- DOMINIK -
Maria pours a mug of coffee and slides it across the counter my way. It's Sunday morning. I'm surprised she's even here since weekends are mostly optional for her unless we host an event. Usually we're forced to feed ourselves on Saturdays and Sundays.
"Good morning, Maria. Something special about today that I get to see your beautiful face?"
"Your brother called me here," she says, scowling. "I need you to talk to him for me, Dominik."
"Uh oh, what did he do this time?"
I try not to chuckle, because Maria looks legitimately upset. But the fact that Ivan has gotten on her nerves once again and the fact that she looks so much like a mother right now makes it difficult.
Maria calls Ivan, Luka, and I brothers all the time. But I know for a fact she's not about to complain about Luka. He's the most proper and respectful of all of us, and he definitely wouldn't have requested she come in on her day off.
"Ivan wants me to learn all these new Italian dishes that I've never even heard of. It's not something I can do in one week. He said I have until Friday to learn them well enough that I can make them at a moment's notice. I'm supposed to start practicing today."
Her eyes fill with tears, and that's when all the amusement flees.
"Am I going to be fired, Dominik? Ivan said if I can't do it, he'll find someone better who can. Why does he suddenly need an Italian chef? I've cooked for the three of you for more than five years, and not once has he asked me to make him something Italian."
"No, you're not going to be fired," I assure her. "If anything, he probably meant that a second chef would be brought on to help."
"That's not how it sounded." She grabs a towel and does a swipe of the marble counter like it's a nervous tick. "So now I'm going to be sharing the kitchen with some snooty Italian-trained chef? Has your brother lost it? It doesn't make any sense."
"Ivan has been…" I pause, cringing internally at the stupid lie I'm now being forced to tell, "seeing a girl. She's Italian. He's hoping she'll move in."
"Another girl?" She frowns. "Why this one? What about Natalia?"
I shrug, unable to defend him. "You're right, it doesn't make sense. Hopefully he'll see that."
"It would be great if he could see it before he fires me," she mutters, continuing her needless cleaning of the counter. "She must be some girl if Ivan wants her living here."
"I guess you could say that," I mumble and drink my coffee.
I know what Maria's thinking. Ivan doesn't even let Natalia stay for more than a night, and she's never allowed to be here when he's not.
"Is this what all the fuss upstairs has been about?" She turns to watch me take a seat at the breakfast table.
Ivan walks in before I can answer, and Maria returns to the unnecessary task of cleaning an already clean counter.
Ivan stops in front of the table where I'm seated and looks out the tall bronze tripartite windows to the mountainous woods outside. "I need your opinion on something."
"Good morning." I give him a wry look over the coffee mug and lean back in my chair.
"Yeah, good morning. Come on." He waves for me to follow him.
"Can it wait until I eat? I just got down here."
Ivan turns to look at Maria who doesn't appear to be in the process of cooking anything.
"Maria, make Dominik something while I take him upstairs." Then he urges me to follow with another impatient wave.
With an irritated sigh, I get up to appease him. "Anything is fine, Maria. Thank you."
Rather than walking all the way around to the front of the house and its grand staircase, Ivan leads me up the back stairs that are built into the rocky cliffside. With its rock and brick and wooden beams, this hidden stairway always gives me the feeling of traversing an underground passageway of some secret society.
We emerge in his office of windows and continue to the hallway where his bedroom is located. The chateau-style lodge was built in such a way that it molds against the mountain, and the interior ends up being pretty labyrinthine.
My room is technically on the same level as Ivan's, but there are enough turns and stretches along the way that I could go days without ever seeing him or Luka or knowing whether or not they were even home. For that reason, the kitchen and den end up being important meeting points.
Ivan leads me into the empty bedroom across from his, and I stop inside the door. The heavily masculine interior has been entirely transformed in twenty-four hours. It's almost unrecognizable.
Previously, all the furniture was made from dark, heavy wood. There was a Persian rug on the floor just as there is in almost every room of the lodge. The chandeliers were two-tier rod candelabras.
Now, the bed, dresser, and side tables are a rustic white-washed wood. There's a moss green velvet button-tufted bench at the foot of the bed and similar style chairs in soft blue. Ornate white porcelain chandeliers hang from the ceiling; white lights are strung over the window seat; velvet, linen, and lace fabrics are draped strategically to give the bedroom separate, intimate spaces; and there are plants and candles everywhere.
The bedspread is a tasteful floral that incorporates the green and blue of the furniture but also adds purple and maroon—colors which are carried through in various small accents around the room. There's also the addition of a faux white fur rug and white floor-length mirror.
This is not good.
"Great, right?" Ivan chuckles, walking further into the space. "The interior designer is worth every penny. It looks much more suitable for our mafia princess. But that's not what I want your opinion on."
A sick feeling lodges in my throat. Ivan has taken this so much further than I thought he would.
Further in, I get a glimpse of the bathroom. The same style is carried through from the bedroom, and it looks like he even replaced the tub with a white claw-foot one. There are new toiletries stacked around the sink. Who knows what's hidden in the drawers?
"Dominik," Ivan calls, and my attention returns to him. "Do you think this window is going to be a problem?"
When I walk over to where he's standing, I realize there are also now white linen curtains where previously there were no window coverings at all.
"I have a number of locks on the door in case we need to keep her in here, but I wonder if she'll be ballsy enough to jump. Do I need to do something here, you think?"
"Like what? Board it up?" I shove my hands in my pockets and look down at the fall someone would be sustaining if they did jump. It's a breathtaking view of the mountains and nearby river from here, but it's a good twenty feet from the rocky mountainside below. "No one would survive that, Ivan."
"You sure?" His eyes are dancing with that same wild excitement they were when he was questioning me about Vanessa on Friday.
"I'm sure."
He rubs his hands together happily. "I guess we're just about set here, then. If she gets bored, there's the library."
"Why do all this?" I frown. "Why work so hard to try catering to her tastes?"
"I want results," he shrugs. "I want her to play her part, and that's more likely to be the case if she's comfortable."
"Natalia is going to be pissed," I point out.
"She'll get over it. And if she doesn't, she can take a hike," he scowls. "Vanessa Ricca is much more important at this point."