My Boyfriend Sold Me to Bellandi—Too Bad I Was Bellandi’s Heiress Chapter 08

My Boyfriend Sold Me to Bellandi—Too Bad I Was Bellandi’s Heiress Chapter 08

Rehab started shortly after.

In the beginning, standing was the entire exercise – both hands on the barre, shaking, just trying to stay

upright.

My uncle watched from the doorway.

Every fall. Every time I dragged myself back up.

He never told me to stop.

When I was done, he’d just settle my coat around my shoulders and walk me back to my room.

“Elena, you don’t have to kill yourself over this, kid.”

I shook my head.

“Mom pushed through worse than this.”

“If she could make it onto that stage, so can I.”

Months later, the splint came off.

I laced up my dance shoes for the first time since Christmas Eve.

When the time was right, I left for Aldoria.

My uncle drove me to the private airstrip himself.

Before I boarded, he clasped my mother’s necklace around my neck.

“Keep it with you.”

“Don’t ever let them see you bleed.”

“A Bellandi gets back up. Always.”

I hugged him.

“Front row for my debut, right?”

His eyes were wet, but all he did was rest his hand on my head one last time.

“Count on it.”

And I did it.

From understudy to soloist.

From soloist to principal.

The night I took the stage at the Grandcrest Theater – my mother’s dream stage, the one she never got to stand on I pressed the necklace to my chest the moment the spotlight found me.

She saw it.

I know she did.

The tour came after that.

Kingsport. Oakhaven. Suncrest. Rivermont.

At every curtain call, the front row held the same row of heavy hitters in custom suits.

My uncle, dead center.

Everyone assumed I had a powerful patron.

They were right.

They just didn’t know he was sitting there for my mother, too.

Ethan’s name drifted back to me on a winter morning.

My assistant knocked on the dressing room door, voice low, and told me there was news out of the quarries.

Ethan was dead.

A rockfall.

He’d been cutting corners down in the pit, and by the time they pulled him out, he was already gone.

His parents were still alive.

Still breaking rocks.

I sat with it for a moment.

Then I finished lacing my shoes.

I had a show that night.

Ethan had once tried to take my legs from me.

Now I stood on them beneath spotlights he’d never see.

Daniel came into my life down the line.

He was the company’s rehearsal pianist – quiet hands, warm eyes.

The first time he met my uncle, six of my uncle’s fixers had already torn his background apart while he

stood there sweating through his shirt.

My uncle looked him over and asked one question.

“What makes you think you got what it takes to protect my blood?”

Daniel didn’t flinch.

“I’ll never have your kind of power. But I’ll be there. Every day. And if she wants to dance, I’ll play for her for

the rest of my life.”

My uncle held his stare for a long time.

His expression gave away nothing.

“See that you do.”

On my wedding day, my uncle walked me down the aisle.

When he placed my hand in Daniel’s, his eyes were red.

“You guard her with your life.”

Daniel held his gaze.

“With my life.”

After the ceremony, my uncle found me in the garden.

He stood there watching me for a long time.

“Your mother would be so proud of you.”

My throat tightened.

“What about you?”

He rested his hand on my head.

“So am I.”

“I finally kept my promise to her.”

The last of the sun caught the white roses along the compound wall.

Wind lifted the hem of my dress and moved over my hands, my legs

tried to ruin.

the finger they broke, the calf they

The scars were still there.

They hadn’t won.

All they proved was that I’d climbed out of the darkest night of my life and kept walking.

Mom, are you watching?

Look at your girl now.

Betrayal didn’t trap her.

Pain didn’t break her.

She didn’t let the anger eat her alive.

She carried your dream all the way to the finish line, and she found love of her own.

This time, I won.

All the way.

On my own terms.