you loved me so good I could cry

Prologue

Quick disclaimers!

I was most of the way through this when I saw discourse on Twitter about the harm of mafia/organised crime, particularly in places such as Italy and South America, as well as the way these groups are glamourised in media and fan fiction. I acknowledge the damage caused to communities with prevalent organised crime groups, my heart goes out to you and I sincerely apologise if this is insensitive. I'm more than open criticism as, as an Australian, I'm largely unaware of the true effects organised crime rings have on people.

As a result of the valid concerns I heard about, I kept this story light hearted. There are no depictions of violence or any mention of any specific acts of violence. Additionally, I do not want what I have written to be seen as trivialising or minimising the very serious effects of organised crime, this is purely fiction in every way shape and form.

Guns are mentioned, murder is mentioned in a very loose general sense and torture is also briefly mentioned (again, loosely and generally). This fic purely came from my kink for powerful women. If any of it triggers you or makes you uncomfortable then please click away and stay safe. If you have criticisms and concerns feel free to comment and know that I do intend to take it all on board.

Second disclaimer! This fic has a main character who is a police officer. This is purely to support the plot. I stand behind the Black Lives Matter movement and am actively working to dismantle the prejudice's and privileges fostered by my very white and culturally homogenous upbringing. I hope to be better at being anti-racist everyday and I support defunding the police and systems of incarceration that make recidivism so prevalent, particularly with private prisons like what operate in the US and Australia.

As mentioned above, this is intended to be a light hearted fic. I hope you can enjoy the story and have some laughs, but I am certainly open to learning and criticisms. I hope what I have written is not seen to glamorise police/law enforcement, that was not my intention, and no police work is mentioned in detail.

Now, let's get into a very mediocre prologue! (This was written feb 2020, rest of the story is chronologically based shortly after then but was written much more recently and is far better).

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5 Seconds Of Summer, without question, always enjoyed interviews more with Australian radio hosts. The whole thing felt more homely, especially so when it was an Australian interviewer outside of Australia.

Today was the annual G'Day USA event and the band stood on the red carpet being interviewed by Australian radio hosts, Fitzy & Wippa. All was going well until they brought up Michael's house, started talking about the eight bedrooms and ten bathrooms. Michael blushed, panicked a little. The last thing he wanted was anyone reading into his financial situation a little too deeply or wondering why he seemed to have a house so much bigger than the rest of his bandmates.

Obviously they were each millionaires in their own right but Los Angeles real estate is not cheap and neither was Michael's new house. They segue between Michael's new house and his fiancée, Crystal Leigh Lauderdale, made it feel like his throat was closing up. His bandmates still don't know the truth about Crystal—Michael himself didn't find out till just before their engagement.

Crystal didn't exactly have conventional income streams. She was a mob boss, head of a mafia. It was a family business, so she grew up knowing not to attract attention, then she fell in love with a pop star. She was determined to make it work but she needed a completely different approach. Instagram modelling was a career she could easily buy her way into and would act as a perfect coverup considering her new relationship, she could hide in plain sight. These days you can just be on Instagram as your full time career, which was a career that could very easily be manipulated to suit.

Crystal already had hundreds of millions of dollars when she and Michael met, at a time where he was just scraping together his first million. That's how she and Michael had already bought four Tesla's, and three houses, in their relatively short time together. The rest of the band were on their first house, and only had one or two cars. After some awkward but overbearing laughs, Michael manages to kill the house questions and is grateful they don't come up again for the rest of the night.

Michael arrives home to an empty house just before midnight. He didn't wanna stay out late because Crystal was working, and he felt terribly alone. He's learnt, in just over four years of their relationship, never to call his girlfriend when she could even possibly be working. She was always busy, and calling could bring with it security risks for either one of them if not both.

Michael - Crystal❤️: Home safe now, should I wait up for you?

Crystal - ❤️Michael: Sorry I'm not home yet, work was in San Diego tonight. I'll be back in the next half hour or so.

Michael - Crystal❤️: Okay, I'll shower and wait up for you then. See you soon.

Crystal - ❤️Michael: Okay, I love you ❤️

Michael - Crystal❤️: Love you too ❤️❤️

Michael showered, as he said he would, and then just lay in bed snuggling up to South and Moose while browsing through Twitter from his anonymous spam account. He didn't really tweet anything from it, but it was nice to be able to browse knowing his phone won't completely lose it if he accidentally likes something.

"I'm home!" Crystal calls out as she shuffles in the door at 12:27am and makes her way upstairs to the master bedroom.
"Hey," Michael smiles softly, looking up as she walks in.
"Hi babe," she grins, leaning down to kiss him.
"Guess what today was at work?" she adds excitedly.
"Do I want to know?" he asks skeptically.
"This you definitely do." Crystal stands back up from the bed, moving around the room to get ready for bed as she talks.
"Oh?"

"Today is one whole month since my group has killed anyone or ordered the killing of anyone. We're on a 30 day streak." The way she's talking about work is like it's any other job and they achieved a company key performance indicator, even if the specifics were very different.
"That is exciting. What's the longest you've gone?" Michael agrees. His girlfriend's work was undoubtedly terrifying to get used to as soon as he found out about it but he learned to understand it and her reasoning so he could (somewhat) support her like any good boyfriend would.
"Since I've been in charge, 46 days. The longest ever for this mafia is four months, that was my grandfather back in 1967," she answers easily, brushing her hair and putting it into a loose bun.
"I'm proud of you," Michael replies, making grabby hands when Crystal lifts up the covers and moves to get into bed.

"How was your night?" Crystal asks gently, lying propped against the headboard against a flurry of pillows, with her fiancé's head on her chest.
"It was good, homely as always," Michael mumbles, pausing mid sentence in a way Crystal definitely picks up on, "but uh I got asked about the new house. I was a little paranoid they'd read into it a bit too much."
"We got it in both our names deliberately. We only bought it because we were selling the apartment and wanted an easy to find public record so people didn't go digging much deeper," Crystal explains it all again, trying to placate her boyfriend.
"I know," Michael sighs, looking around the bedroom of the house they actually lived in. Given there was a rolling list of dozens of people who wanted Crystal dead at any moment, they were not stupid enough to live in a house owned in their name when that was public access. The house they lived in was in a more secluded neighbourhood than where people thought they lived, but it wasn't too far away. It was owned by a company owned by a shell Corp owned by another shell corp owned by the mafia, it was never going to be traced to them personally. "I'm not saying they'll find us, I'm just worried they'll question why and how we have a much bigger house than any of my bandmates."
"You could have afforded this house yourself, we know that, and my issues with them assuming I couldn't or wouldn't contribute anything—even if I was just an influencer—is another can of worms."
"I know,"
"We should sleep babe, goodnight, I love you," Crystal adds, kissing Michael on the lips as she moves down the bed to be actually lying down.
"Goodnight, love you," the younger replies. Crystal makes sure the security is all turned on and set for the night before turning the light off and snuggling into her boyfriend.

This was just to understand their situation, will post the first real part tomorrow. Thanks for reading and sticking around I love you I'm tired goodnight :)

–Grace Williams xo