stuck b/w two story lines :(

i recently started working on a piece and i've basically got two versions of the exposition and i cant decide which to use, so i'm looking for input. here goes. my main character was once the ward of a family of... lets call them sorcerors for the sake of keeping this short. she and the youngest son loved each other but at some point she starts to feel trapped (she's kept on a very short leash) and around the same time learns that the family makes its money through less than savory means, including the sale of slaves among other things. she betrays the family and in a skirmish she herself stabs the son but she's caught. so that's what i'm certain of, i'm also certain that years later the head of this family has hatched an evil plan and his youngest son and former ward meet while both trying to stop him. that's really the meat of the story, what happens after that reununion and trying to stop what could possible be the appocolypse :P however i'm unsure of what to do about how the head of the family handles her after she betrays his family and tried to kill his son. he himself loves her like his own child and cant bring himself to kill her so even though he claims that he has executed her secretly he can either 1) simply banish her and use his power to hide her from the others of his kind or 2) strip her of all her memories as punishment (not recoverable) and then banish and hide her. with her memories i feel like the story gets bogged down in all these heavy conversations they have to have and alot of time gets spent on them bickering and trying to find a way to be ok with each other. i also feel like it can't have them get back together if she remembers what she did. i've tried and it just always feels just wrong. w/out her memories the story flows better, it lends itself to exploring the "male lead's" serious inner conflicts more and i feel it's easier to establish the main character in her new life if she doesnt remember her past. but i also feel like it's a cliched and then you have the problem of "the big reveal" when she learns of who she is and what she's done to the man she's fallen in love with all over again, even though she thinks it's for the 1st time. i'm having a seriously hard time making her reaction feel genuine and not over the top or kitchy. so thoughts?

i'm pretty much settled on third person omniscient. ok, so the back story in is that the family are what are what i'm calling "dealers" once they were demi gods but they've lost thier connection with "heaven" and now they live on earth and use thier powers to make deals with the mortals sort of like a mix b/w a deal with a demon and rumplestilskin from once upon a time. in exchange for prosperity her family gives her to the dealers when she's very young, so she's technically a slave, but she's never treated as such and it's kept a secret from her, as is where the family's considerable wealth and power comes from. she is told that her family were beloved servants at the estate and died of a fever. the betrayal is actually a culmination of three things happening at once. 1st, Soran (leading lady) has a short leash as i said but she convinces Esch (the son, pronounced Ehsh, like the artist MC Escher) to take her with him on a business trip b/c she's never been farther than the next town over from the family estate. while on the trip she realizes that most young ladies of her age aren't as closely kept as she is. in fact at one point during the trip Esch gets extremely angry with her for taking a trip to the market with the daughter of the house they are staying in. of course Soran doesnt know this is b/c it could be dangerous for her if anyone found out she was the ward of dealer. Soran starts to feel very trapped. mostly she starts to wonder if she really loves Esch or if she only thinks she does b/c there's never really been any other choice in her. she feels that way about her whole life really, "am i really happy or do i just think i am b/c it's all i've ever known?" 2nd, it is announced that Esch is getting married and not to Soran. there arent many dealers left and it's really perferred that they marry one another in the hopes of passing power from parent to child. w/out even asking, Esch and his whole family go about planning the wedding as if Soran will be kept as Esch's official mistress. she feels like a pet or a child, being told what the will do not asked for their opinion. 3rd. Esch's fiance is not happy with the idea of the her soon to be husband being so attached to his mistress, in an attempt to drive her away the fiance reveals the truth of how Soran came to the Estate. she tells Soran of the often shady deals and how sometimes the dealers purposely trick people and about the slave trafficking. it works and Soran runs off, the fiance having arranged for her to "coincidentally" come across a group of people of believe the dealers to be evil (and really, sometimes they kind of are) these people feed Soran horror stories and tell her the family will be making a deal that will enslaves dozens of young girls like her self soon and get her to give up the location date and time of the meet. these people bring Soran to the ambush as leverage. during the Ambush Esch sees her and believieng she's been kidnapped he tries to rescue her but Soran, who's been in a great deal of emotional upheaval as of late, sees the wagon full of slaves, can only think of all the horrible things Esch and his family have done and when he tries to grab her she stabs him (in the heart, gotta love the symbolisim) being a Demi god it doesnt kill him. the dealers take the day and Soran and her cohorts are captured. haivng stabbed him soran kind of snaps a little, unable to reconcile her love for him with what he'd done and what she had done. she's also pretty sure she's about to die. despite her betrayal Esch sits in the dungeon holding her until she is taken away, he thinks for execution, but his father also can't totally disreguard his love for her no matter what she's done.

@kailakin some of my ideas are still kind of half formed but i've sort of imagined Esch as an unhappy child, he has a short temper and never particularly cared for the family business, a lot of conflict w/in the family that kind of thing. there are two sons in the family already so maybe the family just sort of falls in love with this little toddler and decides to keep her and Esch forms a special bond since she would be the only one who has no expectations of him. Dealers arent well liked so there are enemies everywhere, so it would begin as a way to keep her safe, but i also imagine the relationship could lead to co-dependency issues and eventually end up in a place where Esch views Soran almost as his possession. His own feelings of inadequecy could easily leave him worried that if she were to have too much freedom she'd leave him. When they make deals they usually go to the person who wants to make the deal, nothing happens there are the estate so simple lies about could have kept thier secret. i think they might not be very open about it in general to begin with as a way to keep a low profile. as to the motivation for removing the memories, i can see it going both ways. 1. he wanted to throw her out in the cold w/out the comfort of the memories of her loved ones or 2. he wanted to throw her out in the cold with the knowledge of what she had done and what she had lost comfortable in the knowledge that Soran would know if she so much as said boo he'd end her. since dealers are basically washed up low level dieties their powers are vast. i've sort of written a bit of it both ways and i just cant decide. w/memory loss i've left her with the memories of the rules Dealers must follow when making their deals which enables her to help others by breaking unfair deals (something she doesnt do a lot and keeps very secretive about) but the only other memory she has is that of being in the dungeon, but she has no context for it, though the memory would very slloooooowly reveal more and more of itself over time. w/her memories i still have her breaking deals (in both versions it's her deal breaking that brings the two back together) they're both very conflcited, Soran b/c she regrets trying to kill him but nothing else and Esch because he loves her but he she betrayed the family and abandoned him and he's been in a lot of pain for a very long time because of it. btw, thanks for letting me bounce ideas off of you guys, sometimes i find when you get stuck, it's best to get a fresh perspective!

in this story world of yours, the term "relationship" could have been an supernatural power that dealers have since they are demi gods that live in "heaven"
which can be also used as an advantage tool when making deals, this could also explain and lead what the head of this family's evil plan .  relationship bonding with others could lead to the discovery of growth in the abilities especially when come to finding true love this could explain why the family or someone want both/or Soran/Esch's memory of each other gone but slowly its was soran that break that deal that lead them to recovery try to roadmap the background of each character, the background and the personalty are important as they help to create eventful story line which eventually lead to good drama
the readers doesn't have to know every detail of the back story but you as an creator must need to know these detail as to crave out an good story character
 like what the background of the head of the family, how did he come to have some much power in the slave trading industry  etc t
he way your story goes the family does hold some kind great position  in an social setting, use that to add plot twister like the head of the family went to see an famous fortune teller to see which of his heir has most influence when they turn adult?