Divorcing Her Mafia Family
Chapter 25

“Being married to you is quite likely making me insane so yes, I am crazy. Sign the divorce papers and you won’t have to deal with me again.”

“You f*****g blew up my garage!” he punched the door beside her head.

She turned her head, not even flinching and looked at his closed fist. “That was close to my head, Miklos. My father will be upset if I return you to him battered, bloody and possibly shot because you attempted domestic violence.”

“I am going to f*****g kill you.” He glared at her, stepping closer to her, no longer using his knee but his h**s to hold her firm to the door.

“Give it a try,” she didn’t back down from the cold fury. She pointed to his temple, “when you’re this angry, there is a big blue vein doing this bulging thing. It’s kind of gross. Maybe you should talk to a doctor and see if it’s normal. I’ve never noticed it before but it’s really weird.” She leaned in as if studying it intently. “It has a pulse.”

“You destroyed my garage. There is easily fifty to a hundred thousand dollars worth of damages. You set off f*****g fireworks!” he was trying desperately to control his voice.

“Uh,” she held up a finger and looked as if she were thinking hard, “I’m wondering if anyone recorded it? Did one of the security guys get video? I’m really disappointed I didn’t get to stick around to see it.”

“You bitch.”

“Ouch, name calling?” she laughed in his face. “Tell me Miklos, a handful of the fireworks were called screamers. Were they your favorite? After meeting Eve on Sunday, I thought you would appreciate them most. I’m also quite curious if the bright colorful ones got enough air to detonate and show off the patterns.”

“You’re not even remotely sorry!” he said as if surprised.

She laughed louder now, unafraid of him. “Should I be? I warned you Miklos. Sign the papers or it’s going to get ugly. I will destroy everything you love. It started with your relationship with my parents in church, it moved to your blessed pool and now your prized possessions. Next stop is your integrity, your name, and your reputation. You don’t want to know where the last stop on my trip to emancipation is. Give in now. All you have to do is sign the papers.”

“Never,” he shook his head furiously at her. “You want to play dirty? I can play dirty. I’m going to play so filthy dirty you will be waving a little white flag in the shape of your sweet little lace panties over our bed.”

“Highly unlikely.” She folded her arms, “I told you already, my itch is scratched. I now have a baseline to judge the rest of my s****l experiences. I can’t wait to get started. I only need you to sign on the dotted line and it will happen.”

“The only man you will ever have s*x with is the one you are currently locked in this office with. Accept it and stop playing your destructive little games. Instead of fighting, we could be planning our family and celebrating our marriage. Instead, you have us at odds. You will not win, Dimitra. Give in and be my wife like you are meant to be. We can go home tonight and do what we did Monday night in a bed.”

“What happened Monday night will never happen again.” This close to him she could smell he’d showered before dinner. It made her think of the morning in his shower when he’d insisted, she try to scrub the blue off him. She needed to get control of her raging hormones

He slid his hand along her naked ribcage, cupping the side of her breast and laughed when she slapped at him. He stroked his thumb over her n****e, “funny, how just being this close to me and your n*****s are hard.”

“It’s cold in this office, get over yourself and stop touching me you pervert. Don’t you consider me your little sister? Maybe you need counselling.”

“Agape mou, the moment I took in your a*s in those shorts making me pancakes on Sunday morning, I assure you, brotherly is the last thing I’m feeling. The bikini you wore around your bonfire Sunday night is constantly on my mind. The way you looked in the mirror in your bathroom while I f****d you hard from behind, lives on replay in my thoughts. You,” he tapped her nose playfully, as if he suddenly forgot he wanted to throttle her for the fireworks display, “kept this delectable body covered under far too many clothes for too many years. Now you like to display it and it is changing my point of view.” He caressed her bare arm.

“Gross,” she mocked him. “If I was your b***d sister and you saw my a*s, you’d want to f**k me?”

“You’re not my b***d sister. You’re not related to me in any way shape or form. You see, you only found out near your eighteenth birthday we were getting married, but I’ve known since my eighteenth birthday, and you were only eleven. I was pissed off about it. They told me to make sure I never got anyone else pregnant because we were betrothed.”

“How nasty! I was just a baby.”

“I agree. The best way to deal with having my choices removed was to relegate you to what I would never want to touch, and it was a sister. I told myself I might get forced to marry you, but nobody could force me to screw you. Had I even contemplated for a moment how absolutely fuckable you are, you would never have gone to college. We would probably have five or six kids by now and I wouldn’t have wanted or needed to f**k anyone else.”

“Wow, did you go to therapy to sort this out?” she rolled her eyes at his explanation for his stupid behavior.

“No, I lay in bed all night last night when my wife didn’t come home to me and pondered how we got here.” He shook his head sadly, “You hid all of this from me.” He stroked her decolletage with the back of his knuckles, “even your wedding dress was heaps too big and hid all these beautiful curves. You always wore t-shirts over your swimsuits.” He clicked his tongue, “you made it easy to forget you were female. Now, its imprinted on my brain. It was always meant to be you and me, Dimitra.” His words were hot and heavy in the quiet of the office.

“I would rather die.” She swallowed at the passion behind his words. She almost believed him. What did it say about her she wanted to. “If I give in to you today, by tomorrow you will have another lover. You are just like him.”

“You are wrong,” he shook his head. “Dimitra, I have not ever, not once, ever cheated on a lover. If I’m with a woman, it is only her until it is done. Have I had hook-ups? Certainly, but if I was taking a lover, say Eve for example, she was the only one I slept with during the relationship. When I say it will only be you, I mean it. You are the last woman this,” he grabbed her hand and shoved it against the front of his trousers, “ever goes inside ever again.”

She yanked her hand back and disputed his words. He was far too hard for her to focus on anything else other than his possible lie. “The girls in college. You brought the brunette home when you were still dating the blonde.”

“I ended the relationship with Susana before even starting to see Jinny. You just stirred the pot and caused chaos as you do. Susana didn’t like I moved on so quick, but I had made it clear we were done before I was with Jinny. I have never lied to you before Dimitra. What makes you think I do now?”

She didn’t know what to say to his words.

He leaned close and whispered in her ear, his tongue stroking her ear lobe, “now you have food for thought, we should go get real food to fill our bellies. My parents are waiting and you’re going to need sustenance, kopelia mou. My appetite is voracious, and you’ll need energy to keep up.”

He kissed her quick on the mouth and pulled her out of the office and back through the restaurant and in a daze, she let him. He kept his fingers loosely joined with hers and paraded her as if she were his date and he hadn’t wanted to murder her ten minutes earlier. He held a chair out for her and kissed her neck when she sat down.

“I’m surprised you can sit in such a tight skirt but I’m not complaining. It fits like a glove.”

“Shut up, Miklos,” she scowled at him as he picked up her fingers and held them tight against his thigh. When she tried to tug them away, he leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. “What are you doing?” She flicked a startled glance at his parents who were grinning.

“I’m claiming my wife. Every man in this restaurant is looking at you. I’m letting them know they can look but it’s me you will be going home with tonight.”

“I’m going home alone, in my own car.”

“My cars are destroyed. You’ll need to give me a lift.”

She closed her eyes, “no, I don’t want you in my car. I’m not driving you home.”

“I can drive you home,” the words were naughty and wicked in her ear as he flirted brazenly with her.

She tried tugging her hand again and he laughed, lifted her knuckles to his lips and kissed them.

“Relax Dimitra. I’m not going to have you right here on the table with my parents watching.”

Dimitra refocused on her in-laws and smiled tightly, her heart thundering at his words.

“I apologize for the delay,” Miklos finally addressed his parents with a wide grin. “Dimitra and I needed a private discussion about her blowing up my garage.”

“You blew up his garage?” Giorgio’s eyes widened with shock.

“I did not.” She denied the accusations.

“She rigged a machine to detonate hundreds of fireworks. The Porsche and the Maserati were both parked inside.”

“Not the Porsche,” Giorgio appeared traumatized on Miklos’ behalf.

“Why on earth for, child?” Nerida was genuinely perplexed.

“Dimitra thinks by engaging in a war with my personal belongings I will capitulate to her demands,” Miklos spoke mockingly. “She is wrong.”

“What demands?” Nerida questioned.

“I want a divorce,” she was blunt.

Giorgio gasped and Nerida leaned back in her seat in surprise.

She looked to her mother-in-law, “surely you agree a marriage between Miklos, and I was a silly idea by my father.”

“No,” Nerida denied emphatically. “Did I want you to be married at eighteen? Absolutely not. You were too young and inexperienced. You were so attached to your mama’s h*p you barely had friends of your own. I wanted you to live a little first. It was me who convinced Miklos to let you go to school and grow up a bit before settling down forever, but I agree completely you two are meant to be married. It has been the plan since the day you were born.”

She felt her mouth drop open in surprise, “Nerida, you haven’t so much as looked in my direction in years. Any time we have been in the same room you have maintained your distance. My wedding day you mocked my weight. You haven’t spoken or communicated to me in nearly eight years, and you’re going to boldly sit here and tell me you wanted me to go away to grow up? Surely you mean you wanted me away from your precious son.”

Nerida blinked at the harshness of Dimitra’s tone, “my child, you misunderstand. You’re mother –”

“My mother?” she cut off. “Oh, this should be good. Please, tell me what my saintly mother has done now.”

“Could you be a hair less antagonistic,” Miklos growled at her.

“It’s the company,” she glared right back at him

“Dimitra,” Nerida interrupted the beginning of an argument, “your mother was furious with me for pushing Miklos to permit you to leave. I thought you knew. She has not spoken to me since the day Miklos told your parents he supported you leaving for MIT and as your husband insisted you go. She never cared for me really and it was icing on the cake I was pushing for her little girl to move clear across the country. She thought you would be in danger. You must understand, she has always believed you are all she had. When you left, it hurt her, and she took her hurt out on me. She told me I wasn’t permitted to speak to you unless supervised or until you agreed to move home. Now you’ve moved home, I can reach out.”

“Is this a joke?” she stared incredulously at Nerida. “My mother would never.”

“It is up to you to believe what you want. I have always loved you as my own. Surely you knew this. You can have the conversation with her if you choose but she felt strongly it was my fault you moved away. She wholeheartedly believed I stole you away from her.”

Something in her tone told her the woman wasn’t lying. “I wanted to leave,” she said seriously. “I had applied to three universities while we were in Crete but then I wanted as far away from the lonely mansion as I could get. I hated it there. The only place in the world I ever excelled was in a classroom and I knew my grades were good enough for me to go anywhere I wanted. Even if Miklos and my father had refused to let me go, I already had plans to replace an alternate way.”

“Really?” he leaned sideways away from her to question her. “This I need to hear.”

“My grades were good enough for scholarships. I had already purchased the bus tickets to Boston even before you gave your permission,” she mocked the word, “and I was going.”

Nerida chuckled, “I told you back then, Miklos. Either let her go or she will replace a way on her own.” She looked at her, “and as for the weight comment on your wedding day. I apologize. The comment was more directed to your mother than to you. Your mother has a tendency to try to fix every one of your problems by stuffing you with cake. Dimitra has a cold. She needs cake. Dimitra has a headache, her sugar must be low, give her cake. Dimitra is special so she needs two birthday cakes, one for her and one for her friends. When the kids started to pick on you in middle school for your weight, her resolution was to insist you dress in less fitted clothes. The less you fit in at school, the more you were home. You started to retreat to computers and reading and never wanting to leave the house and it suited her purpose. We argued frequently when you were growing up, she was sabotaging your health and your social life, turning you into a recluse. It was a good thing your father and Miklos made you train as hard as they did in the gym otherwise, I believe you would have been quite ill as a child. Your mother loves you Dimitra and I never want to make you think otherwise but sometimes people love in the wrong way.” She sighed, “so yes, your weight has bothered me but not because I don’t think you’re beautiful but because I believe your mother used your weight as a means to keep you closer to home.”

“Well, this won’t do,” she pouted and grabbed her glass of wine angrily at Nerida’s heartfelt words.

“What won’t do?” Nerida chuckled at the duckface she was making.

“I had hoped you would help me convince Miklos for the divorce with the notion our children would be fat.” She didn’t even try to lie and met the other woman’s eyes directly. “I was sure you would hate the notion of a chunky baby.”

“Oh, my goodness,” the woman clapped her hands excitedly, “can you imagine a pudgy little roly-poly baby with your cute little nose and Miklos’ eyes?”

“No, I cannot, and you should not either. It is not going to happen.” She glowered at the three people at the table. “Do you not see how absurd this entire situation is?”

“No.” Giorgio shook his head. “Dimitra, this was the plan all along. It has been delayed while you went to school, but your father is my best friend. We always dreamed our families would be blended and merged. It is exciting to see it finally come to fruition.”

“It is archaic and asinine.” She muttered furiously. “What about what I want?”

“What do you want?” Giorgio asked her condescendingly, reaching out to pat her hands softly. “Tell me, my sweet girl. What do you need, and we will make it happen.”

“I want a divorce, so I have the opportunity to replace a good man, fall in love, and get married for real, not a farce on paper as Miklos called it on my wedding day. I want to have babies with someone who won’t expect them to pull triggers by the age of twelve like we did. I want to know when I go to sleep at night, my husband is beside me, not grinding his pelvis on women in a nightclub. I want to be able to trust my partner and not consider every single time he is away from me, he is doing to me what my father does to my mother. I want love and trust and fidelity and a family who won’t expect my children to be murderers. I want to be loved. Basically, I want everything Miklos cannot give me.”

She felt the tears threaten as she found herself more frustrated than she had been in her life. She had startled them with the vehemence and anger of her words, and they poured out of her unchecked. She downed her glass of water to stem the flow of tears.

“Dimitra, do you believe Miklos cannot grow to love you like a husband?” Nerida asked quietly.

“Nerida, you met Giorgio when he came to your flower shop, and he swept you off your feet and you fell in love. Do you not think I deserve more than being ordered to marry a man who until this week considered me his kid sister? Do I not deserve romantic love? Do I not deserve to have a partner who wants to be with me versus one being forced to procreate with a girl he barely tolerated for the last decade or more? Considering I now know he had been pushed to this since his own eighteenth birthday, I can absolutely understand why he pushed me so far away when I turned eighteen. I’m surprised he didn’t just drown me in a pool before my eighteenth birthday and be done with it. He could have made it look like an accident. It certainly would have been far less cruel to stomp all over my feelings for eight years and then casually expect me to fall on my back and pop out an heir for him now.”

The table was silent as they regarded her, and she fought for control of her temper. It had been too long since she’d had to compartmentalize and push her emotions away. Working and living with the girls and being true and authentic with herself had lessened her ability to remain professional. She was hurting right now and striking out hard. She needed to garner restraint before she exploded like the fireworks she had left in Miklos’ garage.

The server approached and took their orders, and she used the time to take deep breaths and remind herself she was a professional businesswoman with a master’s degree and was on the cusp of becoming a billionaire. She didn’t need the approval of anyone at this table to live the life she wanted. She simply wanted very much for her divorce to be granted so she could come and go as she pleased.

Miklos was incredibly quiet after her outburst, and she wondered what he would do now to convince her to stay. He was still holding her hand against his thigh and when he also exhaled hard, she knew he was also fighting to control his tongue and temper.

She blinked her frustrated tears away and adjusted herself in her seat, suddenly wishing she were back at the beach house with a bucket of ice cream, Jinx on her lap and the girls to reassure her she was doing the right thing.