Divorcing Her Mafia Family
Chapter 42

Dimi stretched in the bed and frowned as she found herself alone. Where had Miklos gone?

She sat up, “Miklos?”

She looked to the floor and noted his clothes were gone and her dress was hanging up over the door of the bathroom and the rest of her clothes were collected and piled neatly on a chair. Her phone was beside the bed.

She looked at it and noted she had multiple messages and phone calls. Two calls from her father, one from her mother, one from Darya and one from Ben. She grimaced at the last one. f**k that. She didn’t know how else to tell him they were not going to be a couple. She noted the text message from Miklos.

“My love, had to run out to do an errand. I’ll see you soon.”

She grimaced at the message. It was vague. He promised her more talking today. He also promised to make lots of love to her today, slow love. She blushed as she realized she wanted it more than the talking.

She missed her friends. Screw waiting a week. She flopped back onto her back and dialed Darya who answered on the first ring.

“Being a billionaire is f*****g amazing,” the woman gasped into the phone.

“What are you doing?” Dimitra giggled at Darya’s words.

“I just left my father’s hospital room, and my mother is chasing me down the hall. Mags is waiting for me outside.”

“What did you do?” Dimitra’s eyes were wide as she listened to Darya opening a car door and ordering Magda to drive.

She was cackling like mad, and Magda was chortling.

“What are you two doing without me?” she pouted angrily. “I want to be there.” She wasn’t lying. She missed her partners in crime. She was feeling bitter they were having fun without her.

“My mother called me yesterday demanding I pay my father’s medical bills since it was my fault he was hurt. Had I married Jurek years ago, he wouldn’t be in this mess. Since I’m rich, she wants me to take care of them now and blamed me for everything.” Darya was laughing like a maniac.

“She did not!” Dimi was slightly concerned at her friend’s apparent insanity.

“She did.” Darya giggled loudly, “I agreed to go to the hospital this morning. I looked my father right in the eyes and told him I was sorry he was such a douchebag, but his choices and decisions were not my responsibility, and he made his bed, and he could lay in it. I then reminded him of when he told the cop he didn’t have a daughter named Darya and told my mother if she ever called and asked me for a penny ever again, I’d reach out to Kostas and ask him to do more than what he’d already had done, and he was lucky they weren’t rotting in prison instead of a few broken fingers.”

Dimitra kicked her feet in the air in excitement. “This is incredible. Oh my god I love you.” Saying the words made her pause and realize she’d said them to Miklos the night before. Right after he’d said them to her. She refocused quickly because she couldn’t unpack the words right now, “How do you feel Darya?”

“Invincible.” She was gleeful on the other end of the phone.

“Speaking of Kostas, how goes the battle there?”

“He’s such an a*s!” Darya’s glee turned to annoyance. “He sent me flowers but get this, he sent me f*****g cacti.”

“He sent you cacti?”

“The card read to his prickly little flower.”

Magda was laughing loudly in the background at the words Darya cursed after her revelation.

“Shut up, Mags!” Darya spat at her. “Dimi, she almost f****d Ares. In his office.”

“No way!” Dimi screeched, “spill it, Mags!” Why was she so far away from all the excitement?

“Ugh. He took me out for dinner, Friday. He had a call in the middle of it from security someone was on his office floor. We got there and there was nobody there and we got to making out and then this girl pops out of nowhere, Dimi. I don’t even know how we missed her but there I was with my dress hiked up around my waist and my boob hanging out and she was standing right behind us watching. She was naked Dimi. Naked. I am not convinced she wasn’t m**********g watching us. It was really disturbing.”

Dimi looked to the phone in confusion. “He had a naked woman in his office?”

“Playing with herself. I left him to deal with it and I bailed. Haven’t heard from him since. Dickwad.”

“Wait, he almost f****d you in his office while someone watched, and he let you leave and hasn’t called you?”

“Radio silence, Dimi. Not a peep.”

Darya sighed, “did Miklos replace you yet?”

“Yes and no.” she made a face. “If anyone asks its no and make sure you say no. He’s ordered his entire team not to tell my father. He asked me to play a game with him for two weeks.” She told them how he introduced himself as Draco and asked her to play along.

“It’s kind of romantic,” Magda said sweetly. “Admit it, Dimi. It’s romantic.”

“He encouraged me to go on a date.”

“With him?”

“No with a guy I met on the plane. Then the other guy almost died.”

“Did Miklos try to kill him?”

“No, he apparently is deathly allergic to cumin of all weird things and the chef was new and put it on his churro. He didn’t have an EpiPen on him and he collapsed right in the middle of our date.”

“Holy f**k! What did you do?” Darya was all ears.

“Panicked like a scared little girl and screamed for help. Then his scumbag friend accused me of poisoning him.”

“Did you kick him in the balls?”

“He was busy giving chest compressions, therefore I held myself in check.” She chuckled at Darya’s question.

“Man, this guy was really down for the count?”

“Miklos called the hospital for me and found out he was fine.”

“Wait, Miklos called to see how your date was?”

She giggled, “crawled over the balcony to get to me because he could hear me crying. Thought I’d been hurt or something. Then he said the night was too early and I was too sad, so he went to his place, got changed and then came back to my room as Draco and asked me if I wanted to go to the local taverna with him.”

“Really? That’s so cute!”

“It really was, and I couldn’t refuse him. My pretties,” she said suddenly, “he listened to me yesterday. About having kids in this life. He heard what I was saying. He didn’t agree to anything, but he said we could talk more about it. It’s weird but talking as Draco and Elektra is far easier than talking as Dimi and Miklos.”

“He’s courting you,” Magda said, her smile audible to Dimitra. “Dimi, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I’ve hated him for eight years. It’s hard to pack it all up and shove it away.”

“You may have hated him eight years, but you’ve loved him nearly twenty-six.” Darya said wisely, “there’s a fine line between love and hate. You two dance all over it all the time.”

“I know. Its why I’m massively confused. We went dancing last night and it was crazy fun. He was so carefree and loose, and I don’t remember the last time I laughed as hard. He loves to dance as much as we do.”

“Did you continue dancing back in your room?” Magda asked curiously.

“Maybe,” she plucked at the bedsheets with a small smile. Her girlfriends loud chortle of excitement made her giggle. “Stop it. I’m messed up enough in the head and you’re not helping.”

“Dimi,” Magda laughed at her. “We are your ride or die girls.” She echoed Miklos’ earlier observation. “You hate him? We’ll help you bury him alive. If you love him? We’ll plan your second wedding down to the ring you can loop through his nose to drag him around by. We just love you. Whatever you and your heart decide to do, we got you.”

“Yes, but if I stay with him, my father will want us to have a kid and my father will push for him to be trained.”

The girls were quiet at her words.

“Dimi,” Darya said quietly.

“What?”

“Just follow your heart. Whatever it tells you. Follow it. You and Miklos are tough, tougher than most and there are two of you and only one of Vasili. Besides, at the risk of being macabre, your dad is going to last what five, six more years? Even if you had a baby next year, if you procreate soon, he’s not going to put a toddler in a warehouse before he dies.”

“What if he lives until he’s a hundred?”

“Then you and Miklos together put your foot down. If the two of you are running the business and you make him step down, then how you raise a family, if you even choose to have a family, will be your decisions.” Darya argued with her. “Dimi, we trust you. We know you will always do what is best. You need to trust yourself. What do you want?”

She gave an exaggerated sigh, “I wish I knew. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted and how I was going to get it and then everything in the last eight days has proven me wrong. Even on my stupid date last night, Miklos was in my head.” She got off the bed and wrapped up in her silk robe and headed towards her kitchen, taking her phone with her. She needed coffee. “What if this game he is playing is simply a way to keep me around?”

She paused as she looked at an envelope on her kitchen counter. Where had this come from? She recognized Miklos’ handwriting of her name on the front of the legal sized brown packet.

“What if it’s not?” Magda asked.

She opened the envelope and pulled out a small stack of documents. “It’s my marriage contract.”

“What?”

“There’s an envelope here on my counter and my marriage contract is in it.” She flipped through it and then noted another stack of papers, “and my divorce papers I had drawn up.” She was quiet as she took in the notation of the second stack. “He signed them,” she whispered wondering why her heart felt it was being ripped in half.

“He signed the divorce papers?” Magda asked incredulously.

“Wait, there’s a note on the last page.”

“What does it say?”

She read it aloud, “if after two weeks you are not convinced, we are meant to be, you can have these filed and I will not contest. It is the least I can do to prove to you I meant what I said. Love Miklos.”

“Holy s**t,” Darya grunted her disbelief. “You could file them now if you wanted. Freedom is a filing away, Dimi.”

“The note says she has to give him the two weeks.” Magda argued.

“But they’re already signed,” Darya argued back. “He’d look like a moron in court if he contested everything he’d already signed.”

“My father would kill him if he knew he signed these,” Dimi swallowed the lump in her throat. “I heard him tell Ajax last night to keep his mouth shut and not tell Pops he found me. He’s obviously not told him yet but if he knew and knew the papers were signed, he’d be a dead man.”

“Do you think your dad would really kill him?” Magda asked quietly.

“Truthfully,” Dimi said quietly, “if you put my father and Miklos in a room and asked me who I feared more, it’s Miklos every single time. Every time. Not because Vasili is my dad but because as cold and ruthless as Vasili is, Miklos is a hundredfold more ruthless, controlled, and dangerous. His brain is wired far more superior to my father’s. I’ve seen Miklos do things to people which would make Tarantino gag. My dad and Giorgio raised him to far tougher than the two of them combined and he likes it, Mags. He likes what he does. He told me himself he is a power-hungry motherfucker, and he doesn’t tolerate much. But, as tough and powerful as he is, I’m worried he would …” she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“Wait, you think he’d sacrifice his head to let you go free?” Darya exclaimed in horror. “You think he’d take the bullet in order to make sure your father doesn’t force you back.”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to think this way, but he’s made a couple of statements to say if at the end of the two weeks I don’t go back he’ll go back on his own and deal with the ramifications of what we agreed to.”

“Do you think he’s using it as emotional blackmail?” Mags asked.

“He signed the papers, Mags!” she almost yelled at her. “I don’t think he’s bluffing. I think he means it. I think he means he will go back and face my father on his own and deal with it.”

“I have a question,” Darya interrupted.

“What?” Dimi was staring at the papers in front of her.

“Why drop them off to you this morning? Didn’t you say you spent the night with him?”

“He left me a message he had errands to run, and he’d see me soon.”

“I think he wanted you to know he’s serious.” Magda hypothesized. “Hear me out.” She cut off Darya’s protests, “Dimi, if he held them over your head for two weeks and said, stick it out two weeks or I don’t sign them, you’d feel he was blackmailing you. Giving you the goods at the beginning tells you, he trusts you to make good on your end of the bargain and the ball is in your court. He’s trusting you, Dimi. He’s showing you he trusts you and he’s asking you to trust his word. He means what he’s saying.”

“I guess,” she flopped her head down on the counter next to the papers and eyeballed them. “I’ve never seen my marriage contract apart from signing my stupid name on it.” She looked at the signature of the young girl she once was and traced it with her finger. She’d cried hard enough the day she signed this, the ink was smudged.

“You should read through them and see what eighteenth century bullshit you got traded for,” Darya quipped. “Maybe Miklos got three cows, a sheep and a piece of land in Greece.”

“Maybe he got extra if he popped your cherry. Maybe two sheep?”

She giggled at her friend’s words, “I will read it through, and I will let you know whether my chastity was included in my contract.” She paused, “thanks for listening to me rant. I miss you. I have to admit, part of the reason I’m doing this two-week thing is because I want to be home with you. I don’t like the notion we’re apart.”

“Ah, so you’ll suck it up and be with Miklos just to be able to hang with us. I can respect it,” Darya taunted her.

She laughed. “I’m going to go shower. I’ll talk to you both later. Love you.”

She ended the call and instead of heading straight to the shower she stood there at the counter looking at the packet. Was Magda correct? Had he left these for her to prove he was serious? A gesture of goodwill? She stretched her hands over her head and stood on her tiptoes and noted the aching in her body.

Miklos had run the gauntlet with her last night. A cheeky smile formed on her lips as she considered the bold way, she had spoken to him last night. Somewhere along the way, Draco and Elektra had disappeared and it had been Miklos and Dimitra on the dance floor, and she’d issued her siren call and the man had literally carried her home running. She giggled as she wondered what it looked like to passersby on the street to see an oversized man running down the street with a girl in his arms. He had wanted her as much as she’d wanted him.

She considered she had not once on her date with Trip felt even a fraction of the desire she’d had for Miklos. She grimaced as she considered Trip. She lifted her phone and sent a quick text message stating she hoped he was well and recovering and to take care. She didn’t expect a response from him, nor did she want one.

She grabbed a banana off the counter and poured herself some juice. Taking the stack of papers, sliding the divorce papers back into the envelope and grabbing her marriage agreement, she took herself to the outdoor patio. She set everything down on the little table and leaned on the railing to see if she could see Miklos in the water. She jumped when she noted the seabird on the next balcony with wide orange-yellow eyes staring at her expectantly. He squawked and she giggled.

“Sorry buddy, I don’t have any treats this morning. I’ll fix you up later though,” she promised him and as if he knew what she was saying he flew away. She snuck a peek around the wall and grimaced at the abundance of feathers and poo on the balcony. Maybe she’d gone too far. She considered this morning she woke up alone. Maybe she hadn’t gone far enough. He should have at least kissed her goodbye.

She twisted her lips as she sat down in her chair and lifted the documents and began reading through them. They were fairly straightforward in comparison to the legal documentation she’d been reading the last few weeks.

A couple of the clauses made her grimace. There were an entire two paragraphs on consummating their marriage. If they hadn’t consummated their marriage by her thirtieth birthday, they both forfeited all the benefits of the marriage contract. In her head she questioned how her father would have demanded verification of this.

She flipped to the benefits section. If the marriage lasted until her thirtieth birthday and they had truly attempted to make it work, whether it succeeded or not, she would receive the balance of the trust fund she’d gotten at eighteen. She would get thirty-three percent of the shares of Lykiaos Corporation. Until then her father controlled sixty-six and Miklos thirty-four. She paused as she read the next line. She would get thirty-three percent of Laskaris. Miklos would hold sixty-six at her thirtieth birthday. Currently he and his father split evenly a fifty-fifty hold on the Laskaris International Groups companies. She made a face at the sub clause. Should a child be born, the first born would at their thirtieth birthday take thirty-three percent from Miklos, regardless of gender. Additional children would have percentages of Dimitra’s shares based on the number of children. Her eyes widened as it broke it down as far as them having ten children.

She considered the people on the other side of Miklos room. No way was she having so many kids. She had a vague recollection of Miklos talking to Ajax and Ajax saying the woman bought her face. She hadn’t realized the man had such a funny sense of humor.

She reviewed the rest of the document and made a face. Should the couple decide to terminate the marriage ahead of Dimitra’s thirtieth birthday and/or does not consummate and attempt to make the marriage real she forfeits all rights and entitlements to anything owned by Laskaris and Lykiaos companies. The next line surprised her. Miklos wouldn’t just lose every single of his Lykiaos connections, but his father would never relinquish the other half of the company and he would never assume full control of the Laskaris family business. Holdings from Laskaris belonging to Giorgio would pass to any offspring Miklos might have or to other family members in the event he never had a child.

She lifted the envelope in her hand with trembling fingers. He had signed the divorce papers. He had signed them knowing he would lose not only everything Lykiaos, but he would never get what he was due from his own family. His own family had put this clause into the agreement, and they had all agreed on it. Yet, he was willing to let it all go to ensure her happiness.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat staring at the water as she contemplated the very real ramifications of what he had done. Another thought occurred to her as she sat there. It wouldn’t matter if he lost everything if her father made good on his threat and just executed him. Dead men can’t run companies.