Divorcing Her Mafia Family
Chapter 15

Dimi walked into the warehouse holding cell and took a seat at the small table Miklos had thrown in there for her. She felt the confused gaze of the man tied to the chair resting on her as he sat sulking in his seat.

“They bring a little girl now to try to scare me?”

She looked over her shoulder, “Mr. Pappas, before you begin to be disrespectful, I will introduce myself.” She pivoted the chair on one leg turning her body in his direction, “my name is Dimitra Lykiaos-Laskaris. Perhaps you’ve met my father Vasili or my husband Miklos? While I personally do not tolerate disrespect, both my father and husband abhor it even more than I do, and they will insist you do not disrespect me.” She watched the man pale immediately. “Now I don’t know if you are aware, but my father did not ever feel a woman’s place was in the home. He felt I should be able to run his businesses when he retired with the same level of,” she tapped her chin as if searching a word, “panache as Miklos.” She sighed dramatically, “the problem is, as a woman, sometimes I have to prove myself in a way men don’t have to.” She blinked at him as if sharing a secret, “oftentimes people underestimate my abilities because I lack a p***s.”

“Mrs. Laskaris,” he started, “please, if you could talk to your husband and make him see reason.”

“Mr. Pappas, he brought me here to kill you.”

The man’s mouth dropped open at her words, “kill me?”

“A mutual acquaintance has indicated you have outlived your usefulness. You’ve been kept alive for the last several years in an attempt for my husband’s friend, Mr. Masalis, to regain a fraction of the money you’ve swindled from him. However, since you’ve indicated to him you are now on the verge of bankruptcy and have no money at all, he wants you and your family gone.”

“I will get the money.” He spoke quickly.

“You’ve been saying this for years and from what I understand of Kostas Masalis, he’s one cold son of a b***h. I’m trying to figure out why he’s let you live this long. Then I remembered your youngest daughter turns twenty-one next week. Set to inherit her ten million dollars left to her by your father in her trust fund. Tell me, Mr. Pappas, did you already steal her money the same way you did Darya’s and Lyra’s?”

He blinked rapidly, “I didn’t steal it. I reallocated it so it could gain the interest needed to repay Mr. Masalis.”

“Lies,” she gave a big sigh. “You’re a con artist who has swindled not only all the money your father and grandfather worked so hard to earn but also the funds of your daughters they put away for their security. My father might be Vasili Lykiaos, but he would never steal from his own daughter. He protects me, not throws me to wolves.”

“You do not know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you wanted Darya to marry Jurek in payment to Kostas. You know he date-rapes women, right?”

“You don’t know what you speak of,” he sputtered at her.

She got up from her seat, walked to him, and punched him hard in the face, the crack of his nose breaking echoing in the quiet of the room, followed by his loud scream. She removed her knuckle dusters and held them up for examination, “I forgot the damage they can inflict.”

“You broke my nose!”

“I promised Miklos to not do any real damage until he came in, so count your blessings. Usually, I use the cigar cutters to remove appendages, but he is busy talking to the man to whom you apparently owe a quarter billion dollars.” She gave a toss of her hands and moved back to her chair. “This your laptop, Mr. Pappas?”

“Yes. My nose is bleeding,” he complained as b***d continued to pour down his lips and his chin to the white shirt he wore. It was a stark demonstration of the violence she had been borne to wield.

“Password please.” Her lips in a straight line.

“What do you intend to replace?” he spit b***d out across the room.

“Your porn stash.” She mocked him and then sighed loudly, “I said please. I’ve tried all the fancy ones like your birthday and your wife’s birthday and your kids’ birthdays but none of them worked. I tried Masalis-is-an-a*****e and many variations of this. I even tried the dog’s name but didn’t work. I’ve had a long day and really want to skip the more difficult work of bypassing your security. Now, you have until the count of three to provide the password before I decide to get more violent than I have already.”

“f**k you,” he spit again in her direction. “I’ve never heard of you. You’re nothing but a w***e and a woman and I don’t know why they think I should fear you.”

The slamming of a door outside their room made her shake her head, “Mr. Pappas, I warned you not to disrespect me. You disrespect my father and husband when you disrespect me.” The door was thrown open and Miklos stormed in and threw a punch across the jaw of the man tied in the chair and the chair teetered back on two legs.

“You do not curse at my wife,” he gripped the face of the man in the chair and spit on his face. “Apologize.”

Yannis Pappas screamed, “my jaw, my jaw.” He tried to twist out of Miklos’ grip, but Miklos refused to release him.

“Apologize.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Give her the password to the computer now.”

He rattled off a series of numbers.

“Whose birthday is that?” Dimi didn’t look up from the computer as she logged in. When he didn’t answer she heard the grinding of the chair scraping on the floor and knew Miklos was roughing him up.

“It was my college roommates. He died just after graduation.”

“Were you lovers?” Dimi asked curiously.

“No!” he protested vehemently. “He was my best friend.”

“Too bad, it would have made you more interesting,” she shrugged. Miklos moved to stand over her shoulder and watched as she began typing furiously on his computer. His hand moved to her shoulder, and she shoved it off. “Don’t touch me.”

“Do you replace it distracting, my little wife?”

“Don’t you have a lover or something you should be calling? Wren or Eve?”

He leaned down and nuzzled her neck while she started pulling up multiple tabs on the computer screen. “Are you jealous?”

“No,” she lied and admitted it to herself. “Not in the least. I’m hoping one of them gives you an STI and kills you off like Capone.”

He nipped her earlobe, “don’t be rude in front of our guest.”

“I don’t care what he thinks. Once I get his money he’s hidden and transfer it to dickwad Masalis’ account, I’m going to take his liver to his daughter and let her feed it to her dog. Then you can put his body in a Masalis shipping container and have it dropped into the ocean for the fish.”

“What do you mean my daughter?” Yannis was listening attentively to their conversation.

“Did I not mention it when I introduced myself? Your daughter was my college roommate. I love her like a sister.”

Miklos has stood to watch the man and then laughed, “would you believe, my little wife, he looks relieved.”

“Why?”

“I believe he thinks you won’t kill the father of your best friend.” Miklos turned and sat his a*s right near the laptop on the edge of the wobbly table and looked at Yannis, “we called your daughter first to ask where she thought you might have hidden the money you stole from her, her sisters and Kostas and said she didn’t know but,” he clicked his tongue, “she told us how you kicked her dog and broke its little ribs. Poor Jinx. She wants to feed your liver to the dog.”

“Darya would never.”

“She hates you, Yannis. For the last eight years, since you threw her out of the house with no money, no roof over her head and no help, she has hated your guts. She made her own way in this world. She found a way to get where she needed to be and she not only survived the insult fate gave her with you as a father, but she has thrived.” Dimi didn’t even look up as her fingers flew over the keyboard. “For her sake, I’m not going to let anyone kill you though. As much as she wants you dead and her mother to be left penniless and homeless just like you both did to her, I will not allow her beautiful soul to be filled with the darkness of a Lykiaos. Having her think, she ordered a hit on you will ruin her and she is the light in my life.”

“You love her.” Miklos said suddenly.

“I told you Miklos. She is my family. I would die for her.” She flicked a glance in his direction, “and she would for me. Same with Magda and Sienna. We have been to hell and back. When you go to war, your fellow soldiers become closer than b***d.”

“War,” Yannis gave a shout of impatience, “what do you know of war? You’re nothing but a child.”

“Let me tell you what I know,” she stopped typing to turn to glare at him. “We grew up in the lap of luxury, never having to want for anything and having the world at our fingertips. Then it was ripped away from us. Four of us. Sienna when her mother was diagnosed with early onset dementia and her carer stole everything and ran away with it. Magda when she found out her parents were more concerned about appearances than her heart. Darya when you tried to sell her to the devil to make a pact. Me,” she gave a toss of her head, “the mafia princess who was supposed to be loved and cherished and treated like the most special woman in the world, instead was abandoned and disrespected by her own. We went from the world at our fingertips to struggling to replace ways to make rent. Four of us sharing two beds in a one-bedroom apartment with a dog at our feet. Buying one wardrobe for four people to share. Learning to stretch a dollar.”

Miklos was quiet as she continued, “Darya was a princess with everything. You rarely acknowledged her existence, but you never once raised your voice or your hand to her. You kept your girls sheltered and way from the public eye for the most part. Yet when she refused to bail you out of a mess you made by sacrificing her innocence to a man, a man you know had attempted rape on another woman, you hit her. You struck her and then you kicked her out and you cut her off. Your daughter left your house with nothing but the clothes on her back and managed to replace her way to Boston, convince them to let her attend even though her tuition had fallen through. The police in New York called you when she was arrested for vagrancy on her way through, and you told them you didn’t have a daughter named Darya and not to call back. You abandoned her. You haven’t spoken to her in eight years. Do not pretend to know anything about the woman she has become.”

“She made a choice!” he yelled. “She should have just married Jurek!”

Miklos cursed furiously, “she was a child. Eighteen!”

“Shut up Miklos,” Dimi grunted at him. “You and my father were no better. If memory serves, I was also forced to marry at eighteen. The difference was, I was marrying a man I loved and respected. Feelings which were not reciprocated.”

“I didn’t leave you penniless.” He argued infuriatedly.

“Sending me spousal support payments insinuated we were a couple. We were not. I’d rather have been penniless.” She turned back to the laptop and began typing furiously again. She held up a finger and then made a face, “I’m almost in. Shut up for a few minutes now please.”

Dimi grinned as she breached the memory of the device and turned her head and cracked her neck loudly, “Miklos, replace out your friend’s banking info. I’m almost there.”

“Almost where?” Yannis asked incredulously.

Dimi knew he prided himself on his computer skills because it was information Darya had told her years before. She smirked at him, “I’m into the bank in Greece where you diverted the money from the three trust funds along with,” she paused ignoring his comment it was impossible, and looked at numbers on her screen, “nearly six million dollars from your company over the last eight years. Darya was right. Kostas was stupid to keep you around. He won’t get all of his money but there is nearly fifty million dollars here.”

“You got in so fast?” Miklos was surprised as he stood again to move behind her and watch her work.

“I told you Miklos, there’s a reason the feds want me on their payroll. I’m good. Brilliant even.” She waved at him and then slapped his hands off her shoulders, “numbers now. I’m ready to go.”

He received a text and set his phone beside her on the table. He watched as money began moving from various accounts to the account number Kostas had provided. “You’re doing this much quicker than our guy does.”

“At the risk of sounding like a parrot, this is child’s play to me. I had the computer of origin,” she tapped the device on the desk, “so it was truly easy to back trace where he was trading things around. He wasn’t particularly clever, other than he moved the money into six accounts in two banks in Greece. I would have expected he use the Caymans or Switzerland but whatever.” She sat back and linked her hands behind her head and gave a contented sigh.

“You can’t move all the money,” Yannis said hoarsely.

“I can and I have,” She stood up and faced him again, “for the record Mr. Pappas, in honor of the hell you put your daughter through, I took the time to max out all your credit cards, your bank balances are all now at zero dollars and I’ve frozen your assets and put the IRS in charge of your home. Ditto for your wife.”

“It’s not fair. Please don’t do this!” he yelled furiously. “Kostas Masalis is a liar. I only took what I was owed.”

“Too late, it is done,” she smirked, “I much prefer the notion you get to live and suffer than die and be done with it.” She looked to Miklos, pulling him aside and speaking lowly, “talk to Kostas, Miklos. I did him a solid tonight. I want Lyra, Darya’s twin along with Kristin, the youngest sister who is not quite twenty-one, to be provided for. I don’t care if he gives them a lump sum, but I don’t want them homeless nor penniless. He can make a caveat to them if he gives them money and replaces out they helped their parents, he will reach out to his hacker and have the money pulled back. I would be happy to do so.”

“Of course,” he nodded. “Unfortunately, my love, I am not sure I can let Mr. Pappas leave here intact.”

“Can you let him leave alive? Again, Darya likes the imagination of his death, but the reality might not be what she needs.”

“Fine,” he sighed impatiently, “I will let him live but only because I am trying to woo my way into my wife’s good graces.” He straightened his spine and motioned to the door. “Go wait for me in the main area. I’ll be a couple of minutes while I instruct my men on what I want done. We will go home.”

“Fine,” she stood and stretched, “enjoy the rest of your life living in poverty Mr. Pappas. I hope you have health insurance because I fear you may need medical treatment after tonight.” She took a moment and looked to Miklos, “he has good computer skills. It would be a shame if he were never able to use his hands for such things again.”

Miklos gave her a knowing and grim nod and Yannis screamed in terror as Miklos approached him.

She exited the room and passed a couple of oversized men and shook her head. She remembered them when they had been mere teenage boys. Now they were so big, they looked like they had eaten their former selves. She walked to the outside of the warehouse and leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes.

She had done it. She had gotten involved with Lykiaos Laskaris families and had not killed someone, had not done anything more than punch the face of the man she’d been wanting to punch for far too long. Dimi had left with her kill tally unchanged and avoided being drawn to the pits of depravity.

“You did well,” Miklos spoke quietly from a few feet away, his face hidden in the shadows.

She cursed his ability to sneak up on her while she’d been lost in her thoughts. “Thanks. Can I go home now?”

“Yes. You look exhausted.” He stepped into the light and moved to brush hair off her cheek.

“I am. It’s been a long day.” She reached up and pulled his pocket square from his jacket and dabbed a droplet of b***d of his cheek. “I assume this is not yours?”

“Someone broke his nose. I tried to reset it for him.”

“Liar,” she shook her head with a twist of her lips

“Come, I will take you home. My men will finish here.” He waved her towards the car and held the door open.

After she was buckled in, she retrieved her phone and called her friend. Darya answered first ring.

“I’m afraid I cannot bring you a liver my love, but I can promise you there is nothing left in his bank account and his house will be repossessed. He will be forced to live on the street as you once did.”

“My sisters?”

“I’ve asked Miklos to run interference with Kostas and make sure they are given a fraction of the trust fund your father stole. You were correct when you once told me he was smart with computers and numbers, but he was no match for me.” Dimi grinned as Miklos snorted at her proud comment.

“Why didn’t you have him killed?”

“Killing a man is far more troublesome than simply flogging him within an inch of his life, Darya.” She said quietly, “I am not ready to put such sins on your shoulders.”

Darya whispered, “he deserves to die.”

“He deserves to be penniless and broke and to live the rest of his days with the torture of knowing he brought this misery on himself. You do not want to be his executioner,” Dimi responded equally softly. “He may be the world’s shittiest parent, but it doesn’t mean you need his b***d on your hands.”

Darya was quiet for a moment and then sighed, “fine, I admit I was feeling the teensiest bit of worry about how my sisters would react to his demise.” She grunted, “but he could have at least bled a little.”

“I broke his nose, does it help?”

“It does,” Darya sighed. “Jinx is mad I’m still awake. Magda is still awake too. I heard a crash earlier and went to check on her and she had whipped her phone across the bedroom and broke her lamp.”

Dimi giggled, “he’s f*****g with the wrong girl.”

“She was so angry at him; I’m surprised we got her to agree on the contract.”

“Let’s just sign this contract, take what is ours and then she can sort out how she wants to handle him.”

“She’s going to sleep with him.”

“Her body, her choice,” Dimi grunted, “but I don’t see what the attraction is.”

“Because you prefer dark Greek men over blonde Italians,” Darya quipped with a snort.

Dimi ignored the grin on Miklos face as he shot her a look confirming he heard Darya’s comment loud and clear. “Who knows, once I sample other ethnicities, maybe I’ll replace ones I like better than Greeks? French or Russian?” She fought her grin as the car lurched and he shifted the gear with far more force than necessary, “I feel I could do very well with a good old American country boy too. Head south to Texas and do a bit of bareback riding.”

“Canada has some nice-looking men,” Darya threw out, following Dimi’s lead as if she knew exactly who they were antagonizing. “A bearded lumberjack or one of those French Quebec guys we met in Montreal.”

“Oh, I forgot Montreal. They had the best strip clubs.”

“Hang up the phone,” Miklos ordered her angrily.

“Darya, I’m almost home and my soon to be ex-husband has asked me to hang up. It seems he feels less sure of himself when I’m discussing all the men I’m going to sleep with once my divorce is final.”

“Too bad you can’t get an annulment.” Darya said bluntly, “it’s not like any of it was ever real anyway.”

“No divorce, no annulment, hang up the phone, Dimitra.” Miklos shoved his foot down hard on the accelerator as they tore up the street near the home.

“Stop telling me what to do Miklos, you’re not my keeper.” Dimi shrieked when he ripped the phone out of her hand, ended the call and then dropped the phone behind them into the darkness behind the seats.

“Why did you do that?”

“You are provoking me, deliberately.”

“No,” she mocked him with wide eyes, “I would never.”

“You play with fire, Dimitra.”

“Is this so? Are you going to burn me Miklos?”

“It may burn where I slap your a*s until it’s red.”

“I’m not into the s****l violence thing. I mean if you’re into it, I can recommend a place but it’s not my thing. I’ve learned I like soft and gentle far more than rough and bloody.”

“You are pushing the wrong buttons, Dimitra.”

“Can I have a divorce?”

“No.”

“Then it seems you may be correct. I haven’t found the right button yet, but I’ll keep trying.”

“You know, we had a lovely evening, and you are ruining it.”

“A lovely evening? You brought me to a warehouse with the intention of making me kill my best friend’s father. How twisted is your mind?”

“Admit it Dimitra. You loved it tonight. You loved the feeling of power and control. The smell of fear and the thrill of dominance as you made the man beg you for mercy. It made your panties wet to be the one who took it all away from him. Stop lying to yourself over who you are. You are Dimitra Lykiaos-Laskaris. You crave the power and violence the same way I do. The more I think on it, the more I realize our parents were right to join us in matrimony. We are the same.”

“No, Miklos, there is one way we are different.” She turned and met his gaze defiantly, “unlike you, I have the capacity for love. You know only violence, l**t, and dominance. Love is not in your vocabulary and to me, it means far more than any other way we might be similar. I will spend a hundred years alone before I stay married to a man who is incapable of loving me.”

His silence carried them all the way home and when they reached the house, she was not surprised when he slammed out of the car. As she dug for her phone in the back seat, she was horrified to replace a pair of lacy women’s underpants and she shrieked with disgust and flung them into the front seat. Racing into the house, she beelined for her favorite room and the bathroom within, locking the door behind her and scrubbing her hands furiously. She told herself this was simply yet one more reason she needed to win.