Page 32 of Hooked On Victor
“You’re not serious,” she breathed.
Victor’s laugh was flat. Ugly.
“Oh, I’m dead serious,” he said. “The man wasn’t just some drunken mystic. He was a manipulator. A predator. He convinced the Tsarina he could save her son. He made the entire court paranoid. When the empire fell, that paranoia didn’t die with it.”
He turned fully to her now. His eyes were black in the dim light.
“There are people who believe he cursed my family,” he said. “That anyone who carries Romanov blood will either fall to madness or meet a violent end.”
She shivered.
The wind outside howled suddenly, rattling the windows in their frames.
“Do you believe it?” she asked, her voice small.
He didn’t answer immediately.
He blinked, slow. Once.
“I believe in people who believe in it,” he said finally. His voice cracked. “And that makes them dangerous.”
She exhaled. Her breath felt shaky in her chest. She wasn’t sure if it was fear for him, or for herself, or both.
She took one careful step forward.
“But you’re not mad,” she said quietly. “And you’re not dying.”
He held her gaze.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Finally he shook his head, something loosening in his shoulders.
“No,” he said, voice low. “But they don’t know that yet.”
Outside, the wind moaned louder.
The trees leaned and creaked under the force of it, their black shapes writhing against the gunmetal sky.
And then—
Glass shattered.
The world snapped into chaos in half a breath.
Victor lunged forward just as the kitchen window behind the stove exploded inward in a spray of glass shards that caught the pale light. A figure in black vaulted through the wreckage, a blade gleaming wicked and curved in his gloved hand.
Victor met him halfway.
The impact was loud, fleshy.
One of Victor’s fists landed in the man’s side with a crunch of ribs giving way. But the intruder didn’t slow. He pivoted, the knife slashing in a tight arc. Victor twisted, but not fast enough—steel bit flesh along his ribs, blood spraying warm onto the old wood floor.
Victor roared in pain and fury.
He grabbed Rose with his free hand and shoved her hard behind him.
She stumbled, skidding against the floor, breath knocked out of her lungs.
