Divorcing Her Mafia Family

Heat and Hives

She kissed her mother on both cheeks, saying she needed to go meet with her friends for support. Her mother had tutted and cooed at her to do whatever she needed to do. She exited the church, pulling her gloves off her hands, grateful her father and Miklos has stopped to talk to a priest. She needed out of the dress. Dimi considered her entire body might be covered in hives from the wool. She wanted to rip it off and burn it. Even torturing the enemies of her family with it seemed cruel.

She reached her car and just before her hand touched the handle she was ripped backwards and spun so her body was pressed hard against the door. Miklos hands were on her shoulders, and he had her pinned between his thighs.

“You little bitch.” He ripped her hat off and tossed it over his shoulder.

“Hey, that was my hat.”

“I don’t give a f**k if it was a tiara worn by the Queen of England.”

“What’s the matter, Miklos? Did I embarrass you? Now you know how poor Eve felt this morning when she found out from your wife how you had a wife,” she scratched at her arm absentmindedly.

“You didn’t do any of this in honor of Eve. This was all you trying to make me look bad in front of your parents.”

“It worked. You humiliated their little girl.”

“You were not humiliated this morning. You knew exactly what you were doing.” He slapped at her hands as she scratched her chest. “You had this,” he plucked the front of the dress, gripping a pearl button, “all ready to go. You knew I’d have someone at the house.”

Her grin was one she knew her father had given people before he tortured them. She had practiced it in the mirror when she was a kid. “Poor Miklos. Did you think I hadn’t already anticipated you would refuse to give me my freedom? You’ve spent the last eight years keeping your d**k wet, Miklos but do you know I’ve been doing?” She held his gaze, furiously, “I’ve been planning my escape from this f*****g family. There is no way in hell, I’m playing second-fiddle to a man who treats me the way my father does my mother. I’ll be damned if I would be the kind of woman who shows up to church with a man who had a heart attack f*****g his mistress two months before and the entire world sees it. This empire you and my father are running is an embarrassment and I will get out from under your thumb.”

Her words made him stand up straight, his hands slipping off her shoulders to fall to his side. “You’ve been plotting this for eight years?”

“I want out. I hate this family.”

“Your father adores you.”

“Does he? The only thing I am to him is a way to make sure his empire remains tied to his family. So long as I have a baby to join our two families, his precious business, and the blessings of the Lykiaos curse will continue. If I have a son, do you know what he would do? He would make him into you!” she jabbed his chest. “Cold, misogynistic, heartless. It would be a cold day in hell before I let any child of mine become a mini version of you.”

He stepped back completely now, stunned at her words. “Is this what you think of me?”

“Which part is incorrect, Miklos? You are just like him!”

“Is that so?”

She had struck a nerve. She watched his nostrils flare, and his jaw tighten at her words. It made her shake inside with excitement. Would this be when he said fine, and she could go? “Yes. Just like him. His doppelganger. You both kill. You both maim. Most importantly, you both have zero respect for women or the vows you speak in a church. You think with your d**k or your fists. Your hearts were replaced by bricks at birth, I’m certain of it. You lack respect and decency for women. You have none. None.”

“You think I don’t respect women?”

“I heard the way you talked to Eve this morning. If you respected her, you would have at least driven her home after you dumped her. You shoved her in a car after telling her she made your d**k limp. She clearly thought she was your girlfriend, and you a person she could build a relationship with and instead, you kicked her to the curb.”

Suddenly he was in her space again, his hands resting on her shoulders, his feet on either side of hers. “You forget, agape mou,” he leaned over her, “my wife ran away to college instead of taking up her conjugal duties. Now she’s home, I have no need for a lover. Considering how devastated you are,” he ran his hand over the woolen padded shoulders of the dress she was wearing, “maybe you need to be reassured my attentions are now all yours. Maybe next time we come to church we can be planning a baptism.”

“Never,” she hissed as his hands stroked her arms. It made her itchier from the wool and hotter than she needed to be.

“Oh, my love,” he leaned his head closer to hers and nuzzled her neck as she turned her head away, “you complained to your mother I gave all my attention to someone other than you. Obviously, all of this is an attempt to gain my love.”

“No,” she protested, pursing her lips as his breath teased her ear. She closed her eyes as she felt his lips touch her earlobe. “I want my freedom.”

“Do you?” he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to him.

Her breasts squished against his chest, the pearls of her dress pushing into her inflamed skin underneath. She turned her head to protest, and his lips crashed against hers. She opened her mouth to gasp and seizing the opportunity he was shoving his tongue along hers. She felt dizzy as he moved his lips back and forth along her mouth, sucking and licking her lips. She clutched the lapel of his suit jacket as he kissed her more than she’d ever been kissed before. He devoured her and her legs were weak from the onslaught of his kiss.

Her fingers ached to touch him. Her body pressed tighter to him. He was heaven and hell. Torture and pleasure as his fingers held her head fast, her hair twisted in his grip as he continued to kiss her deeply. Her hips yearned to be connected to his and she shuddered in his arms.

He broke the kiss, panting heavily and the peal of her mother’s voice calling her name in the distance made her realize how lost she’d been in his touch.

It was their first kiss since the chaste peck he’d given her on their wedding day. Her lips burned.

“f**k,” she whispered pushing him backwards.

“We can do that too,” his eyes were dark and taunting as he stared her down.

“No. We will not. I want my freedom.”

“We’re married. Til death do us part.”

“It can be arranged.”

“I didn’t take you as suicidal.”

“Won’t be my death.”

“The men in my family live until their nineties. We are strong virile men.”

“Let me go.”

“You agreed to marry me. You’ve never given our marriage a chance. I think you need to try.”

“I need to try?” She couldn’t believe her words. “I do? You who’ve had your d**k in everything in a skirt are suggesting I need to try?”

“Yes. You gave up too easily. I thought you would have come home after the four years. You didn’t. I agreed you could go away to study. It hurt my feelings you didn’t come back.”

“Bullshit. On my graduation day you were photographed leaving a hotel with a model.”

“You should have come home and staked your claim.”

Her mother’s voice calling still made her cringe. “I need to go.”

“Do you? Why? We just had our first kiss. We should spend time with the family. Celebrate.”

“Are you insane? I said I want out.”

“And I said I want in.” His eyes held promise of his meaning, “deep in. Your father will not let me take over entirely until we have an heir. Now you are finally home and are no longer a child, I think it’s time we make our marriage official. It was merely words on paper but now, now we can make it real.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“If I’m honest, until today, I struggled with the marriage thing because you’ve always reminded me of a kid sister. Always underfoot, bratty, spoiled and pouting when she doesn’t get her own way, but definitely like a sister. Today though, I see you for the woman you’ve become and it’s time you took your place at my side with the family.”

“Like hell,” she growled, the noise ripping from her throat, hating herself for the way her heart clenched at the reminder he’d considered her a sister. A sister? How could he have considered her a sister when she’d had her first wet dreams about him. “I will get my divorce. I will do anything to get it. You will see.”

“And you will see I am as ruthless as you have accused me of being. I am a Laskaris, my little love. Whatever I set my mind to, I achieve.”

“And how do you think you are going to convince me to stay married? I already told you, I won’t.”

His grin made her heart stop for two beats too long and she felt her chest heave as it started up again. His words almost making her faint with fear at his plans.

“I’m going to use every weapon in my arsenal and seduce my wife. I’m going to make you love me and you’re never going to want to leave. You will be begging me to make love to you until the end of time. You’ll have my baby, and we will be a happy family. Like in those princess movies you used to watch as a child.”

“I watched those for the villains not the princesses and I would rather eat glass than sleep with you.”

“I wonder if eating glass is as irritating as wearing wool in June. You must be itchy.” He teased her as he let her go. “You should go get out of it. If we go home now, I have time before my meeting this evening to rub lotion over the welts your dress is probably causing.”

She pushed him away and hated how he laughed at her when she dove into the car and gunned her engine. She pulled away furiously giving a wave at her mom and then flipping him off as he winked at her.

Her skin was on fire, and she knew most of it was the wool dress but there was a part of it which was aflame from his touch. He hadn’t even touched her if she were thinking about it. Just the nape of her neck where he held her hair and her lips. That was it. It was absolutely, definitely only the dress making her hot.

“f**k!” she screamed as she slapped her hands against the steering wheel when she stopped at a red light. She pulled off to the side of the road and ripped the dress over her head, struggling with zipper while in her seated position. She sat in the silk slip and looked in dismay at the welts on her skin. She’d been allergic to something in the dress. Her skin was bright red with hives covering it.

Her phone was ringing, and she dug it out of her bag cursing.

“Where are you?”

“Almost there,” she swore as she pulled into traffic again and started tearing through the city. “I had to stop to take the dress off. I was allergic to it. I may need to stop for an antihistamine.”

“That bad?” Magda’s voice was concerned.

“I’m coated in hives. My chest, my arms. Anywhere the slip didn’t cover, has welts.”

“Was it worth it? How was church?”

“It would have been worth it if he hadn’t cornered me after.”

“What happened?”

“Said he is going to seduce me into staying.”

“Shit.”

“He kissed me.”

There was silence on the other end.

“He kissed me, and I think my mother saw.”

Still nothing.

“He kissed me, and I might have kissed him back and my mother saw.”

“You’re screwed.” Finally, Magda spoke

“No! I need my freedom. He can’t have my money and I’m not giving him an heir to this empire of torture. It’s not happening.”

“Hear me out,” Magda spoke. “You, Darya, and I, we have no experience when it comes to men. All the rumors we started in school were bullshit. We talk a good talk but the three of us are virgins for crying aloud. We have spent so much time plotting the demise of our respective families we made no time to date or get laid. We have worked so hard for all this time and we’re all going to go under because of our libidos.”

“It’s not this bad,” Dimi argued, “we were single mindedly focused on our end goals.”

“We forgot we have v*****s which crave d**k,” Magda corrected, “We’re the epitome of the nerd group. Your husband,” she exaggerated the word, “is the consummate player. He could walk into a cloister of nuns and walk out with a concubine. He is out of our league. It’s one thing to torment him into letting you go but if he has decided his weapon of choice is his d**k you’re screwed. He was your first love, Dimi.”

“I can do this.” She said with resolve. “I can do this. I just need to piss him off enough so the last thing he thinks of is using said d**k. I need him so angry he wants to divorce my ass and never lay eyes on me again. Two weeks. I can do this in two weeks. Heck after today, we might be more than ninety percent there. Especially after we renovate.”

“How far out are you?”

“Two minutes,” she flicked a signal light. “I can’t wait to redecorate.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Not only do I want to do this but we’re doing it in style. Mrs. K is making us dinner.”

“Well, we ran to the hardware store like you asked and the nice gentleman taught me and Darya how to use the chainsaw. We should be able to chop up his bed and his mattress and set it aflame in the circle of the driveway by the time he gets home.”

“I’m so stoked. We also have to have the replacement bed in place. It needs to be feminine and gaudy. I’m thinking pink velour or a royal purple velvet.”

“You’re insane. I love it!” Magda’s voice was exuberant.

“I’m here,” she pulled into the parking lot of the shopping center. “I see you. I’ll be right there.”

She parked her car and grabbed her bag out of the back seat. She pulled a pair of jeans out of the bag and then uncaring she was in a parking lot, shimmied them on under her slip. Women in LA wore far less than her granny slip, and she was putting clothes on, not taking them off. She grabbed her t-shirt and flipped it over her head before reaching under it to pull the slip through the sleeve of her shirt. She kicked the black shoes off and threw them into the back seat and traded them for a pair of runners. As she turned around, she saw both Magda and Darya approaching her, and she grimaced.

“I look like the before picture in an allergy commercial under this t-shirt.” Her arms were bare, and she held them up to the girls for inspection. They both pulled their lips back in disgust.

“Holy s**t, how long did you wear it?”

“Three hours,” she rubbed her forearms instead of scratching. “Service would have been far more pleasurable if I hadn’t scratched the entire time.” She ran her nails over her chest through the cotton of her shirt. “I need to find a drugstore and then we can shop.”

“How was your mom?” Magda asked

“She looked tired,” Dimi sighed. “Really tired. Can you imagine the humiliation she must have felt to have her husband have a heart attack while f*****g his mistress, only for his mistress to be the one to revive him with CPR and then be unable to leave him?”

“Why can’t she leave?” Darya asked frowning. “I mean I get the whole ‘just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in’ thing but surely it doesn’t apply to adulterers.”

“One, that’s from the third Godfather movie which is based on Italians and my father would be insulted.” Her friends giggled at her words, “and two, my mother is old school. I remember on my wedding day she said to me, ‘Dimitra, marrying a man who is the head of a family like ours is a complicated thing. You will love with all your heart, and it will have to be enough for both of you because they need to turn their hearts off to run their business the right way. You must learn to adapt.’”

“What a load of horse s**t. There’s enough crap in her statement you’d think we were the stables at the Kentucky Derby.” Magda grimaced. “Sounds like something my mother would say, though.”

“Mine too. She married my father for his money. He married her because she was twenty years younger and looked good on his arm.” Darya admitted. “Its why I made a promise to never marry anyone unless I loved them with all my heart. I will not be like my mother and marry a guy because of his bank balance. I want a family with kids who feel loved and get hugs and kisses and bedtime stories. I won’t be dumping them off with nannies who get bent over daddy’s desk when mommy isn’t looking.”

“I didn’t have nannies,” Dimi said with her nose wrinkled as they entered the drugstore. “My father expected my mother to be the perfect housewife. Take care of me. Make sure the house was run correctly. Turn her head away when he f****d the staff in his home office. Attempting to keep me occupied in the garden, so I didn’t interrupt when he was doing business in the garage. I remember once hearing her sobbing and begging him to not take me with him to a job. I had to tell her it was okay, and I wanted to go. I think I was six.”

“Dare I ask what you were doing?” Magda questioned

“I wouldn’t,” she made a face. “There are things you never question and my father’s work and what it entails is one of those things.”

“I’m surprised they don’t have you running hacking schemes for them.”

“They have no idea of what I can do. Though, this morning someone,” she nudged Darya, “made an FBI comment and Miklos heard it. Had to tell him how I framed up Bryce. It was a good segue into asking for my divorce, which he declined.” She pulled a box of tablets off a shelf and pulled a face.

“You knew he would.” Magda tossed her dark hair over her shoulder. “Let’s be real. He’s an alpha male type who doesn’t like to say no. If it was his idea to get a divorce, then it would be done but since it’s not his idea, you could be stuck with him forever.”

“Nah,” she was feeling infinitely more confident as she grabbed a bottle of water from a cooler. “Did you know the alpha-male thing is just a load of bullshit? Some guy in the arctic had done a paper on behaviour in wolves. He later rescinded his paper and said it was completely wrong but the rest of the world, wanting an excuse for why men act like possessive dirtballs, refused to believe he made a mistake on his first observations. Humanity is fucked.” She rolled her eyes as she put her purchases on the counter and brightly colored packaging behind the counter caught her eye. “Since when do drugstores sell fireworks?”

“We’ve always sold them,” the cashier shrugged as if bored by the question. “We have more in stock because fourth of July is coming up. Usually, we just have sparklers and stuff.”

“How much for all of them? Do I need a permit?”

“No, you just need to be eighteen. You want them all?”

“Yes,” she giggled and jumped up and down. Her friends were clutching her arms in panic. She turned to face them, “this is freaking fantastic. I can set them off when he’s sleeping and wake him up with the bangs.”

“What are you going to do with them? You can’t bring them home. Jinx will be terrified.”

“No. I’ll store them in the garage.” She went wide-eyed, “oh my god.”

“Oh my god, what?” Darya asked in terror.

“I’m going to set them off in his garage.”

“In his garage?”

“Where he stores his Porsche and his Maserati and his Ducati.” She saw the girl behind the counter’s eyes grow wide in fear and pause in ringing them through, “oh don’t worry love. I came home this morning to find my husband having s*x with another woman. I can’t kill him, but I can wreck his cars.”

The girl stared at her and then swallowed bitterly, “I caught my boyfriend with my cousin two weeks ago at my sister’s wedding. I’ll give you my staff discount.”

“Oh, no, no discount.” She held up the card. “This is his credit card. I mean it has my name on it, but it’s his. I’m maxing it out today. I’m going to spend as much of his money as I can. I want to him to pay for all of it.”

The girl behind the counter high-fived her and then got to work boxing up the next step in Dimi’s masterplan. Dimi felt her smirk growing as she considered at the rate her mind was twistedly coming up with ways to torture her husband, perhaps she should take over the family business. Clearly, she was born for it.