My Boyfriend Sold Me to Bellandi—Too Bad I Was Bellandi’s Heiress Chapter 04

My Boyfriend Sold Me to Bellandi—Too Bad I Was Bellandi’s Heiress Chapter 04

The room went silent.

Don Bellandi hadn’t moved. His eyes stayed locked on the necklace, still rocking slightly on the marble where it had landed.

Then he looked up at me. Really looked this time-searching my face inch by inch.

My hair plastered to my forehead. The teardrop mole by my eye. My mouth pressed tight against the pain.

And my eyes.

Even through the pain and the fear, the resemblance was unmistakable. My mother’s face, looking back at him through mine.

“Elena?” His voice cracked on the second syllable.

I tried to nod, tried to speak, but all my throat gave me was a broken sound.

Marco, still clueless, stepped forward with a nervous, apologetic smile.

“Don, she kept claiming she was your niece, so I showed her her place. As you can see-”

“Set her straight?”

Don Bellandi turned his head. Slowly.

The room seemed to lose all its air.

“What did you do to her?”

Marco faltered under that stare. “I just forced some vodka into her. Broke one finger. That’s all.”

“A liar like that deserves-”

“On your knees.”

“What?”

“I said on your fucking knees!”

–

The roar that came out of Don Bellandi shook the walls.

Marco’s legs buckled, and he hit the floor on both knees.

The Vales dropped beside him, shaking so hard they could barely stay upright on their knees.

Don Bellandi crossed the room to me in three strides and crouched down.

His hands, when they reached for me, were impossibly gentle.

“Elena, is it really you?”

He pushed the hair from my face, and when his fingers found my swollen cheek, his hand shook.

I looked up at him, and the tears I’d been fighting finally won.

He knew me.

“Does it hurt?”

I’d never heard panic in his voice before. Not once in my life.

“Where does it hurt? Show me. Tell me where.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out except a raw, airless rasp.

Something in Don Bellandi’s face collapsed.

He turned back to Marco. Each word came out like a separate sentence.

“Did you pour vodka down her throat?”

“Don, I didn’t know she-” Marco was stumbling over his own tongue.

“I asked you a question.”

Don Bellandi was on his feet in one motion.

His custom boot slammed into Marco’s chest.

Marco flew back and crashed through the coffee table. He rolled onto his side, coughing blood onto the

marble.

“You put your hands on my blood.”

Every word was ice.

“Dead man.”

He came back to me and lifted me off the floor like I was made of glass.

“It’s over, Elena.”

“I’m here.”

“Every prick who touched you tonight is going to pay with their lives.”

The edges of the room went soft.

My broken finger, my scorched throat, every bruise on my body – all of it rushed in at once, like my body had been waiting for permission to fall apart.

I fought to stay conscious.

My left hand found his coat and held on, and with what little I had left, I pointed at the Vales.

“They…”

One word. That was all I could give him.

Don Bellandi followed my finger to the Vales, and the look in his eyes was something I’d never seen before. Something no one should ever have to see twice.

“Okay.” His voice was soft again, just for me. “I know.”

He carried me toward the door.

At the threshold, he paused and spoke to the soldiers standing guard.

“Put them in the basement. All of them. Keep eyes on them at all times.”

He paused.

“And one more thing.”

His voice dropped to something barely human.

“Get Dr. Hayes. The Family doc. Now.”

The soldiers moved before he finished the sentence.

Behind us, the Vales broke.

“Don, please – have mercy!”

“We didn’t know! We swear we didn’t know she was your blood!”

“Ethan! Beg her! Get on your knees and beg her to let us go!”

“Elena, I’m sorry! Please – three years together, that has to mean something-”

Their voices faded as we moved down the hall.

I let my head fall against my uncle’s chest and, for the first time that night, exhaled.

The last thing I heard before the dark took me was his voice – low, controlled, and vibrating with

something far worse than anger.

“Find out everything.”

“No one who laid a hand on her tonight leaves this compound breathing.”