servile marriage

CHAPTER 7

THIRD PERSON'S POV

"Well, aren't you a pretty little thing?" He
said with a disgusting smirk on his face." What do you think, boys?" he said as he forcefully turned her to face them. By now the on top of her mom had stood up and was zipping his pants. "With a lot of care, we could raise this one into our own personal star." He said as laughter filled the room

"Even better. We could turn her into the perfect wife for the boss's son. With a little bit of discipline and force, Elijah wouldn't mind. He doesn't seem to care anyway, " the youngest out of all of them suggested

"Well, that would be pleasant—" his sentence was interrupted by a phone call
Even though the strange bearded man holding her against her, well prevented her from hugging the pained look on her mother's face she couldn't help but stare

She stared at the men in the room, the ones that hurt the most precious person she'd ever come to meet, the ones that wouldn't stop laughing at their misery. One thing was for sure, she would do anything and everything to make their lives a living hell even if along the process one of them died she would make a deal with the devil to make them suffer.

Even as the years went by, Michelle couldn't get that thought to go away, but then again, she didn't want to. Just like the Bible verse 11:11 says "Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them." She might have not had the power of a God, but she did have the power of a vengeful black woman who would do anything to protect and survive the harsh enigma it had to offer

Even though she had all this, there was a big problem that seemed to follow her as she went on with life. Fear and confidence. These two always seemed to want that one part of the brain that controlled emotions but no matter how hard she tried to seem stable, the fear always overcame the confidence

Elijah made sure to install as much fear in her as possible and he made sure she couldn't be confident enough to seek help from anyone but one thing Elijah couldn't break was the innocence and the love she radiated to the people around her so instead he broke her bones living her on that playroom floor crying to fend for herself, harsh words thrown at her filled with nothing but distaste. Nonetheless, she humbled herself in front of him out of fear, but inside, the hatred escalated

So when she woke up in an unfamiliar room filled with darkness the only source of light being the moon. She couldn't help but wonder what she ever did to her father for him to just discard her like this. She couldn't count the number of times she begged him to stop hurting her or the number of times she envied her peers as they shared a non-conditional bond with their fathers.

Although she had lost her mother in such a disgusting way. she couldn't turn back time nor could she change the fact that she had come to terms with what had become of her life

So she sat there in the farthest corner of the room with her keens bent, arms crossed over them and her face buried within them quietly sobbing with the sudden urge to just yell 'fuck yous' at the universe for throwing her at father like Elijah. Then again he was no father but an animal

MICHELLE'S POV

'I'm selling you.' Those words couldn't stop laughing at me, and it was starting to hurt my head 

And no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't stop the tears from flowing out. I'm pretty sure I had used up half of the water in my body, or however, that works

About an hour ago, I woke up to one of the worst headaches in history. More painful than that one time KC dragged me to a club for the first time in my life, telling me I had to live a little, then proceeded to encourage me to drown 5 shots and a few other drinks that for the love of me I just couldn't care to remember the name. Well, it was a big mistake on my part because I had to skip two days of uni because of alcohol poisoning. This ended up with a 5-minute lecture from my father.

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you conjure the word 'kidnapped'? Well, a creepy old cage with dried blood stains all over it, a psychic middle-aged man who's obsessed with chains and sedative syringes, or just your average-looking rapist Joe.

That wasn't the situation for me.

Instead, I woke up in one of the fanciest bedrooms I'd only ever perfected on Pinterest. Was my kidnapper some kind of millionaire or something?

It had a queen-sized bed in the middle, which I had found myself carefully lying down on with the duvet covering me. On the side were two doors, which I later found out were a bathroom and a walk-in closet, which might I tell you looked like they belonged to the Kardashians

Nonetheless, all this wasn't enough to put my racing thoughts at rest because I still had to figure out where I was and why but after a long 30 seconds I realized that my father 'sold me' or whatever the heck he said before I was sent to rest by those men

See when I was 13 years old I realized that if I wanted to defend myself from people like my father in the future I'd require some means of self-defense which at that time I lacked given my age and height. That was until I discovered hacking from my uncle Demarcus, also a younger brother from my mother's side who lived in Harrisburg with the rest of my mother's family

Every summer, my father would drop me off at my grandmother's house while he would go wherever he went with his friends

Every time he would drop me off, he would say the same thing over and over again. "If anyone finds out about what happens at home. Not only will I send you down the same road as your mother, but I'll also make sure to kill the very person you went crying to. Got that kid, " he would say as he held me in a choke hold, and because I couldn't breathe, I'd nod my head vigorously as tears ran down my face, and when he'd confirm my silence he'd tell me to put a smile on and stop acting like a little brat.

However, along the way, my grandmother would notice how abnormal my behavior was when I'd refused to take off my clothes to go swimming, not that I could ever swim in the first place, or how I'd refuse her help to get me dressed even though I had some difficulty I would always just suck it up

In the end, it was always worth it because my uncle would give me lessons whenever he had the time, and by the time I was 14, I committed my first crime in hacking.

As a set on my uncle's office chair with pillows tucked underneath so I would be able to see the screen properly. My uncle set beside me, watching nervously as I typed on the screen, trying to go as fast as my fingers could.

"And remember the first phase of reconnaissance is dumpster diving. Try and find as much information as you can don't just go for the building's cameras those are useful but remember that the evidence In it could have been tampered with" my uncle would say

His company had asked him to hack into one of their rivalries for any dark information they could use against them and since this was something big my uncle gave it to me to handle. 'Let's taste the water and see how you'll do for your first solo' he would say even though it would cost him his job if I failed. So I did all I could and after 6 hours of non-stop typing and an energy drive I was in and my uncle was ecstatic.

"To think a 14-year-old little girl just hacked into a million-dollar company. Not so bad for a rookie huh kid" he said as he ruffled the bun on top of my head.

"if you carry on like this kid, by the time you're 20 you'll be able to surpass even me," he said as he kissed the top of my hair smiling with pride. That smile right there was what gave me the motivation to become better, and better I did because, by the time I was 18, I started looking into the people that raped and killed my mother

I started with the little things like the guys my father would gamble with or all of his close friends which I might add had a very sketchy history. I couldn't report them to the police because maybe then I'd draw attention to myself so I made sure to be as discreet as I possibly could. By the time I was 20 I had gone through every sketchy criminal that could possibly be connected to my father in Philadelphia and by that time I had discovered something I thought had gone extinct years ago

The mafia

Now anyone in their right mind would instantly back down and just leave it at that but I wasn't just anyone. I had a goal I needed to achieve to find my mom's killer and I'd go to any extent to find them