Dmitry looked different now, nearly bald with all of his beautiful hair cut off, but he still managed to look stately.
He looked up at his son and smiled. "I was wondering what you were up to," Dmitry waved him over to the stove. "Here, stir this while I check on my bread," he said, wiping his hands on his white apron.
"I heard that we are throwing party tonight," Anatoly said, stirring his fathers legendary borscht.
"Da, we have huge Medlov-style dinner in main hall in about… " he checked his watch. "An hour."
"Why?"
"Why not?" he snapped.
"You're happy now, huh? Now that you have everything." Anatoly took the large wooden spoon from the pot and tasted the borscht.
Dmitry pulled the bread from the oven and placed it on the countertop. He shook his head and turned to him. Leaning against the counter, he took off his mitten and sighed. "Yes, I am happy, Anatoly." He ran his hand over his head and remembered his hair. "I'll be even happier when this grows back."
"It fits you," Anatoly smirked.
"What's going on with you? What have you been doing?" Dmitry pried.
The other cooks moved about in the kitchen around them fixing the other meals that would feed nearly one hundred people very soon. They knew to be silent, to be invisible around the men, although they listened on carefully to gossip about it later.
"I thought that maybe after the meeting and the news you might decide to come back is all… you know, come back for good," Anatoly coughed and looked around.
"Give us a minute, people," Dmitry ordered, realizing his sons discomfort. It had been a long time since he had to hide anything, now that he was living on the up and up.
The staff left the kitchen quietly.
Dmitry took the pickled cucumbers from the jar and placed them on the platters while he waited for his son to come clean. He turned his back to him, giving him time to get his thoughts straight.
"Why won't you come back, papa?" Anatoly pushed.
"I did. Just for you, but only for this deal."
"There is so much money to be made, so much power to be had. How can you just walk away?"
Dmitry grinned. "For a young man, I imagine that this seems to be priority but not for me—not anymore. I am filthy rich. And I am still extremely powerful." He turned to face his son. "And yet I need more than that. Like I told you, I am happy being here with family, raising my daughter, growing old with my wife, doing things that I never could do as boss. Even doing this favor is a lot to ask of me, even from my son, but I do it, because I love you and for no other reason than that."
"I don't know if I can do it without you." His statement was sincere. He clenched his jaw and looked down at the granite floor.
Dmitry's heart warmed. "You can do it. I would not have left you in charge if I felt you unworthy."
"I just… I don't understand how one woman can make a man want to leave his entire life behind or alter it in such a way. It's been three years, and I still don't understand."
Dmitry shook his head. His dimples deepened as he gave a hearty laugh. "You're just a kid, Anatoly. Give it time. When you meet the woman who completes you, you'll know it."
"How? I need to know this, so I can stay away from her always."
Dmitry walked beside his son and took the spoon from him. He took a deep breath and shook his head cleverly. "It will happen when you least expect, with whom you least expect and it will be… jolting. It will feel like heart attack. She will mesmerize you, capture you in such a way, you could not harm her if you tried."
Anatoly looked up at his father curiously.
But his father continued with a grin on his face. "And you will smell like her when you come from three hours of being in city with her. And your father… he will know that you've been with her, because he smelled her cologne when she was trying to screw him the night before."
"I'm not in love with her," Anatoly argued. "That is not who I was talking about, papa."
"You know. I wasn't boss… I didn't build all of this, because I paid no attention to detail. It is the detail that determines whether or not you stay alive," he dropped a pinch of pepper into his borsht. "Don't tell, Royal. Shell kill you both, and I don't mean it figuratively. You had better keep her far from here and under lock and key."
"And you? Are you disappointed in me?"
"I think it is big mistake. She's dangerous, stupid and occasionally does coke. I can't see the beauty in a woman like that."
"I've done coke before."
"Well, no one ever accused you of being smart either, junior."
"Where you attracted to her?"
"Yes. I thought that she was very persuasive. If I had not been married to Royal, I would have had her."
"So, I am making mistake?"
"Colossal, but it is your call. I think if Royal had come on to you instead of me, you would have tried. That doesn't make you a bad man; it just makes you a man."
"I went to kill Victoria. For what she had done to Royal and the disrespect she had shown this family, I went to drug her and throw her in the woods somewhere or something."
"And you ended up doing what… what
