Page 13 of Savage Vows

I call her name, again and again, but she doesn’t come back. All I can do is sit in the stillness, the echo of her voice in my ear, and wonder what I missed.

I call her back the second the line drops. No answer.

I try again. Straight to voicemail.

I try a third time, gripping the phone so tightly it might crack in my hand. Nothing.

My chest tightens, breath catching somewhere between panic and disbelief. Whatever that call was—whatever she was trying to say—it felt like a warning. Or a goodbye.

I sit down at the edge of the couch, phone still in my hand, and scroll to the one person who always picks up. Or at least answers honestly.

Bell and I rarely talk on the phone. We text, we meme, we share gossip at odd hours and trauma dump in bursts of sarcasm. But right now, I need her voice.

She answers on the third ring. “Wow. Okay. Phone call. What’s happening—are you dying?”

“Have you heard anything from Julianne?”

Bella pauses. “Julianne?”

“She just called. Frantic. I couldn’t understand her. She said something about someone not to trust, and then the call dropped. I’ve been trying to reach her for four days, and now this.”

Bella’s voice tightens. “No. No, I haven’t heard anything. The last time I saw her was…last week? Yeah, at church. She looked kind of out of it. Distracted. Quiet.”

“Quiet how?”

“Like…like she wasn’t really there. Smiling at people, but not listening. You know that thing she does when she’s trying to act normal but she’s clearly somewhere else? That.”

I close my eyes. “And you didn’t think to tell me that?”

“You hadn’t said anything, Adriana. And it makes sense for her to spiral a little—her best friend dropped off the face of the earth.”

My eyes snap open. “What?”

Bella sighs. “Anya. You remember Anya? The one Julianne was always glued to. They basically shared a brain. She’s been missing for like…two weeks now.”

A cold chill moves through me. “You’re just telling me this now?”

“You’ve been buried in your Serrano thing,” Bella says, more gently now. “I didn’t want to dump more on you if it was just a friendship breakup.”

But it’s not just that. I feel it in my gut. Anya’s missing. Julianne’s scared. Something’s wrong, and it’s closer to home than I thought.

“Do you know if anyone filed a report?”

“No clue. I can ask around. But you don’t think it’s connected, do you?”

I don’t answer. Not yet. Because the more I think about it, the more I know—everything is connected.

Bella exhales slowly on the other end. “Okay, look. This might be a stretch, but have you thought about calling Maksim?”

I pause. “Maksim?”

“Yeah,” she says. “You all grew up together. He has connections. If something’s going on with Julianne and it’s bad, there’s a chance he’s heard something.”

I lean back into the couch, staring at the ceiling. My stomach knots at just the mention of his name.

“We haven’t spoken in years.”

Bella doesn’t fill the silence. She knows better.