Chapter 11 Adriana
ADRIANA
For one dizzy second, I’m sure it’s my mother waiting downstairs. My heart thuds in my chest as I walk down the staircase, half-hoping, half-terrified she somehow convinced my father to let her come see me.
But when I reach the bottom, it isn’t my mother at all.
It’s Bella.
“Bella,” I breathe, relief flooding me so fast my knees almost buckle. She’s standing in the foyer with her tote bag clutched to her side, eyes wide and searching.
“Adi!” she says, dropping the bag and throwing her arms around me. I hug her back so tightly it almost hurts, burying my face in her shoulder. She smells the same—citrus shampoo and the faint trace of smoke from the cigarette I’m sure she had ten minutes ago inside her car.
I pull back, smiling so wide my cheeks ache. “You’re really here.”
Her eyes narrow, confusion overtaking her expression as she looks around. “What is this place?” she whispers. “Are you staying with friends? Family?”
Kind of. The words stick in my throat. I swallow hard, heat creeping up my neck. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, but…”
How do I explain this? How do I tell her that in the space of one night I went from runaway to bride, from invisible journalist to the wife of the most dangerous man in the city?
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 word husband lands 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 not the Dante 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 me everything,” 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.”
Her eyes widen. “She was supposed to get married to him? Of course, that makes sense. I heard Dante Volkov was taking a wife, but I just figured those were rumors. Nobody in their right mind would want to get married to him.” She takes a look at my face. “I mean, no offense.”
“None taken,” I say. “Like I said. They trapped me. Said I had to take her place.”
Bella blinks. “Take her place?”
“At the wedding,” I whisper. “And now I’m his wife.”
Bella stares at me, her mouth falling open, but she doesn’t laugh this time. She just shakes her head slowly, like she’s trying to fit the pieces together.
“Jesus,” she says finally, her voice low. “This is worse than anything I thought.”
I nod. “Tell me about it.”
We walk a little further down the gravel path, the house fading behind us. My pulse is still racing, but Bella’s grip steadies me.
“I need to find Julianne before my father does,” I whisper, my throat tight. “If he gets to her first…he’ll kill her.”
Bella stops, turning to face me fully. Her eyes are wide, her expression deadly serious. “What’s your plan, then?”
I let out a sharp breath, shaking my head. “Right now? I don’t know. But I have to gain Dante’s trust. If he doesn’t let me out of here, I’ll never be able to look for her. And if I can’t look…” I swallow, hard. “She’s already gone.”
Bella presses her lips together, thinking. Then her eyes narrow. “Does he have any idea what you did before you came back?”
The question makes me pause. My heartbeat stutters. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “He doesn’t know. And he can’t.”
Bella studies me, searching my face for cracks. I can tell she wants to ask more, but she doesn’t—not yet. Instead, she squeezes my arm again, softer this time. “Then you need to be careful. He’s not the kind of man you fool easily.”
“I came here for Julianne. I had no idea about the wedding, any of it. I swear.”
Bella presses her lips together. I can see the fear in her eyes now. Not for me—she’s always been reckless in that way—but for Julianne. For what it means if I’m right.
“And now,” she says slowly, “you’re trapped here. With him.”
I look back toward the house again. Its windows gleam like blank eyes. “Yeah,” I whisper. “With him.”
Bella takes a breath, squeezes my hand this time instead of my arm. “Then you’re right. You need him to trust you. If he thinks you’re just”—she waves vaguely, her mouth twisting—“the replacement bride, he won’t suspect what you’re really doing.”
Her words sting, because they’re true. To him, I am just a replacement. A stand-in.
But maybe I can use that.
I look back at her, forcing myself to sound steadier than I feel. “I need time. I need him to let his guard down, just enough for me to move. That’s the only way I’ll find her before my father does.”
Bella studies me for a long moment, then finally nods.
We sit on the stone bench until the quiet feels steady.
“You know, I was thinking about the missing girls,” Bella says.
“You were?” I won’t lie, the thought had completely fled my mind with everything that happened. But just because my sister isn’t missing doesn’t mean I have to be selfish.
“So I did a little digging,” she continues sheepishly.
I raise a brow. “You did?”
She shrugs. “What can I say? You’re rubbing off on me.”
Bella unlocks her phone and opens Instagram. “I only have one thing,” she says. “But it keeps bothering me.”
She pulls up a screenshot. A girl in a silver dress smiles into blue light. The club’s logo glows behind her shoulder.
I study the image. “This is Anya? Julianne’s friend?”
“Yes, that’s her. This was three weeks ago,” Bella says. “She went missing that night.”
She swipes to the next image. Different girl. Red dress. Same blue light. Same logo of the club.
“And this is five days ago,” she says. “She didn’t come home either. This is Samie. You know, the other girl rumored to be missing.”
I slowly nod, our first conversation in the city flooding back to my mind. “Yeah, your mom found out from someone.”
Bella nods. “Her family never filed a missing person report, but she hasn’t been seen in a while, and she’s not posting on social media. But most suspiciously, she was at the same place as Anya.”
“Well, that can’t be a coincidence.”
Bella nods again. “Yes, it’s a club midtown called Portello. I found them through the location tag on one of Anya’s friends. She’s been there before.”
I stare at the picture. I thought Anya was a sweet little church girl, but of course she has her secrets. And so did Samie. Girls like Anya and Samie are expendable in our world.
“You know, I feel kind of connected to them,” Bella says as if reading my mind. “We’re all in the proximity of this blustering darkness, but we’re powerless.”
“You’re not powerless,” I say.
Bella smiles at me sadly. “I know you love me, that you’ll protect me no matter what. But you have your family’s name and legacy—nobody will hurt you the way people can hurt me.”
She’s right. I’m untouchable in this way, but that doesn’t mean people haven’t found ways to hurt me. I keep last night’s events to myself.
Bella points at the picture. “I checked highlights people saved from those nights. Both girls show up in other people’s stories for a few seconds. After that, nothing.”
“Bratva connection?” I ask.
“Possibly,” she says. “That club pulls our crowd. Private tables. Faces you recognize if you know where to look. Anya was obviously Julianne’s friend, and they had other friends from this world.
Samie’s father was an enforcer for the Romanovs.
He’s retired now but I heard she had a boyfriend and he did some work for them now and then.
Like I said, both girls were in proximity to the underworld without actually being someone of note. ”
She’s right. I can’t ignore that. They were easier to take; no one would ask questions.
I look at the screenshots again. They feel ordinary and wrong at the same time. “Send them to me,” I say.
She AirDrops them, and my phone buzzes against my palm.
“What are you thinking?” she asks.
“I don’t know what to think,” I say. “But if there is a pattern, it starts here.”
Bella studies my face. “Can you get out long enough to check it?”
“I’ll try,” I say.
We start back toward the house along the gravel path. Bella looks around, eyes wide. “This place is huge,” she whispers.
“You should see the garden,” I say. “It goes forever.”
Gravel crunches under our shoes. The garden smells like wet earth and cut grass.
Bella glances over her shoulder, lowers her voice. “What kind of man is he, Adi?” she asks.
I stare straight ahead. “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “He hasn’t hurt me.”
Bella frowns. “He has a reputation, you know. Everyone says he’s ruthless. He’s—” She searches my face. “You don’t look scared.”
I shrug. I can’t meet her eyes, not with the way my skin prickles at the memory of his mouth on me, the strength in his hands, the way he made me feel. Not terrified. Not threatened. Wanted. Like I was the only thing that mattered in the world, even if it was just for a few minutes.
“He doesn’t feel like a monster to me,” I say softly, almost embarrassed. “Not when we’re alone.”
Bella studies me. “You trust him?”
I think of last night, the way I melted beneath his hands. The way my body answers him even when my head screams caution. My cheeks flush. “I don’t know if I trust him,” I admit. “But I want him. Every time he’s near, it’s like I forget who he’s supposed to be.”
Bella gives me a look—half concern, half a smile. “Be careful,” she says. “That’s how monsters get in.”
I want to argue, but before I can, voices carry over the hedge, and both of us go silent.
Bella hesitates. “Should we be here?”
Curiosity spikes. “No reason not to,” I murmur, though my pulse kicks. We move closer, keeping to the shade. The hedges are tall enough to hide us. I ease a branch aside and look through.
Dante stands on the flagstones near the old stone wall, a man kneeling before him. Dante’s sleeves are rolled, face unreadable. A few feet away, another man stands stiffly apart from him, half in shadow.
My breath stops. “Maksim,” I whisper.
Bella recognizes him too. Her fingers dig into my sleeve. She looks as surprised as I feel.
Maksim reads from his phone. “Two texts from your burner on the nights the convoy schedule went out. You sent arrival windows and warehouse bay numbers. Five minutes later, deposits hit your wife’s account. Same bank. Same payer.”
The kneeling man jerks his head up. “Boss, please. I was drunk. I was mouthing off. I never—”
Dante’s voice is even. “You met a Sokolov runner behind the club.”
The man’s mouth opens and closes. “It was a bag drop. I didn’t know what was in it.”
Dante doesn’t blink. “We have you on camera at the service door. You count the money.”
The man swallows. “I have a son. I’ll give names. I’ll make it right.”
“You can’t make this right,” Dante says.
He raises the gun. My heart stops, and I watch in horror, breath trapped in my chest.
No, I mouth, but no sound comes. The man on his knees begins to sob. He pleads, words breaking apart, but Dante doesn’t flinch.
He fires.
The shot is sudden, final. The man collapses forward onto the stones. For a moment, no one moves. Dante stands over the body, face unreadable, the gun still in his hand.
Then he looks up—straight toward the hedge, straight at me.
Our eyes lock.
I can’t move. I can’t even breathe.
He knows.