” I say, my voice softer. “Help me find her, Julianne. Please. I can’t do it alone.”
She wipes her eyes, nodding. “She’s probably with Bella. If she’s scared, that’s where she’ll go.”
“I already checked Bella’s apartment,” I tell her, my mind racing.
“She has another place. Her mother’s, in Brooklyn.” Julianne’s voice shakes, but there’s hope there too. “I’ll take you.”
I look at the house one last time, at all the pain and history trapped inside those walls. Then, without a word, I let the lighter fall to the gravel. I’m done threatening. I’m done fighting for anything but her.
I turn and face my father. “This is it. I’m finished being your son. I’m done with your wars. You have nothing left to hold over me.”
His jaw works, but he doesn’t answer. I see the truth settle behind his eyes—he’s lost me for good.
As I walk away, Liam steps up beside me, shoulders squared. “You’re not going alone,” he says. “I’m coming with you.”
We pile into the car, Liam at the wheel, and race across the city. Bella’s mother’s building is old and sturdy, the stairwell still smelling of garlic and clean laundry. Bella answers on the third knock, eyes blazing when she sees us.
She moves to slam the door, but I catch it with my palm. “Bella, please?—”
She glares at me, then at Julianne. “I know what you did,” she snaps. “You hurt your own sister. How could you?”
Julianne’s shoulders slump. “My actions have no excuses. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but please—let me put this right. Tell us where she is. Please.”
Bella stares hard, then sighs, tension draining from her face. She opens the door fully. “Adriana hasn’t been here since this morning. She left right after I went to work.”
I step inside, every muscle tensed. “Did she say where she was going?”
Bella nods, finally relenting. “She left a note. I thought she’d just gone to clear her head, but…here.”
She hands me a scrap of paper with an address scrawled in Adriana’s handwriting. My chest tightens. I look at Julianne, then back at the note. Something is wrong; I can feel it.
I pace in Bella’s mother’s living room while rain taps against the windowpanes. It’s already dusk—the moment when streetlights flicker on and Brooklyn turns silver under the storm. I dial Eddie.
“Pull every city feed around Fulton and Classon,” I tell him. “Eight a.m. to now—traffic cams, storefronts, anything with a lens.”
He types fast enough that I can hear the keys rattling. “Give me a second… All right, I’ve got her. Adriana walked in at 10:42 a.m. A man went with her.”
Blood roars in my ears. “Who’s the guy?”
“I’ll need to trace him,” Eddie says.
“When did she leave?”
“Adriana left the clinic at around twelve this morning. She climbed into the passenger seat of a dark sedan, but I don’t think it was the same person she came in with. He left after her.”
My pulse spikes. “Did you get a plate number?”
“Can’t see it,” he says. “A delivery van rolls between the camera and the car right as she steps in. I lose the sedan for three full seconds—long enough to block every angle.”
I squeeze the bridge of my nose. “Driver?”
“Nothing but a sleeve and a watch band. No face.”
