Page 15 of Hooked On Victor (Hooked #3)

Chapter fifteen

Victor stood over the altar, the folded letter in his shaking hands.

The chamber around them was silent in the way only old, sealed places could be—every breath seemed too loud, every rustle of fabric a betrayal. The torch Nikolai held guttered and snapped, throwing long, flickering shadows against the steel walls lined with relics of a dead empire.

The parchment was brittle, the edges browned and flaking as if the years had tried to eat it away entirely. But the handwriting—elegant Cyrillic strokes, steady, unbroken—had survived. Written by a man who hadn’t yet known he would die nameless in a pit, his dynasty reduced to whispers and rumors.

Victor inhaled once, sharply. His breath trembled as he released it.

He began to read aloud, voice low but clear enough to reach every corner of the vault.

To my son, if he should ever rise again—

We were betrayed by many hands, but it is the silence that wounds deepest.

If you are reading this, then our blood endured beyond the fire. That means something. It must.

The truth was never only about crowns. It was about the men behind them. The alliances. The debts. The secrets.

If you find this vault, you will be tempted to reveal it all. Some will call it justice. Some revenge.

But let me speak plainly, as a father would to a child:

Do not seek restoration. Seek peace.

Protect the truth, but do not become it. The empire fell because we could not let go.

You must let go. Or it will consume you, too.

You are my blood, but the world is no longer ours. Let it be yours instead.

—N.

Victor’s voice cracked on the last line.

For a moment he didn’t move.

Just stood there, torchlight painting hard planes on his face, eyes glittering with unshed tears.

He folded the letter with careful, trembling fingers, like it was something alive that might bite if angered. The parchment crackled softly in the hush.

He placed it back in the black case.

Gently.

Reverently.

He let out a long, ragged breath and pressed both palms to the altar as if he needed its cold solidity to keep from collapsing.

Rose watched him from just behind, heart thudding painfully at the rawness of his silhouette—broad shoulders sagging under invisible weight, head bowed like a man being sentenced.

Nikolai watched too, his own expression unreadable. Shadows licked over the scar on his jaw, making it seem deeper.

Finally Victor’s voice came, so quiet Rose almost didn’t hear it over the pop of the torch.

“I should destroy it,” he whispered. “Torch the whole vault. End the legacy.”

Nikolai shifted slightly, the leather of his coat creaking.

“And what would that achieve?” he asked, voice even.

Victor’s fingers curled against the stone.

“Peace,” he said harshly. “Silence. Safety.”

Nikolai shook his head once.

“No,” he said softly. “Erasure. Denial. Do you think burning the past will protect the future? All it does is leave it in the hands of people with no right to tell it.”

Victor’s head snapped up. His eyes burned, voice sharpening like a blade.

“The Romanovs had power. They abused it. Letting go of that is the only way we don’t repeat it.”

Nikolai didn’t flinch.

He stepped forward, shadows dancing over his face.

“And yet,” he said quietly, “you are the only one with the burden to not repeat it.”

Victor’s chest heaved.

His teeth ground together audibly in the hush.

“So I should carry this,” he growled, “so others don’t have to?”

Nikolai’s eyes softened at the edges, just slightly.

“You were born of sacrifice,” he said. “The Tsarina’s greatest one. The vault proves it—but this…”

He reached into his coat, pulling out an envelope sealed in cracked black wax.

He held it between two fingers, the wax catching the torchlight like obsidian.

“…this justifies it.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed, suspicious, but he didn’t move.

Nikolai broke the seal with a careful twist of his thumb. The sound of cracking wax was sharp, final.

He unfolded the parchment with the slow gravity of ritual.

At the top was a glyph: a serpent coiled around a cross.

He read first in Russian, voice dropping so low it seemed to echo.

“Я спас ее сына. Ее последнюю надежду. Пусть он живет вне огня. Это мой последний дар.”

His eyes lifted, glinting.

He translated:

“I saved her son. Her last hope. Let him live beyond the fire. This is my final gift.”

Victor blinked slowly.

The words seemed to hit him physically.

His knuckles whitened as they tightened around the edge of the altar.

Nikolai’s voice softened even further.

“Rasputin’s final act wasn’t to curse the bloodline,” he said. “It was to preserve it. He hid Tatiana’s son before the massacre. He gave the Romanovs a chance to start again. Not as rulers. As witnesses .”

Silence roared in the vault.

Dust motes floated lazily through the cold air, caught in the flickering light.

Victor didn’t speak.

Didn’t even seem to breathe.

Nikolai didn’t push.

But his gaze was steady.

“You can destroy the vault,” he said quietly. “But if you do, you destroy her hope. You destroy his gift. And you become the one who buries us all over again.”

The words hung there like smoke.

Thick.

Suffocating.

Victor’s chest rose and fell, ragged, the breath of a man deciding if he would live or die by his choice.

Rose stepped forward at last, her boots scuffing softly against the old stone.

Her voice didn’t waver.

“Maybe the vault isn’t meant to be destroyed,” she said, voice calm, the center of the storm. “Or exposed.”

Victor’s eyes snapped to hers, wild and wounded.

She didn’t flinch.

“Maybe it’s meant to be guarded ,” she continued.

His breathing slowed.

She held his gaze, unwavering.

“Not sealed. Not erased. But protected. Preserved. For the right moment. For the right truth.”

Victor exhaled.

It was a sound of surrender.

Not defeat.

Acceptance.

He nodded once.

Slow.

Grave.

“We keep it,” he said, voice steady at last. “But we decide what gets shared—and when.”

Nikolai let out a slow breath of his own.

He nodded once.

“Then the line holds,” he said simply.

That night, the inn on the hillside felt like a sanctuary built of old timber and sighing wind.

The room was small, the walls lined with cedar that smelled sharp in the warm air. The rain had softened outside to a gentle patter against the slanted roof, filling the silence with its own quiet music.

Victor lay on the narrow bed, the Tsarina’s crimson journal open across his bare chest. The fire in the small hearth cast a restless orange glow across his scarred ribs, making the Romanov crest inked into his skin flicker like it was alive.

Rose was curled beside him, head pillowed on his shoulder, one hand splayed flat over his heart. She could feel every beat—steady now, slower, sure.

His voice was a hush in the dark.

Russian syllables fell like prayer.

“Я боюсь за нее. Но она любит его. И я молюсь, чтобы любовь оказалась сильнее крови.”

Then, voice tight, he translated:

“She says, ‘I fear for her. But she loves him. And I pray that love will prove stronger than blood.’”

He turned another fragile page with careful fingers, the old leather binding creaking.

He read again.

“У него глаза его отца. А сердце, я надеюсь, мое.”

His voice cracked.

“She wrote, ‘He has his father’s eyes. But I hope… he has my heart.’”

Silence followed.

Rose pressed her lips to the line of his jaw.

“She would have loved you,” she whispered.

He turned his head just enough to meet her gaze.

Eyes shining.

“You saved me,” he said, voice breaking again.

She smiled gently, brushing his cheek with her thumb.

“Again,” she whispered.

Victor swallowed.

Then he rolled toward her, their legs tangling, mouth finding hers in a kiss that was gentle at first.

Grateful.

Then hungrier.

He pulled back enough to whisper against her lips.

“You’re the only part of this legacy I want to carry.”

She huffed a soft, wet laugh.

“That’s a bold declaration, Your Highness.”

His brow furrowed.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes,” she teased, climbing over him slowly, hair falling around them like a curtain. “Do I need to curtsy?”

He growled low in his throat and flipped her onto her back with surprising speed.

His mouth was on her neck in the next breath.

“You’re going to regret that,” he murmured.

Her laugh caught on a moan.

“I really don’t think I will.”

Clothes fell away like history discarded.

Their bodies found each other slowly, reverently, heat blooming in aching, careful waves. His hands traced every line of her like he was memorizing a map drawn in flesh. She arched into him, gasping his name, nails digging into his shoulders.

When he entered her it was with a groan that sounded half prayer, half surrender.

“You’re everything,” he breathed against her ear, voice ragged. “My blood. My fire. My future.”

They moved together in a rhythm that was slow and unhurried, as if they had all the time the empire had stolen from them.

They shattered quietly, clinging to each other like lifelines.

When it was over they lay tangled in sweat and starlight that slipped through the rain-blurred window, her fingers in his hair, his mouth pressed to the curve of her shoulder.

Victor’s voice was the last thing she heard before sleep claimed them both.

He whispered the last line from the journal.

“Любовь — это то, что осталось, когда все остальное исчезло.”

He kissed her temple.

“Love,” he translated softly, “is what remains… when everything else is gone.”