Divorcing Her Mafia Family
Chapter 29

Miklos sat in his home office and dialed out to his father-in-law.

“Miklos, your father called me this morning and told me about dinner last night. He said Dimitra was still fixated on getting divorced. I thought I told you to get your wife in line.”

“Vasili, you realize she is who she is because you raised her to be a f*****g enforcer. She is ruthless and cunning, and she does not forgive easily. She is pissed off. She has every reason to be angry.”

“Why because you had a lover or two? She will get over it. A child will distract her.”

“Vasili, it is not so simple.”

“Is it not?”

“The feds had her for seventy-two hours in her fourth year of university. She expected us, me, to come and get her out and I didn’t. Instead of following up when her friends called, I accused her of playing games and left her to sweat in their shithole cells.”

“She’s a girl. They wouldn’t do anything to her. They don’t know what she has done in the name of this family. There is no way they did too much to her.” Vasili protested, for the first time his voice unsure.

“She told me last night they didn’t go easy on her. They pressed her to turn on her family.”

“F**k.” He knew if Dimitra was saying they pressed, they pressed. His girl was tougher than most.

“It’s worse Vasili. She’s a genius.”

“No s**t. She is my daughter. She’s always been f*****g brilliant. She could run our operations in circles around us and we both know it. The only reason she isn’t is because there’s no way she’d get the respect owed to her by our enemies and they would be constantly trying to take what is ours instead of staying away like they do with you or I at the helm. The best course of action is you both running our business. You’re the right person to head our organization, Miklos but you need her.”

“Vasili, you’re not hearing me. The feds know she is as brilliant as you say she is. Mrs. Kyriakos told me a story about her hacking a home and f*****g with people’s television system half a world away. She works a lot in banking and finance and apparently has created platforms for a large company in the UK and she and her friends are selling some kind of app they created to a bank. Her ability to figure out numbers, figures and coding is beyond compare. I didn’t pay enough attention, but the feds did.” His voice was laced with regret, “I asked one of our tech guys to replace out what the file the feds have on her includes. Vasili, she wasn’t kidding when her friend said they want her to work for them. They are of the opinion she is safer working for them than against them.”

“How bad do they want her?” Vasili was quiet.

“Bad enough when they had her four years ago, they tortured her and threatened her with treason. They routinely approach her. She told me last night part of the reason she wants the divorce is so she can leave America and get away from them. She’s worried any child she has will be in their line of fire and we won’t protect her.”

“Why would she think we won’t protect her?”

“Because I left her to the f*****g wolves last time.” He sat back in his seat. “Vasili, I f****d up and I don’t think I can come back from this. She hates me for leaving her to rot in their f*****g cells.”

“Find a way, Miklos. She either rules with you or you don’t rule.” He said simply. “I’ll hand it all over to my sister’s kid.”

Miklos made a face, “he isn’t cut out and you know it. I half have a mind to call your bluff, divorce her and let him have it. I’ve done too much to her, Vasili. She deserves the peace she craves.”

Vasili was suddenly quiet, “what if you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Call my bluff, Miklos.”

He leaned back in his seat as he considered the brilliance of the man on the other end of the phone.

“You want me to divorce her?”

“How confident are you she still loves you, Miklos? Deep down. Can you woo her back to you?”

Miklos shook his head, “I’m not. Not even remotely confident. She tells me she hates me and, in her shoes, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have put a bullet in my head. Getting her to want to be with me is a long shot.”

“Then it’s your risk. Take the risk, Miklos if you must but there will be hell to pay if you fail. If you want the business, if you want her at your side, then you will replace a way.” He paused, “Given your lack of resolve you now have a week from tomorrow to get her to agree to stay married or I put Tariq in charge. Then you have until he destroys us all to get her back and get your position back. Make your time count and don’t make me put a bullet in your head for hurting my little girl and for making me lose everything by putting my sister’s i***t kid in charge.”

Vasili hung up and Miklos rubbed his aching forehead. He felt nauseous. A week. A week to make her fall back in love with him or let Tariq have it all. If he divorced her, he knew there was no way he could ever get her to remarry him. If Tariq took the business, he was getting a bullet in the head. The man was incompetent at best.

There of course was the other matter he hadn’t mentioned to Vasili at all. Dimitra had been in love. Had loved someone so deeply, out of fear and protection for the man had let him go. She had been so concerned her family, Vasili, or he, would cause the man harm, she had locked down her love and walked away. He knew Vasili. He would have put a bullet in the man if he’d gotten Dimitra pregnant. He considered it must have broken her heart to leave someone she had cared about and while he had spoken sharply to her mocking her emotions, letting someone go because you loved them, seemed the ultimate sacrifice in his opinion. He might have f****d around, but she built an emotional connection, slept night after night and had hopes and dreams with someone before making the ultimate sacrifice of leaving for their safety. Could he say he would have done this for anyone ever in his life until today? He swiveled in the chair and contemplated the thought. It was likely the true reason she wanted out. She had fallen in love with a man, a good man, who had returned her love and she was desperate to feel the connection with someone again.

A knock on his door made him look up as Mrs. Kyriakos stepped into his office.

“Good morning, Miklos. You look worse than Dimitra and she looks like hell. I take it you fought all evening?” She walked in closer and set an oversized cup of coffee on his desk.

“No,” he shook his head. “I slept there.” He pointed to the sofa in his office. “I let her have the room. She needed the rest. It was a long evening.”

“Your mother explained herself, I presume?”

“She did and I’m not sure if Dimitra believes her or not, but it was a start. I am sure she will have a conversation with Leonora eventually, but it will be between the two of them.” He looked to her, “did you know when she was in FBI custody?”

“No. Learning about this week was a surprise. She told me many things Miklos but there is so much more I didn’t know and much I’m not wanting to know, I’m sure. The things I overheard her telling her parents about a b**m parlor for one.” She gave a shudder, “such things I do not ever need know.”

He chuckled. “Is it weird I can absolutely imagine her wielding a whip and beating the f**k out of a man in the name of a kink?”

“Yes, it is weird, Miklos,” Mrs. K laughed at him.

“Vasili tells me if I give her the divorce, he’s taking it all away from me, giving it to Tariq and shooting me in the head for hurting his little girl.” He took a breath, “he has given me a week. I don’t think I need the week.”

She looked at him in surprise, “you think you can win her back before then?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I think I deserve the bullet. I didn’t protect her, and I hurt her. The hatred she feels for me is deserved and if there is any good left in my soul, though I’m not sure there is, I should let her walk away and have the life she dreams of with the man from England or wherever it is she wants to go.”

“You’ll give her the divorce?” the woman questioned sadly.

“I haven’t decided,” he said truthfully. “As I said, if there is good in me, I would. I’m simply not convinced there is nothing left to me other than a selfish man incapable of anything other than taking what I want.”

“What do you want, Miklos?” she studied him seriously.

“Her. I want her.” He said with more truth than he’d spoken in a long time. “I want to hear her laugh and tease me every day for the rest of my life. I want a handful of kids and a lifetime of fights.” He looked away feeling oddly emotional, “but I don’t deserve her, and she deserves far better than this life.”

“You have decisions to make then.” She stepped backwards and away from him at his desk. “I’ll leave you to it.”

An hour later he exited his office and walked to the kitchen to replace Dimitra standing at the coffee maker, sliding the pot back on the burner and adding cream to her coffee.

“You’re still here?” he asked curiously. “I thought for sure you would be gone.”

She motioned to her laptop on the island, “working on Ben’s stupid program. The man runs a private investment company. He’s brilliant as f**k. Yet he keeps hiring morons who can’t tell the difference between a one and a zero. I’m sure of it. I’ve spent the last hour backtracking the latest screw up. Each time this happens he loses hundreds of thousands of dollars. He should know better.”

“Do you think he does it purposefully to get your attention?” Miklos asked moving to refill his own overly large coffee cup. He found himself strangely disliking a man he’d never met. Was this what jealousy felt like?

She watched him curiously as he poured his coffee, a hint of a smile curving her lips. He wasn’t sure why she was smirking but perhaps he had hit the nail on the head with the comment.

“No, I doubt it. He wants me but to lose a half million dollars every eight to twelve months seems absurd.” She watched him as he sipped his black coffee.

“I had a conversation with your father this morning.”

“I bet it was scintillating,” she rolled her eyes.

“If I can’t convince you to stay, he’s pulling me from the business and giving it to Tariq. If Tariq ruins it all, I get a bullet for my failure to make things right and for hurting you.”

“Tariq?” she made a face. “As in my cousin Tariq?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll be dead in three months, tops.” She quipped with a shake of her head. “Is this your way of telling me you’ll be pulling out all the stops? Should I expect more naked swims and roses?”

“No,” he shook his head and walked away from her. “I simply didn’t want you to hear from your father instead of me how he gave me the ultimatum.”

He left her in the kitchen and walked back to his office. He closed the door behind him and sat back and began reviewing the numbers from his clubs in Europe. The Laskaris name was even more popular in Europe than it was in America. While Vasili’s operations were the bulk of businesses, the Laskaris family had always been prosperous, making money in the entertainment industry and in other business ventures.

If he were to be able to walk away from Vasili’s organization, he would still be a very wealthy man in his own right. The problem for him was dead men can’t spend money. He was only half sure Vasili wouldn’t kill him. Sitting in his office he could hear his sound system start up and music from Dimitra’s playlist begin. Downing the rest of his coffee he pushed away from his desk and grumbled about being unable to focus while in his own house. He knew she had the music cranked to piss him off, but he said nothing to her about the noise as he put his coffee mug in the dishwasher.

“Stop in the office today, please.” He told her as he dropped a k**s to the top of her head, unable to resist himself.

“Sure. Can you give me a hint what the surprise is?”

“No. Just come in.”

“Okay.” She was watching him closely, studying his face as she sipped her coffee slowly.

“Is there something on me?”

“No,” she refuted with a pout of her lips.

He grimaced at her and walked away, out of the house and into the sunshine of the morning. The guys were working on his garage repairs and the cars and bikes were already at the shop. They were moving fast but not fast enough, and he noted they all ducked and looked busier when he paused to watch them.

Ajax was waiting beside the SUV. “They’ll have it ready for the cars by end of day today.”

“They better.” He said snippily as he slid into the car and leaned his head against the headrest. “This is the longest f*****g week of my life,” he g*****d to nobody in particular.

The car, flanked by two other SUVs began the drive into the city where his offices were located, and he tried valiantly to focus on the emails and messages coming into his phone, but his stomach was starting to twist violently. Abdominal pain was not anything he experienced a lot of, and he assumed it was the stress of the week. Maybe Dimitra was giving him ulcers.

He heard the garbled speech of one of the cars ahead radioing to the driver of the car he was in and noted his driver went pale and looked in the rear-view mirror at him nervously.

“Now what?” he questioned as he noted the way the man kept nervously leaning forward as if looking upwards.

Ajax sitting in the front seat gave a cough which sounded very much as if he were hiding a laugh. “Miklos, you may want to see this.”

He gave permission for the three vehicles to pull off the side of the road and stop in a parking lot near a strip mall just a few blocks from his office space. He got out of the car and looked around trying to figure out what the issue was until he saw Ajax looking upwards.

Before he could even understand what, he was looking at, his phone buzzed, and Kostas was sending him a slew of laughing emojis and a screenshot. He looked back up to the billboard they had stopped at, and he closed his eyes and let out a long slow breath.

His stomach rumbled violently, and he considered the ulcers he was likely developing were not reacting well to the vision in front of him.

High over the strip mall and facing the highway into the main part of the city was a giant billboard of a sleeping man in black boxers, tangled up in pink satin, the bright pink fuzzy headboard on full display with the words “so in touch with my masculinity I am proud to sleep in pink satin” emblazoned on it.

He dialed out on his phone, and she answered the first ring, “you will die a slow painful death.”

“Which one did you see first?” her tone was positively gleeful.

“Which one what?” he felt his intestines twist in agony at her words. “How many of these goddamned things are out there?”

“Six!” she exclaimed excitedly. “My personal favorite is the one we edited to tuck a teddy bear under your arm instead of the pillow and it says tough guys need love too.”

His insides were protesting furiously as he considered her words. “You put six billboards of me sleeping in satin sheets, pink satin sheets, all over LA?”

“Yes! One of them is near LAX. You’re bound to get lots of feedback on it. We included your office phone number on one of them. For a good time, call.”

“Dimitra, I don’t have time for this s**t!” he yelled into the phone. “Do you know what you are doing? You are playing with fire, and you are going to get burned!” he punched the side of the SUV violently and left a dent in the door panel. “You and I are going to have a long talk about boundaries.” He hung up on her angrily, too pissed off to listen to her chortles of glee.

His belly now hurt so bad he was barely upright, and he slid back into the car with furious demands to get him to the office now. He punched the back of the car in a rage and then m****d when spasms racked his abdomen.

He looked down to his buzzing phone to see a text from Dimitra.

“Hey are you alright?”

He wrinkled his brow at the question. “No, I’m pissed off. You’re giving me ulcers.”

He watched the thought bubbles and ellipsis for several seconds and then considering how long it took her to text the message was confused at the brief question.

“How was your coffee? Specifically, the second cup.”

He frowned and rubbed his now sweating upper l*p and wondered what game she was playing. He got a message from Helios of a billboard on the same street as his club of him with the words “bringing sexy back” in huge font. His belly clenched tightly, and he looked back to her text. Why was she asking about the coffee?

He had a recollection of her standing at the coffee pot adding something to her coffee. He rubbed his head. Had she added it to her coffee or to the pot? He felt his innards contorting with pain and as the realization of what she’d done hit him full in the guts, a photo of a bottle of laxatives appeared on their text messages string.

Death would be too easy for her. All the guilt he’d been feeling all morning evaporated as the excruciating agony of his bowels which were clearly under the influence of the drug, she had poisoned him with, twisted. He was going to take her to the warehouse. Waterboarding didn’t seem nearly enough. Perhaps he’d borrow the chemist’s equipment and experiment on her.

Another message popped in from another one of his guys near the airport and he gave an infuriated hiss of disbelief at the close up of him, clearly mocking his hairy torso with the words “if you’re into furry men, give Miklos a call” and true to her word it was the office number.

He felt a sudden dropping sensation deep inside and he wiped the sweat from his forehead and yelled at his driver to hurry the f**k up. She had poisoned him and had humiliated him on a grand scale. He considered all the various ways he was going to get back at her as a means of distraction from the excruciating need for a toilet.

“Sir,” the driver spoke lowly.

“What now?” he growled angrily.

“It seems there was a water main break on the street to the offices. Both ends are blocked. We can’t get closer. The city works crew are prohibiting any cars from passing through.”

He closed his eyes at the notion of walking the remaining distance while crippled with the pain of the poison she had plied him with.

“Pay them off,” he ordered.

“There are holes in the road at either end.”

He was just getting out of the car and ready to take the remaining ten minutes on foot when his phone rang. He started walking as he answered it, “you are in trouble with me.”

“How do you like my holes?” she asked boldly. “It’s pretty neat how easy it is to get into the city’s water works system and put in a work order for a repair to start at five am on either side of a street.”

He stopped moving as he looked to the hole immediately to his left and noted the confusion on the men’s faces as they tried to sort out what exactly they were supposed to be doing.

“You did this? You created this set up?” he was about to blow a gasket in more ways than one.

“Tell me Miklos, when you really need to go, I mean really need to go, and there is no toilet around it’s painful isn’t it?” she paused to cackle maniacally in his ear, “now you know what FBI detention feels like. It’s a long walk, isn’t it?”

“Dimitra, you –” he noted she had hung up before he could finish his threat and he resumed walking again with purpose towards the offices.

He was almost jogging by the time the building came into view and then when he arrived his relief was short lived when he noted the two men in suits waiting for him.

“Mr. Laskaris, my name is Agent Frye of the FBI.” The man quipped with a smirk.

“Oh, you’re the guy who thinks it’s funny to make rhymes,” he wished his stomach weren’t in knots. “Do you have a warrant?”

“No, we just want to talk about your wife.”

“Go f**k yourself.” Miklos said, not caring of the man’s badge. He could feel the quiver on his upper l*p as agony racked his body.

“There is no need to be antagonistic. We just wanted you to know we are in constant communication with her. Aren’t you worried she could fold on you? We talk frequently, she and I.”

“I’m aware.” He stepped past the men. “You’re trespassing on private property. If you don’t have a warrant, f**k off. I don’t have to talk to you,” he turned to the man, “especially you Agent Frye of the FBI.” He leaned closer and sniffed, “she was right. You do stink of pastrami. I get why she said she’ll never be able to eat cured meats again. You should bathe.”

He left the man flabbergasted on his front steps and stormed into his office, past his assistant and straight to his office where he shrugged out of his jacket and made his way painfully to the bathroom. Ignoring his sputtering PA, he slammed the door in her face and breathed a sigh of relief only to give a furious shout at the sight before him.

The toilet was off the floor and a plumber was kneeling over the hole. In bright red paint on the wall of his bathroom were the words “can I have the divorce yet?” His curse was heard in the parking lot.