Page 41 of Savage Vows

Before I can even start, I feel him. A presence behind me, heat pressing into the back of my neck. My stomach flips.

“Allow me,” Dante’s voice rumbles, smooth and deliberate.

Bella’s eyes dart upward, widening as he steps into view. He’s shed the jacket but not the aura; shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled to the forearm, shoulders filling the frame of the doorway like he was carved to intimidate. He looks at Bella, then at me, then back at her, a faint curve tugging at his mouth.

“Dante,” he says, voice heavy with the weight of it. “Adriana’s husband.”

The wordhusbandlands like a thunderclap.

Bella’s mouth falls open. Her eyes shoot to mine. “Your—what?”

I want the ground to swallow me. My face burns. “Bella?—”

She stares at me like I’ve just confessed to robbing a bank. “Husband? Adi, I literally saw you two days ago. And you forgot to mention…oh, I don’t know…that you were getting married.”

“Trust me, I didn’t know either.”

“Excuse me?” she says. “Mrs.…” She trails off.

“Volkova,” I finish, wincing a little. The name still sounds foreign to me.

“Wait. You’re nottheDante Volkov.”

The words hang in the air like a dropped glass about to shatter. Behind me, Dante says nothing. Not a word. He doesn’t need to.

I blink at her, caught off guard. “Wait—how do you know his name?”

Bella swallows, her eyes flicking from him to me, then around the room, as though the walls themselves might be listening. The joking tone she had moments ago is gone. “I’ve…heard things,” she says carefully.

Something shifts in her posture—her shoulders drawing in tighter, her fingers worrying the strap of her bag. Her gaze darts over the polished floor, the gilded frame of a painting, the size of the staircase—like it all confirms what she already suspects.

And then she looks back at Dante. Not the way she looks at me, but like she’s staring at a storm she doesn’t want to get caught in. Her laugh dies in her throat.

My stomach twists. “Bella…”

She pastes on a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’m fine,” she says quickly, but her voice is thinner now. “I just—didn’t expect…” Her gaze flicks to Dante again, then back to me. “Didn’t expect this.”

Dante still hasn’t spoken, but I can feel the weight of his silence pressing against my skin. It’s deliberate. He’s letting her fill in the blanks, letting her own fear do the work for him.

And I hate that it works.

“Do you want to leave?” I ask softly, watching her face. She looks pale, her fingers twisting against the strap of her bag.

For a moment, I think she will. But then Bella squares her shoulders, forcing her voice steady. “No,” she says. “I’m fine.”

Behind me, Dante finally moves. “I’ll leave you to it.” His tone is smooth, almost polite, but I know better. He turns and walks away, unhurried, and within seconds he’s gone down the hall.

I look back at Bella, and she’s still staring at the space where he disappeared.

“Come on,” I murmur, slipping my arm through hers. We leave the house through the side door and step into the morning air. It’s brisk, smelling faintly of cut grass and exhaust from the main road.

As soon as we’re clear of the house, Bella squeezes my arm hard. “You have to tell meeverything,” she hisses. “How the hell did you end up as the wife of the most feared man in the city?”

Her eyes are wide again, her voice half-panicked, half-incredulous. The Bella I know is back—the one who teases and demands answers all at once.

I glance behind us instinctively. The windows reflect only the sky. No sign of Dante.

My chest loosens a little. “It’s not like I had a choice,” I say quietly. “Bells, you were right. I never should have gone home unprepared. Julianne didn’t go missing, she ran away.”