Page 10 of Hooked On Victor (Hooked #3)

Chapter ten

The car tore down the old back roads like it was trying to outrun the entire world.

Headlights off, they were just a black shape hurtling through deeper black, the hood slick with mist, the windshield streaked where wipers struggled to keep up.

The pavement was still wet from the storm, and every bend sent the tires singing low against the asphalt, flinging up sprays of cold water into the night air.

The forest pressed in on either side.

Dark. Wild. Ancient.

The trees blurred into one solid mass, their branches clawing at the narrow sliver of road, trying to reclaim it. Sometimes the moon broke through the clouds for a heartbeat—just enough silver light to illuminate the slick track ahead—before vanishing again behind roiling thunderheads.

Inside the car, the silence was worse than the wind.

Victor had one hand on the wheel. His other hand was clamped over his ribs, fingers splayed wide, red seeping between them in sluggish drips that soaked into his shirt.

His breath was harsh, ragged, punching out of him with every bump in the road.

But his jaw was locked tight, eyes fixed unblinking on the way ahead.

Rose sat next to him, so close she could feel the heat of his blood in the air, metallic and sharp.

She had the first-aid kit balanced on her lap, the hard plastic edge biting into her thighs with every curve he took too fast. Her fingers drummed restlessly against the lid, the rhythm erratic—betraying every thought she refused to say out loud.

They didn’t speak for miles.

The silence grew claws.

It scraped along her nerves with every passing second, raw and accusing.

She watched the way his knuckles whitened on the wheel. The set of his mouth. The thin sheen of sweat on his temple that caught the faint dashboard glow and made him look carved from something breakable.

When she couldn’t take it anymore, she turned her head fully toward him.

“Pull over,” she said.

He didn’t react.

Didn’t even glance at her.

“You’re bleeding too much,” she said again, voice lower.

His nostrils flared.

“We don’t have time—”

“Now, Victor.”

Her voice cracked like a whip in the confined space.

He exhaled. A sound more like a growl than a breath.

Without a word he jerked the wheel to the right, tires crunching over loose gravel as the car swerved off the road and down a narrow, half-hidden turnout.

Branches scraped along the sides with brittle fingers.

The headlights, dimmed and shuttered, cast crooked, fractured shadows that leapt and twisted through the trees.

Finally he stopped under a heavy copse of dripping pines.

The engine ticked in the hush, heat fading from the block.

Rain ticked against the windshield. Soft now. Relentless.

Victor slumped back against the seat, breathing hard.

Rose unbuckled in one quick motion and twisted toward him. Her hair fell loose over her shoulder, wet strands sticking to her cheek. She snapped on the gloves from the kit, the latex squeaking loud in the hush.

“Take your shirt off,” she ordered.

He didn’t move at first.

Then, with a grunt of effort, he peeled the fabric up over his head.

It stuck to the blood on his ribs.

He hissed, baring his teeth when the dried edges tore open again.

The smell hit her immediately. Blood and sweat and salt. The car was too small to hold it politely.

Her breath caught.

Not just at the wound.

Or the dark, purpling bruises already blooming across his ribs like obscene flowers.

But at the ink that sprawled across his side.

A Romanov crest, black lines fine as calligraphy. A double-headed eagle, wings spread, claws clutching symbols she couldn’t name. A crown cracked clean through the middle. And at its heart, over his ribs, a tiny flame inked in faint, faded gold.

It looked old.

Painstaking.

Personal.

“Hold still,” she said softly.

He did.

But his eyes never left her.

She opened the kit with practiced fingers, the contents rattling. Alcohol pads. Gauze. Tape. Thread and needle in case it got that bad. She pressed a pad to the gash along his side, the blood slick and warm even through the sterile wrapper.

He flinched.

Just once.

“Breathe,” she ordered.

He exhaled, jaw ticking.

The rain drummed softly on the roof above them, steady, soothing if she let herself hear it that way.

She worked methodically, pressing gauze in tight, binding it with tape. The smell of antiseptic filled the car, sharp and biting, driving out the scent of wet pine and leather.

Every time her fingers brushed his skin, she felt it jump under her.

But he didn’t look away.

He watched her.

Every move.

Every breath.

“Thank you,” he murmured finally.

His voice was rougher than she’d ever heard it.

“For what?” she asked, taping the last of the dressing down.

He swallowed.

“For not running. For not looking at me like I’m a relic.”

She sat back slowly, peeling off the gloves with deliberate precision, the latex snapping.

She dropped them into the kit and shut it with a click.

“You’re not a relic, Viktor,” she said, voice calm but edged. “You’re a man who’s still here. That means something.”

He looked away, eyes darting out the rain-specked window. The darkness beyond seemed to press closer, heavy with things unsaid.

“Maybe,” he said.

But his voice was hollow.

He turned back to her suddenly, eyes bright and hot.

“But I didn’t tell you everything.”

Her stomach tightened.

“Of course you didn’t,” she said carefully. “There’s always one more secret with you.”

“This one matters.”

His voice was firm.

Final.

She held his gaze.

“Then tell me.”

He exhaled slowly, like the words hurt.

“The reason I’m being hunted isn’t just my name,” he said.

She frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a vault,” he said. His voice dropped low, almost a whisper, like even the trees might be listening. “Hidden since the revolution. Passed down through my family in pieces. Most people think it’s a myth.”

She felt her heart pick up speed.

“And it’s not?”

He shook his head once.

“I have the final key,” he said. “A cipher. Coordinates. And a blood signature that unlocks the rest.”

Her mouth went dry.

“What’s inside?”

He hesitated.

Then spoke softly.

“No one knows for sure. But the rumors say it’s not just treasure. It’s history. Records. Names. Betrayals. Enough to destabilize legacies. Reignite wars. Rewrite what the world thinks it knows about the fall of the empire.”

He met her eyes, unflinching.

“I never wanted to open it. Never wanted to be the one who decided what to do with the past. But the people after me?”

He exhaled, voice breaking.

“They’ll burn the world down to keep it buried.”

Silence filled the car.

The rain softened to mist.

She felt the gravity of what he’d just given her settle in her bones.

Heavy.

Inevitable.

She licked her lips, tasting salt she couldn’t blame on the rain.

“You said we’re running toward something. Not away.”

He didn’t move.

But he nodded once.

Tight.

“Then maybe it’s time to stop running,” she whispered. “Maybe it’s time to find that vault.”

Victor blinked at her.

Like she’d said something unthinkable.

She watched his throat work as he swallowed.

“You’d go with me?”

Her answer was slow. Deliberate.

She reached for his hand where it rested on his thigh, fingers sticky with blood. She didn’t flinch.

“You said I meant something to you,” she murmured. “So let me mean it. All the way.”

He exhaled.

It sounded like he’d been holding that breath for a decade.

He huffed a broken laugh.

“You’re insane,” he rasped.

She smiled faintly.

“No. Just hooked on a man with a death wish and a royal seal tattooed on his ribs.”

He laughed then.

Low. Hoarse. But real.

And in the hush of the dripping trees, the hunted Romanov leaned forward and kissed her like she was the only thing in his world that had ever made sense.