"It was a mistake..." She told her mother, folding her hands into each other. "Marrying him..." Her mother said nothing, she simply sat there as her only daughter stood across from her, on the verge of collapsing from bruised ribs and cracked shins.
"Mom." She wanted to reach out, softly tap her aging mother. Though that was the restriction of her life. The binding stereotype that she was gentle and slow to anger. In reality, what wanted to explode from her ribs was a scream of an animal, and the tears of repressed rage and fear. She wanted to throw her body onto the floor, but the thought made her damaged body ache more. There was no response from her mother. The deafening silence reminded her of her own quietness as her husband shouted at her, his fists bloody. He told her that she was only a tool for his amusement and a money-whore for her indigent family.
She was nothing else but a tool for both parties.
And she was starting to believe him.
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Sarah Johnsen's life spirals from the normal gritty resilient fight to a serene wonderland. On the outside, she's married to a kind family with untold riches, but on the inside, her husband is the devil himself. Forcefully married at 18, Sarah was forced to kill her own dreams of becoming a doctor in order to bind her poor family to the rich bastards of Glendale by marrying their youngest; Oliver Grean.
Their arrangement had the ability to brew the largest timespan of misery any of them has ever known. From lost toddlers to paid staged kidnappings, the binding of the two families, the Johnsen's and the Grean's created a mixture of chaos, confusion, sorrow, fear, grief, and dangerous rage.
And there seems to be no haven to escape to.
Or is there?
(TW: Rape, molestation, abuse, kidnapping, abandonment, swearing, murder, drug use, suicide attempts/thoughts, necrophilia, fire; READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!)
!-A series of lore for the Stratford Series (first installment is "Casanova")-!
[Final Version]
**Trigger Warning**
Story contains abuse, violence and other triggers. All use of images are for entertainment and in no way meant to reflect on the real people.
Mya is a 17-year-old girl on the cusp of womanhood when her mother gets married to Mason. Mason is a seemingly good man, but he has a son who isn't so nice. Jamal is 21 and doesn't understand why his father would get married now, but it is more than an inconvenience to his plans. Jamal despises his father for the things done to him in the past and hates his new step-mother and step-sister. All he cares for is running his father's drug empire on his own, and the opportunity is near.
Soon, Jamal will run the family business, and he can go further than his father ever dreamed of. Mya knows Jamal hates her, but a part of her has yearned for Jamal's acceptance instead of his wrath. Unfortunately for Mya, Jamal paying her any attention isn't good for her wellbeing. Through a series of traumatic experiences, Jamal makes her life a living hell and keeps her all to himself.