Claimed by my ex husbands uncle

Chapter 2

THE RECKONING

ELENA’S POV

The ballroom is a glittering, suffocating dream.

Chandeliers hang from the ceiling like frozen tears, and the walls are decorated with white flowers that cost more than some people’s cars. The band plays classical music while expensive clothes, expensive jewelry, and expensive smiles surround me everywhere I look. Everyone belongs here. Everyone except me.

I’ve been standing next to Adrian for two hours with my face frozen in a smile that makes my cheeks ache. His hand on my waist isn’t affectionate—it’s possessive, claiming territory like I’m his property. Every few minutes, someone approaches, and he introduces me with polite distance, like I’m an accessory he’s briefly showing off before putting away.

“Elena is well, she’s quiet,” Margaret had said earlier today, and her tone made it clear that quiet means insignificant. “At least she knows her place.”

I’m so tired of knowing my place.

Around nine o’clock, Adrian’s phone buzzes and he glances at it. Something changes in his face immediately. His jaw gets tight, and his eyes get that glassy, excited look they used to have when he looked at me years ago. My stomach drops before he even speaks.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he says quietly, squeezing my waist too tightly before walking away.

I watch him cross the ballroom, weaving through groups of people until he reaches a corner near the champagne tower. There, wearing a red dress that looks painted onto her skin, is Vanessa. My cousin. She stayed at our house last month, and I spent an entire afternoon trying to be her friend while Adrian was in meetings.

They don’t even hide it. Adrian takes her hand, and I watch him smile at her—a real smile, the way he used to smile at me. My chest gets tight, and my hands clench into fists.

Margaret appears beside me, following my gaze. I feel her cold stare before she even speaks.

“He’s done with you, you know,” she says casually, like she’s talking about the weather. “Adrian has been done with you for months because you’re just too inadequate for a Blackwood.”

“Margaret—” I start, but she’s not finished.

“He married you out of pity, some foolish idea that helping people might make him look noble, but you disappointed him and us.” She puts her champagne glass down on my hand and lets it rest there. “You were supposed to give him children—that’s the one thing women like you are supposed to be good at, and you couldn’t even do that.”

I can’t breathe, and the ballroom is spinning around me.

Before I can say anything, a woman next to me leans in. Her name is Claire, and she works with Adrian.

“Don’t let her get to you,” Claire whispers. “Margaret is cruel to everyone.”

But her words don’t help because Margaret is right. I failed at the one thing I was supposed to do.

The band stops playing, and silence fills the ballroom. Then Adrian’s voice cuts through it—loud, clear, and cruel.

“Can I have everyone’s attention, please?”

My blood goes cold because I know that tone. I’ve heard it when he fires people, when he destroys careers, but never at me. Never in public.

I turn around, and he’s standing in the center of the ballroom with one arm around Vanessa and the other holding a champagne glass. Everyone is watching, and everyone is quiet.

“I just wanted to announce that my wife and I have decided to end our marriage because Elena and I have simply grown incompatible,” he says, his voice carrying through the whole room.

The room erupts in whispers as I see the looks, the judgment, the barely hidden happiness. People love watching someone fall.

Adrian keeps going. “I’ve also decided to pursue someone who actually understands what it means to be a Blackwood wife—someone who can give me what I deserve.” He pulls Vanessa closer, and she laughs—bright and cruel, the laugh of someone who always knew she’d win.

“The issue is that Elena was never capable of giving me children because she’s barren and broken,” Adrian continues, his eyes finding mine across the ballroom. “I suppose that’s fitting since she broke into this family like a thief in the first place.”

The room spins as I see faces staring at me, and I see Margaret’s satisfied expression. My humiliation spreads through the ballroom like a stain that will never wash out.

I know what I have to do. I have to leave.

I don’t remember my legs moving, but suddenly I’m walking toward the exit while people part to let me through. I feel their stares like physical weight as someone whispers something and someone else laughs, but I don’t stop, and I don’t look back.

The cold air outside hits my face like a slap, and I realize I’m shaking. My hands, my legs, everything inside me is vibrating with shock, with rage, with something I haven’t felt in three years—freedom.

I can’t go home because I can’t stand the thought of being in that mansion, in that life, for one more second.

My heels click on the pavement as I walk toward the street, and a sleek black car pulls up beside me after I’ve only taken ten steps.

The driver leans out the window. “Miss Vale? I’m here for you,” he says.

I don’t ask who sent him because I don’t care. I slide into the back seat, and when he asks where I want to go, I tell him the truth.

“I don’t know,” I say, and my voice sounds strange and new. “Just drive. Away from here.”

We drive in silence for a few minutes while I watch the city lights pass by—beautiful lights that are far away from the mansion, far away from Adrian, far away from all of it.

“Miss, there’s a five-star hotel nearby called The Grandview,” the driver says. “Would you like to go there?”

I think about walking into a place like that, about spending the night, about pretending to be someone who belongs in a five-star hotel.

“Yes,” I say. “Take me there.”

As we drive away from the gala, away from the Blackwood estate, away from everything I’ve known, I feel something dangerous building inside me. The girl Adrian destroyed tonight doesn’t exist anymore because someone else is sitting in her place—someone stronger, someone angrier, someone ready for whatever comes next.

We drive for twenty minutes before we arrive at a building so tall and elegant that it makes my breath catch. It’s a five-star hotel, the kind of place where people like me don’t usually go.

But tonight, I’m not people like me anymore.

The driver pulls up to the entrance and turns to me. “Will there be anything else, Miss Vale?” he asks.

I look at the doors and the lights inside, and I think about walking in there—just me, without Adrian, without Margaret, without anyone telling me who I’m supposed to be.

“No,” I say. “Thank you. That’s everything.”

I get out of the car, and the doors are right there. My future is right there. I just have to walk through them.

And I do.