Page 17 of Hooked On Victor (Hooked #3)
Chapter seventeen
he drop happened at midnight, and it didn’t begin with fireworks.
It began with a quiet ripple.
A link slipped like a dagger between the ribs of history itself.
No press release. No publicist spin. No royal seal to lend it authority.
Just a line of text posted anonymously to obscure historian forums and encrypted networks used by archivists who traded in fragile truths like currency:
The Echo Ledger: Primary Documents on the Romanov Fall.
At first it barely registered.
A curiosity.
A dare.
But the file was real.
It cracked open like a crypt.
Scanned letters bearing the Tsar’s stiff, deliberate hand. Private notes in the Tsarina’s looping, elegant scrawl. Accounts from bribed officers, listing sums next to hastily drawn skulls.
“We are prisoners in our own palace. Even our allies negotiate the price of our corpses.”
“Send the gold to Paris. No one will speak if they’re paid.”
“Tell them the child does not exist. Even if it is a lie.”
One letter seared across the screen like prophecy:
“If they find out about the boy, the line ends in blood. Bury him so the name can survive.”
There were maps.
Ledgers marked with red slashes.
Unsent appeals to foreign courts begging for sanctuary in coded language.
And at the bottom of one page—scrawled in childish Cyrillic:
Виктор.
The Tsarina’s hand held it steady beneath the boy’s trembling letters, a mother guiding a child who didn’t yet know he was being taught to survive.
Historians fell on it like wolves.
Within an hour it was the front page of Reddit’s academic boards.
Within two, a Twitter war broke out between Russian archivists, each one screaming for provenance, crying forgery, or whispering confirmation.
The Russian Ministry of Culture released a terse, icy denial that only made it worse:
“Obvious fabrication designed to sow discord and insult the memory of the Imperial Family.”
By dawn, every major outlet was running it.
In Amsterdam, rain lashed the canal houses in relentless sheets, blurring the world into smears of gray and neon reflections.
Inside a narrow café crowded with old wood and newer pretensions, Victor sat at a table pressed against the fogged window.
His black sweater was damp at the shoulders from the walk.
A folded newspaper sat beside an untouched espresso that had gone cold.
He picked it up with fingers that trembled once before steadying.
The headline screamed across the front in blocky capitals:
ROMANOV LEDGER SPARKS GLOBAL FRENZY: WHO IS THE GUARDIAN?
Historic Leak Reveals Private Letters, Betrayals, Possible Surviving Heir
In an unprecedented leak late last night, hundreds of pages of unpublished Romanov-era documents were posted anonymously online. Historians and forensic analysts are scrambling to authenticate what many are calling the most important Imperial Russian discovery of the century.
The Letters
Letters from Nicholas II describe a desperate attempt to save his bloodline: “We cannot protect the crown, but perhaps the name can survive.”
The Tsarina’s private notes are more personal: “I fear for him. He does not understand what we ask.”
The Ledgers
Payments to revolutionaries to buy loyalty.Bribes to foreign embassies for silent passage.Redacted lists of collaborators.
The Child
Perhaps most shockingly, a letter hints at a secret child born to Tatiana Nikolaevna and hidden with Rasputin’s help before the massacre. Scholars are debating the authenticity of the note, which simply reads: “Bury him so the name can survive.”
Official Response
The Russian Ministry of Culture issued a statement early this morning calling the leak “a slanderous forgery,” but refused to answer direct questions about the archive’s potential provenance.
Who Leaked It?
The identity of the source remains unknown. Online forums refer to the anonymous poster as “the Guardian,” a nod to one letter’s chilling final line: “To my son, if he should ever rise again—guard what must not be lost.”
Analysis
Dr. Katya Sokolov, Imperial Russian Historian, Cambridge University: “If even half of this is authentic, it will rewrite what we know about the Romanovs’ last days.”
Prof. Jean-Marc Lefevre, Sorbonne: “It’s not restoration they wanted. It was survival.”
Victor read every line.
Not once.
Twice.
Three times.
The print blurred until he blinked it clear, jaw working silently.
Across from him, Rose sat with her tea, elbows propped on the table, eyes never leaving his face.
She watched the way he tightened his grip on the paper until it crumpled softly.
How his breathing slowed—not calm, but contained, like someone holding an animal in a cage behind their ribs.
He lowered the newspaper slowly, the muscles in his arm tight.
“Still want to call me Your Highness?” he asked, voice breaking halfway between sarcasm and something raw.
Rose didn’t flinch.
She tilted her head, eyes bright with quiet challenge.
“Only when you deserve it.”
Nikolai arrived like he’d been conjured by the storm itself.
The door banged open on the wind.
He slipped in with his coat collar turned up, droplets catching in the fringe of his hair. He carried the cold in with him.
He didn’t bother with greetings.
He dropped into the booth with a grunt and tossed his phone onto the table between them.
Its screen flashed a grid of frenzied posts and clipped news footage.
“They’re eating it alive,” he said flatly.
Victor didn’t touch the phone.
He didn’t need to.
“I can see that,” he murmured.
Nikolai studied him.
“Russian officials are panicking. Western governments are screaming at historians to shut up. Half the internet thinks you’re a ghost prince waiting to reclaim a throne.”
Victor snorted, low and humorless.
“Let them,” he said.
Nikolai’s eyebrow lifted.
“You sure you’re okay with staying invisible? Letting them turn you into a legend instead of a man?”
Victor’s eyes turned out the window.
Rain tracked down the glass in wavy lines.
Past it, the canal glistened like a black vein through the heart of the old city.
He watched a cyclist pass, hood pulled tight, head down against the wind.
“I don’t need to be seen,” he said quietly.
His voice was almost lost beneath the murmur of the café, the clink of cups and scrape of chairs.
“I just need it to matter.”
Nikolai’s gaze didn’t waver.
After a moment, he nodded once.
“There’s more power in mystery anyway.”
He reached into his coat and pulled out a small silver object.
He set it carefully on the table.
It spun once, then lay still in the candlelight.
It was another token.
Identical in weight and shape to the vault’s.
Except beneath the double-headed eagle, a phoenix spread its wings in rising flame.
Rose leaned forward, eyes narrowing.
“What is that?”
Nikolai’s voice dropped to something grim.
“A second vault,” he said. “Somewhere colder. Deeper. My side of the family’s legacy. But it can wait.”
Victor’s fingers didn’t move at first.
Then he reached.
Picked it up.
Turned it over, reading the phoenix like a threat and a promise.
“Why give it to me?” he asked hoarsely.
Nikolai’s mouth twitched.
Not quite a smile.
“Because you gave us a future.”
Silence filled the booth.
Even the café’s clatter seemed to hush.
Nikolai leaned forward.
“We don’t wear crowns anymore,” he said. “But we carry the weight.”
He clasped Victor’s hand, firm, short.
“And if anyone ever comes for you again,” he added, voice low, meant only for them, “they’ll find me instead.”
Victor swallowed.
Looked up.
“You always watching?”
Nikolai’s eyes flickered with something warm.
“Always.”
And then he was gone, coat swirling behind him as he melted into the Amsterdam rain like he’d never been there at all.
That night, they found the edge of France.
A tiny coastal cottage that smelled of brine and old oak.
The sea pounded cliffs below in dark, thundering waves.
The wind keened against the shutters like a woman in mourning.
Inside, they lit a single fire.
It cracked and hissed, throwing their shadows huge across the walls.
Victor sat in the armchair, hair damp, shirt unbuttoned at the throat.
Rose crossed the room slowly, her bare feet silent on the old floor.
She climbed into his lap, her body fitting against his as if she’d been carved to match every hollow.
He wrapped his arms around her.
Held her so tight her ribs creaked.
His face pressed to her neck, breathing her in like salvation.
They didn’t speak.
They didn’t need to.
Outside, the sea kept roaring.
But in here, there was just them.
No vaults.
No crowns.
Just a man and a woman and the quiet, desperate hope that surviving wasn’t the same as living.
And that maybe, just maybe, they could finally do both.