Page 13 of Hooked On Victor (Hooked #3)
Chapter thirteen
The café in Lausanne sat on the high street just above the lake, its windows misted with rain blown sideways off Lake Geneva’s restless surface.
Outside, the water was a steely gray, chopped by wind that scraped whitecaps across it like teeth marks.
Spring here was always a negotiation with winter—a false promise of warmth swallowed up by cold gusts that rattled the awning above the door.
Inside, the place smelled of strong espresso and wet wool.
Victor sat near the back, in a half-booth upholstered in cracked red leather, posture slouched in a way that was supposed to look casual but failed. Every muscle was coiled tight beneath the plain black sweater Rose had convinced him to buy in town. His eyes were fixed on the door, unblinking.
Beside him, Rose sipped at a chipped porcelain cup of burnt coffee she had no intention of drinking.
Her back was ramrod straight, knees pressed together.
She tracked every movement in the café: the bored couple bickering softly at the counter, the old man reading Le Temps and ignoring the world, the server checking her phone in the corner.
But mostly the door.
She saw him first.
The bell above the glass rang low and flat as it swung open, letting in a cold gust that caught at the napkins on the tables and sent a tremor through the hanging light bulbs.
A man stepped in.
Tall. Lean. Coat tailored to his body like armor. Black leather gloves. Dark hair combed with clinical precision, not a strand out of place even in the wind. His eyes swept the room once, quick as a scalpel.
They missed nothing.
Rose’s stomach tensed.
“Nikolai,” she breathed.
Victor didn’t nod right away.
His jaw flexed.
“He was at the clinic,” he said after a beat, voice low. Rough. “Came looking for me.”
She didn’t take her eyes off the man striding toward them with quiet certainty.
“I remember,” she murmured. “He didn’t blink enough.”
Victor let out something that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t sounded so tired.
“That’s how you knew he was dangerous?”
Rose’s mouth twitched humorlessly.
“No,” she said. “That’s how I knew he was trained.”
The door swung shut behind Nikolai with a solid click that silenced the wind. He paused by their table. His eyes lingered on Victor a second too long before flicking to Rose.
His expression was calm. Too calm.
Like a man who didn’t need to pretend at threats.
Victor stood.
They didn’t shake hands.
“You’re hard to find,” Victor said flatly.
Nikolai’s mouth quirked just slightly, a smile without warmth.
“I was waiting for the right time,” he said, voice smooth as oiled glass. He unbuttoned his coat with precise movements, then pulled out the opposite chair. “You’ve made enough noise now that time ran out.”
He sat carefully. Deliberately.
Victor didn’t sit until Rose shifted, forcing him down with a glance.
Nikolai looked at her fully, unbothered.
“It’s good to meet you again,” he said evenly. “You protected him when it counted.”
Rose held his gaze, cold but civil.
“That doesn’t mean I trust you.”
Nikolai’s eyes didn’t even flicker.
“Wise.”
He turned back to Victor, folding gloved hands on the table.
“But you should listen.”
Victor’s lip twitched.
He reached into his coat and slid the flash drive across the scarred wood.
“Your note. Your safehouse.”
Nikolai’s eyes flicked down.
He didn’t touch it.
“My family’s safehouse,” he corrected. “Though not mine by blood.”
Victor stiffened.
“You said ‘from one Romanov to another.’”
Nikolai’s face didn’t change.
“I meant it,” he said quietly. “But I’m not the fire.”
He reached into his coat again, slowly, telegraphing no threat, and pulled out a folded sheet of yellowed paper sealed in a clear plastic sleeve. He laid it gently on the table like an offering.
“This is the last confession of a man named Fyodor Petrov. He was a field medic in the Imperial Guard. He served during the revolution and then vanished into obscurity.”
Victor picked it up with careful fingers.
The plastic crinkled.
Inside, the paper was spotted with age, the ink a dark crawl of spidery Cyrillic.
Victor scanned the lines, eyes narrowing.
“This means nothing to me.”
Nikolai’s gloved fingers tapped once against the table.
“It should,” he said softly.
He paused.
Then he leaned forward just slightly, voice dropping to something conspiratorial.
“Because he delivered a child in secret. Tatiana Nikolaevna Romanova, eldest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, fell in love with one of her guards. She gave birth in hiding before the family was moved to Yekaterinburg.”
Rose sucked in a sharp breath she tried to hide behind her cup.
“But she—she died with the rest,” she said.
Nikolai turned his gaze on her, cold but respectful.
“She did,” he said solemnly. “But not before she entrusted the child to Rasputin.”
Victor’s brow furrowed deep, creasing the bruises along his temple.
“Rasputin was dead by then,” he snapped.
Nikolai didn’t flinch.
“Not yet,” he said calmly. “Not according to the timeline in the confession. He was injured. Fading. But alive. He knew the child wouldn’t survive the purge unless he made him disappear completely.”
Victor’s fingers tightened on the plastic sleeve until it crinkled loudly.
“So he sent him where?”
Nikolai’s voice was patient.
“To a distant cousin’s estate in the countryside. A forgotten branch of the Romanovs—minor nobility. No power. No voice. No reason to be hunted.”
Victor leaned back slowly.
His eyes were flat.
Accusing.
“And now you’re going to tell me that child was your ancestor?”
Nikolai’s mouth twitched once.
But it wasn’t amusement.
It was pain.
He shook his head.
“No, Viktor,” he said softly.
Silence fell like a blade.
Nikolai swallowed.
“He was yours.”
The words seemed to hang in the air, heavy as lead.
Rose felt Victor go still beside her.
So still she could barely tell he was breathing.
“That’s not possible,” Victor whispered.
Nikolai didn’t look away.
“I had the DNA pulled from the signet ring in the safehouse,” he said evenly. “Matched it to a lock of Tatiana’s preserved hair in a reliquary in Paris. Your blood matches hers.”
Rose’s hand found Victor’s under the table.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t even blink.
Nikolai’s voice lowered, softer.
“You’re not just descended from nobility,” he said. “You’re the direct line of the Tsar’s eldest daughter. The legacy they tried to burn.”
Victor was pale now, his fingers white-knuckled around the edge of the table.
But behind his eyes wasn’t fear.
It was fury.
“All these years,” he rasped. “All the hiding. All the shadows. I didn’t even know who I was.”
Nikolai didn’t look smug.
He looked tired.
“You were never meant to,” he said. “That was the point. But the world is changing. The hunt is on again. And if the vault is opened by anyone else—if the truth is twisted—your bloodline dies for real.”
Victor sat there, chest heaving.
Eyes locked on Nikolai with something like hate and something like gratitude battling in the ruin of his expression.
Finally he exhaled.
Low. Shaking.
He looked at Rose like he was trying to memorize her face.
“Then we open it,” he said quietly.
He looked back at Nikolai.
“Together.”
Later that night, the hotel room felt too quiet.
Victor stood at the window, hands braced on the sill. His head was bowed, hair falling into his eyes, body lit by the amber glow of a bedside lamp that cast long shadows on the wall behind him.
Rose watched him from the bed, knees pulled to her chest, blanket wrapped tight around her shoulders.
The air between them felt like it was holding its breath.
She rose slowly.
Crossed the old wooden floor that creaked beneath her bare feet.
When she was behind him, she pressed her forehead between his shoulder blades.
His skin was warm. Tense.
“How are you doing?” she asked softly.
He didn’t answer for a long time.
Just breathed.
The glass fogged under his breath.
Finally, voice breaking, he said:
“I spent my whole life thinking my blood was a curse. Now it turns out it’s a crown.”
She didn’t move away.
She just laid her cheek against his spine.
“Then let’s wear it our way,” she whispered.
He turned slowly, the movement heavy, his arms coming up around her like he was afraid she might shatter.
She let the blanket fall away.
She didn’t need it anymore.
Victor buried his face in her hair and exhaled, shaking.
No more pretending.
No more running.
Only the truth.
And the woman who had stood beside him every step of the way.