Divorcing Her Mafia Family

Grand Gestures

Her friends met her at the front door, and she saw the looks on their faces.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” Magda dragged the word out, clearly lying.

She stepped into the house and then gasped at the sight in front of her. Hundreds of bouquets of red roses were all through the foyer and as far as her eyes could take her. “What the hell?”

“There is a card, Dimitra,” Mrs. K came toward her beaming. “Isn’t all of this lovely?”

“You remember he was f*****g Eve upstairs last night before your innocent ears even had the chance to escape her screaming?” She tore the card out of the hand of the woman who was clearly enamored with the grandiose display. Well, she could do grandiose displays as well, just not the endearing kind.

She read the card aloud knowing her friends were going to read it anyway, “my little wife, I hope these flowers give you even a fraction of the joy you bring me. Welcome home. Yours forever-M.”

“Mine forever, my ass,” she shook her head. “If I were a romantic person, this would be something else.”

“I’m a romantic person. My panties are wet. Where did he find all the red roses?” Magda was inhaling the scent of them deeply.

“His mother is a florist. It’s how his parent’s met. He went in to buy flowers for another woman. Found his wife instead.” She waved around, “he has access to her warehouse. It’s not all so special. If he had sent me a gift, he didn’t have ready at his fingertips, I would have been impressed. Instead, this was a call to his mother to hook him up.”

“When you put it that way,” Darya grumbled.

“We need to get moving,” she ignored the roses and made her way back to the cars in the driveway. “We need to disassemble the bed upstairs and start prepping the room for the new bed.”

“New bed?” Mrs. K came around the corner. “You bought him a new bed? He won’t like this, Dimitra. He bought the bed from a place back home in Greece.”

“You don’t think he’ll like the new bed?” she made big eyes at the housekeeper. “Suddenly I’m rethinking my plans,” she cupped her cheeks mockingly.

They got up to his bedroom and looked around. She walked straight to the bed Mrs. K would have had to make and grimaced. “Imagine having your housekeeper cleaning your spunk filled sheets.”

“He uses condoms,” Magda pulled open his side tables and held up a box and shook them. “They’re not a small size either.”

They pulled the blankets off the bed and then began the process of tugging the mattress off the bed. The more she exposed the beautiful wood of the bed frame the more she knew she couldn’t burn it. She stroked the warm smooth of the maple and sighed. “I can’t chop this up.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We don’t have to chop it up. Let’s disassemble it and hide it somewhere on the property. There are lots of other things we can burn and make him think we burned the bed. He can have it back after I get my divorce.”

She raced down the stairs, through the maze of roses and out the front door towards the garage in search of a tool kit. She was just exiting the garage with a handful of tools when the delivery truck with the decorating material showed up at the front gate. The security guys were giving them a hard time and she made a face. She raced forward and ordered the security agents to let her moving trucks in. She was bringing her furniture to her new home. Mr. Laskaris would not like her being denied. As they acquiesced, she waved them through, smiling excitedly. Three men piled out of the truck, and she motioned for them to bring all of the things to the master bedroom.

When they got upstairs, she looked at the three men, “how’d you like to make three hundred bucks? A hundred bucks a piece? I’ll e-transfer a hundred bucks to each of your bank accounts right now.”

They all looked uncomfortable, “what do we have to do?” Evidently, they knew whose house they were in. A mobster asking for a favor would not be a good thing.

“Disassemble this bed and take it down to the shed at the end of the garden. Then take the television off the wall and put in the same place. Can you, do it?” She knew the garden shed was empty because it was where she and the girls had staked out the house from for nearly two weeks. “We will bring the stuff out of the truck?”

The men exchanged glances and she was exuberant when they shrugged and accepted. She got their email addresses and transferred the money from the credit card as a cash advance to each of their accounts while they began taking the bed apart.

She and the girls began bringing the stuff in from the back of the truck and as the pink décor began filling up the bedroom, she was feeling more and more gleeful. Mrs. K came to the door and her eyes went wide.

“Dimitra, what are you doing?”

“Redecorating.”

“He’s going to be angry.”

“I’m banking on it!” she synced her phone with the music system of the bedroom and grinned when her favorite playlist of music from strong women began pumping through the room.

It took no time for the three men to get the bed apart and the television down. They were just backing the truck down the driveway when the furniture delivery arrived. Dimi was feeling sweaty and delirious as she and the girls rocked out to the music as they decorated the dark grey painted bedroom with bright, frilly, pink- and sprinkle-colored objects.

As the men brought up the nightmare pink fluffy headboard to affix to the wall, Mrs. K’s eyes had grown incredibly wide and tried to pull her into the hallway to discuss her decisions. She had reassured the woman all she needed to do was to go work on dinner. It would be over in no time and the less she came upstairs the better. Surely the lady didn’t want to be involved.

“But the flowers downstairs,” the woman protested.

“If you like them so much, you can have them.” Dimi shrugged. “They mean nothing. He’s lived like a man w***e for eight years. He told me on my wedding day we would never be a real couple. On our honeymoon he went out every night and left me, an eighteen-year-old in a strange country all alone and when I complained he told me to get used to it because ours was a marriage of name only and would never be real. He skipped every Christmas with me, every holiday, every vacation. He has screwed more women in the last month, than most men do in a lifetime. I am no longer looking for reconciliation. I want revenge and a divorce, and I shall have both.”

“Revenge?” Mrs. K was surprised by her words. “When you said war last night, I thought you meant –"

“Mrs. K, you didn’t think I was joking when I said a divorce? Did you believe I really here to fight to get him back?” She threw her head back and laughed uproariously. “Did you think I was going to throw down with Eve? It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know he was married.” She shook her head, “Mrs. K, your best bet is to stay clear of the c*****e. Its going to be ugly.”

As the woman walked away, clearly disappointed she had misread the entire situation Dimi went back to work in the bedroom. She stepped aside as the old mattress was taken away and the new ones were brought in.”

After two hours, the men were long gone out of the house, the redecorated bedroom was completed, and the girls were ransacking every single piece of wood they could find to use to insinuate the bed was burning. At the far end of the property, she found an old shed containing furniture which clearly could never be salvaged, likely from the original homeowners when the house had been built in the fifties. Miklos had bought the house weeks before their wedding. He’d had multiple upgrades done to it since then. They gathered as much as they could and then dragged it into the middle of the driveway in the circle of stones.

When they had everything ready, their cars all unpacked, and five boxes of dye stashed in her bedroom off the pool, they were exhausted and starving. She would sneak to the pool later and dump the pool dye in, but she couldn’t do it too soon. She was worried about Mrs. K tipping off Miklos if she saw her dumping stuff into the pool. Also, the girls were contemplating going for a swim before their bonfire.

They sat outside in the back garden at the dining table off the kitchen and insisted Mrs. K join them for dinner.

“Let’s talk about something other than the ridiculousness of his bedroom upstairs,” Mrs. K passed plates around the table.

“Well, we can talk about the fact a very handsome wealthy man is lusting after Magda.” Dimi threw it out with a wide innocent expression.

“He’s a banker,” Darya added with a smirk.

“Do you like him, Magda?” Mrs. K asked curiously. “Is he a good man?”

Magda pushed rice around her plate and sighed, “I don’t know. He likes to buy me things and he likes to say things to make me blush and uncomfortable, but I don’t know much about him other than what I read on the internet. I don’t know if he’s using me.”

“Why would he be using you?”

“He wants our program.” Magda shrugged.

“What program?” Mrs. K looked to Dimi.

“We designed a program which would allow banks to do something similar to an e-transfer simply by touching two phones together, regardless of the bank. If I used my bank and Darya used a different bank and I owed her money, so long as we both had the app installed and were signed into the app, I could touch her phone with my phone and the money would transfer. I used my trust fund to finance us through our beta testing and then we found a few smaller banks in LA who over the last twelve months allowed us to use them to test the services. We were smart and filed proprietary rights from day one so even if someone tried to duplicate what we were doing they couldn’t legally do it. Darya is a bloody genius with things like filing patents and securing funding. She entered MIT with the plan to get a degree in mathematics and ended up doing a double major in math and business commerce.”

“How did you come up with such an idea?” Mrs. K’s blue-grey eyes were wide with admiration.

“Magda,” Dimi waved at her friend. “She always has her finger on the pulse of technology. Knows what is upcoming and trending. Her program was in cognitive studies and the implication of artificial intelligence in current technology.”

“It’s my opinion, humans are always looking for a quick and easy way to simplify what they’re doing. We are inherently lazy as a population. I like to find ways we can use computer programming, such as the things Dimi can program, in ways to make our lives easier.”

“And the banks are interested?”

“Not only are they interested, but they’re also fighting over it.” Dimi shoved a mouthful of moussaka into her mouth and sighed with delight. “God Mrs. K this is incredible.”

“When you say fighting over it?”

“The man who is chasing Magda wants to pay us two point seven billion dollars for us to sign over the proprietary information,” Dimi watched as Mrs. K choked on her water, sputtering, her eyes watering while Magda patted her back grinning.

“Are you kidding?” the woman was hoarse as she wiped her mouth.

“No and it’s why I need my divorce before we settle the deal. I don’t want to share with Miklos or my father.” She saw Mrs. K’s face fall.

“Miklos is not your father, Dimitra. Surely you see the differences?”

“How would I see the differences?”

“When you’re together”

Dimi cut her off, “we have never been together. Not ever. Did you not hear what I said? You more than anyone know the truth of our relationship. My parents forced him to marry a girl he considered his little sister in order for him to secure his role as head of the family. He was so repulsed by having to marry me, he has avoided being in my presence for the last eight years. My own parents had no idea the lengths he went to in attempts to avoid me.”

Magda piped in, “in all the time we were in Boston, not once did he come visit. He didn’t even come to her graduation.”

“He didn’t even respond himself when she said she wanted to attend classes in England or when she said she was going to work on her masters, just send approval through his PA.” Darya piped up, “not even a single question about what she did her masters in. He didn’t even know she was out of the country for a year in England when she studied and worked for Ben’s company. Asshole didn’t even know she’d been arrested by the FBI.”

“You were arrested by the FBI?” Mrs. K’s eyes widened as she leaned across the table in horror. “For what?”

“Espionage,” she rolled her eyes, “it was trumped up. They were trying to extort me into working for them. I told them to file the charges if they were sure they had me on something. They let me go. I was only detained for forty-eight hours.”

“They raided our apartment. Scared the dog.” Darya was furious as she chewed furiously on a piece of lamb, she’d ripped off a skewer. “Poor Jinx.”

“Why is this the first I’m hearing of it and why did you not tell him?”

“What makes you think we didn’t call him?” Magda grimaced. “We called his offices and asked to be put through to him. We left message with his secretary we needed to talk to him urgently because Dimi was in trouble, and he couldn’t be arsed to return our calls. Instead of calling us, he called the security guard he has watching her if he had eyes on her and of course he did so that was that. He never even called Dimi’s phone to see if she was okay. Even if he considered her a kid sister, he could have called her.”

“I did not know.” The elderly housekeeper was distraught.

“The worst part was,” Dimi pushed rice around her plate sadly, “he told Pop to tell me to get the girls to stop playing games to try to get his attention. He is a busy man and doesn’t have time for the games of sorority girls.”

“She was in a f*****g holding cell. It wasn’t a game,” Darya hissed furiously.

“All he had to do was call us instead of his security agent. We would have told him the truth. They were threatening to lock her up in Guantanamo for treason if she didn’t comply with their demands and work for them.”

“When did this happen?”

“My fourth year. The year I graduated. It was my college professor who got me out. She was amazing. She threatened to sue the government on my behalf.”

“We had been planning since our first year the ways we could break ties with our families but after the episode, we knew we had to buckle down and make serious plans. Find ways to support ourselves and build lives for ourselves outside of the names on our birth certificates.” Magda whispered angrily setting her fork on her plate as if no longer angry. “We shouldn’t have to rely on strangers to help us when our families have the means and the abilities to jump in when we’re in trouble and yet they leave us to the wolves, like lambs to a slaughter. If Dimi’s last name hadn’t been Lykiaos-Laskaris there wouldn’t have been half the problems we had. Her connection to Miklos and Vasili put her in danger and they ignored our pleas for help.”

“Dimitra, I’m certain if he had known, he would have done everything in his power to help.”

“Perhaps,” she shrugged. “It was more than three years ago, nearly four, now. I am ready to move on with my life. Selling our program and getting started on our next project will allow me to break away from my family.”

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

“I see no reason to fulfil my father’s desires. They are not mine.”

The woman tried again, “If Miklos is ready to settle down now.”

She punched the table furiously, dishes jumping with the movement and a water glass tipping over. Mrs. K clutched her chest in fear. Her voice was raised and angry, her lips in a straight angry line as she glared at the woman, “He only wants me because I said I wanted out. There is no other reason. He admitted to me today he has considered me nothing but a little sister. How do I make a marriage with a brother? If I’m going to grow a child in my belly, it will be one born of love and respect. Not coercion.” She pushed away from the table, “I am done with this conversation. I’m going for a swim before we begin the fire.”

Dimi stomped away from the women at the table, feeling slightly bad she had upset the woman who had spent many an evening with her when she had stayed alone in this big house, too embarrassed to tell her parents she had chased her own husband out of his own home. She flopped onto the bed in the guest bedroom and sighed as she rolled onto her back, pulling a pillow over her chest, and staring at the ceiling in fury.

A knock on the door made her grimace and she turned her head to look in the direction of the older woman’s sad face peeking through the opening. “Come in.”

Dimi watched with a stony face as Mrs. K sat on the edge of the bed and reached for her hand.

“You love him, child. You have always loved him. You have loved him since you were a teenage girl, and he strutted his stuff in his speedos. He was your first crush. You forget I was there on your wedding day and helped you get ready. I was there when I heard you recite your vows with emotion and truth to those words.” She stroked the hair off Dimi’s cheek. “It is not for his benefit I am worried. It is for yours.”

“I cannot do this forever,” she whispered.

“Dimitra, how many nights have you come home here, hoping just once he would have stayed home to be with you? How many times have I held you while you sobbed your heart out asking why he couldn’t see you for the woman you are or why he was running away? Yet, today, today he is saying he is aware of you, and he sees you and you are the one running.” She sighed, “if you believe it is truly too late for him, then know I will support you one hundred percent. I do not agree with the way he’s treated you. I worry though about the heartache you will endure when he finally agrees to the divorce.” She pointed her finger in the direction of the ceiling, “which could come sooner rather than later when he sees what you did to his den of iniquity up there.”

She wiped tears off her cheeks at the woman’s words. “Den of iniquity.” She gave a heartless giggle. “It gave me pleasure to get rid of his mattress. If I hadn’t been worried about the chemicals the foam would have put off in burning it, I would have torched it with the wood.”

“Are you certain Dimitra this is the path you want to follow?”

“Yes.” She nodded sadly. “He only wants me now because I asked for the divorce. His ego and pride are at risk. It has nothing to do with me. It’s time.”

“Then I will help you, but I have one request.”

“Anything,” she nodded as the woman patted her cheek softly.

“When you leave, I come with you. I do not want to stay here knowing I won’t see you again. You are the reason I’ve stayed so long. You are my family.”

The request stunned Dimi. “Mrs. K are you sure?”

“You are the light in this house. You always have been and when you leave there will only be darkness.”

“Then of course. You are welcome to be with us, wherever our path goes.”

“Thank you.” She leaned forward and kissed her forehead softly. “Now, I’ll go cleanup from dinner. You,” she pointed to the pool, “go for your swim before you pollute the water with those bottles I see sitting by the door.”

“You saw those huh?”

“Did you think you could sneak them past me?” She tapped her cheek and stood up. “You’re going to turn him blue?”

“Preferably a mauve color but I’ll be satisfied with something in between.”

The woman chuckled as she headed to the door. “Good luck.”

“I don’t need luck. I’m a Lykiaos. I make my own luck.” As she pulled the pillow over her face, she prayed she was right because she was about to tangle with the most dangerous man she’d ever met, including her father, and going to war with Miklos Laskaris usually ended in his enemy’s death. Failure was not an option.