the abused wife of the Mafia King

I was peacefully sleeping when I suddenly woke up to the sound of beating again. This is the third time this week that Dan gets drunk and beats my mum. There is slamming and smashing sound coming, and I know that Dan, my stepfather, is beating up my mother again. He does this whenever he loses money while gambling and when he has too much to drink. I roll over my bed and look at the time; It is past 2 am. Just as I am about to go back to sleep, I hear my mother scream, enough for the whole neighbourhood to hear. I quickly run down the stairs to see my mother on the floor, with Dan on top of her choking. "Get away from her," I scream at Dan as I run to push him off her. I push Dan away, and he hits his head on the side table that is already broken. I pick my mother off the floor and see that there is blood pouring down her tiny head. She has split lips, and the bruise of this week is still visible on her body, and now she has more injuries and bruises. I turn my head to Dan, and he is furious at me. He picks himself up off the floor and takes out his belt. I already know what is going to happen next. I hold my mother tightly and press her head under my arms, covering her from what's to come. My mother is barely moving. Dan takes a step forward and puts my head on my mother's, shielding her. But instead of feeling the belt on my body, I get my hair pulled. Dan pulls me by my hair and drags me across the lounge. I scream in pain and fear, begging him to let me go, but he is too blind by his state to hear a word I take out. I can feel my hair coming off in his hand. I barely have any hair left; Dan pulls my hair whenever he gets angry because my father used to love my hair. And because of that, Dan always targets my hair. "Dan, please stop, please. I am begging you", I plead with my hands in front of him in a begging position, but he ignores it. He drags me up to my room, over the stairs. Ignoring my legs and arm hitting the edges of the stairs, he throws me in my room, and with the belt that was in his hand, he starts whipping me. He tries to whip my face because he knows that I go to university and work, so I need my pretty face to fool everyone that I am okay. He starts whipping me, ignoring my cries and pleads. He hits me to the point that my skin starts to bleed. My arms and face begin to bleed profoundly, and Dan only then stops. The pain is so much that I cannot even stop my tears. Dan bends beside me, and I quickly turn into a small body, hugging my knees. "You better watch those hands, because next time you push me, I will rip those arms off," he said as he breathed heavily. I nod my head at him, and he sneers at me. "Speak and say understood," he says again with a smirk this time. "U, Und... Understood," I shatter out. Not being able to speak due to the pain. He gets up and walks out of my room, slamming my door behind him. I roll on my side to avoid sleeping on my wounds and cry myself to sleep. I cried my heart out; silence cries so Dan and my mother don't hear me. Otherwise, there would be a second round of this. I lay there on the side, thinking about the times that my dad was here; he never used his hands on us; he loved us too much, but he passed away when I was only 10. He was in a car accident, and he died on the spot without saying goodbye to us. "Why did you leave us, Dad?" I cried out silently. "Dan beats your daughter every day, Dad, and he doesn't stop, so why did you leave us here alone?" I cried again. I am not being able to stop my cries. I lay there for a few more minutes when I started hearing moans and groans from downstairs, and I was sure my mother had already forgiven that bastard and was not pleasing him with her body. I hate her for allowing such men to enter her life, for allowing him to treat us like slaves and punch bags. I hate how she couldn't stay strong for me. With the hatred in my heart for both my mum and Dan, I fall asleep on the floor. The following day, I woke up to the sound of my alarm. I tried to open my eyes and turn off my alarm, but the pain in my bed and the tiredness weren't allowing me. I groaned in pain and tried to open my eyes, only to realize it was still dark outside. This is my daily routine: I wake up at 5 am, I do my morning routine, and make breakfast for everyone, clean the house before my mum and Dan wake up, and just as they wake up, I place the food in front of them and leave home by 8 am for university. I am currently in the final year of my bachelor's degree in arts and architecture; I have a double degree. The study is a lot and very tiring, but the thought of leaving home when I find a good job is the only thing that keeps me going. The subjects I am doing right now are what my father did in his years. He was a well-known architect who built a stable life for me and my mother, but everything changed when he got into a car accident. My mother became depressed and used the company of bad people, and that is when she met Dan. Dan knew their mother was wealthy, so he used all my mother and father's savings and spent it on gambling. My mother didn't say anything or try to stop him. We went broke after a couple of years; we barely had food or drink. It's a good thing the house we are living in paid for. Otherwise, we would've been on the streets by now. All of my father's hard work went down the drain, and my life went from being a princess to being a girl on a scholarship who didn't have lunch money. In simple words, my life is a MISERY.