Page 103 of Savage Vows
“Let me help,” she says, sliding the cuff links through the fabric with nimble fingers. Her hands are steady now, nothing like the frightened girl I found days ago. “You have an important meeting?”
I nod, distracted, catching Adriana’s reflection in the mirror. She stands in the hallway, watching us quietly, arms folded across her chest. Her gaze lingers for a moment, eyes tired and sad, before she turns and disappears down the hall. I can feel the distance between us like a weight.
I wonder what to do with Julianne now. I can’t take her back to the estate, and Chicago doesn’t feel safe anymore. Maybe I could set her up with Bella, at least until things settle down, but even that feels like a half-answer. She can never really go back to her old life.
Julianne rests her hand lightly on my shoulder, pulling me from my thoughts. “Dante, there’s something I need to get from my old place. It’s important. Can you take me?”
I look at her, hesitating. “Now?”
She nods, eyes pleading. “Please. I just…I need to feel like I have a piece of my own life again. Just for a little while.”
I think about it, weighing the risk, and finally sigh. “All right. We leave in ten minutes.”
It feels strange, driving with Julianne beside me, making small talk about the past as if any of this is normal. There was a time, maybe years ago, when I might have found her beautiful—maybe even wanted her. But now, sitting next to her, all I feel is distance. She’s just another lost Petrova, and when I glance over, all I can think of is Adriana. Every detail, every word, every bit of color in my world points back to her.
Julianne gives me quiet directions, guiding me across town to a different apartment complex from the place where I found her. “Luka and I…we were crashing at his friend’s place for a while,” she says, her voice soft. “It was fine at first, but after a week, Luka started getting paranoid. He said people were watching him, following us. That’s why he took me to that abandoned building. Said it was safer there. I didn’t know what else to do.”
She hugs her coat tighter around her.
I nod, not sure what to say. Her story feels like it belongs to someone else now, a life I’m only passing through. The only person I want to see, to be near, is Adriana. Even with Julianne sitting inches away, my mind is somewhere else entirely—wondering if Adriana’s eaten, if she’s still angry, if she’ll ever trust me again.
“Do you want me to wait here for you?”
“No, not at all, I’ll be fine,” she says hastily.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
She nods. “Yeah, yeah.”
“What if his friends are still around?” I ask.
“I’ll be fine, I’ll make an excuse. Luka is in the wind anyway. I don’t think he’s even found the time to speak to them.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to keep the frown off my face. Something isn’t adding up. She seemed so scared three nights ago, when I rescued her. But I see none of that fear on her face anymore.
As I watch Julianne walk to the curb, ready to drive off, I hear Adriana’s voice in my memory—one of the few times she was smiling, eyes bright, teasing me late at night.You’re always so sure, Dante. But my gut’s saved me more than once. Sometimes you need to trust a woman’s instincts over a man’s pride.
I mutter it under my breath now, forcing myself to listen to the unease crawling up my spine. Something’s not right.
Instead of leaving, I roll the car forward a little and park in the shadow of a battered streetlamp, engine low. I watch in the mirror as Julianne lingers on the sidewalk, her back to the building, not moving toward the entrance. She keeps glancing up and down the street, like she’s waiting for something, or someone.
I grip the wheel, forcing myself to stay still, watching every movement through the rearview. When a man approaches, Julianne doesn’t look surprised to see him. She glances over her shoulder, then steps closer to the curb, her voice low as she speaks to him. He barely acknowledges her, just opens the back door of his car and gestures for her to get in.
She hesitates for a moment, looking nervous, then climbs into the car.
My jaw clenches. I recognize the driver now—Andrei, one of the old guard, loyal to my father, never to me. The car pulls away from the curb, slipping into traffic as if it’s any other ordinary day.
But it isn’t. My chest tightens with suspicion, betrayal, and a kind of dread I can’t quite name. Was Julianne running from Luka—or running to my family? Did she reach out to them, or did they find her first? And why use one of my father’s men for the pickup, keeping me in the dark?
I start the car, following at a distance, all my instincts screaming. Adriana was right.
I follow the sedan through traffic, two cars back, every sense wired. The city outside my window blurs past. My mind is working overtime, piecing together the last hour, wondering what the hell Julianne is planning—and what my father has to do with it.
The car finally pulls up outside a small, upscale restaurant on the edge of the old district. I park across the street, hidden by a delivery van, and wait, engine off, eyes locked on the entrance. Julianne steps out first, scanning the sidewalk. She disappears inside. I spot Andrei lingering by the door, arms folded, never far from his phone.
She heads inside, and through the window I see her approach a table in the corner.
My father sits waiting, stone-faced, his expression hard, unreadable. He doesn’t stand or greet her warmly. Instead, he just gestures for her to sit. The two of them face each other over a mostly empty table, the conversation tense, Julianne looking pale in the lamplight.
