Page 42 of Hooked On Victor
She held out the envelope to him carefully.
“I didn’t read much,” she said gently. “But it has your full name on it. Twice.”
His eyes dropped to it, and for a second she thought he wouldn’t take it at all.
Then, with slow, deliberate care, he lifted it from her hands as if it might burn him.
He ran his thumb over the seal.
Over the faded wax.
Over the crest he wore carved into his own skin.
Viktor Alexandrov Romanov.
She saw him swallow.
That name hadn’t been spoken aloud in years.
Kept in shadows. Passed like a secret between men who survived too long.
He broke the brittle seal the rest of the way with a softcrack, and the sound seemed to echo in the small room.
The scent of old ink and faintly charred paper spilled out like a ghost, dry and acidic, clawing at her nose.
He pulled out the letter with fingers that trembled just slightly.
The paper was thin and brown with age, cracking at the folds. Ink had bled in places, water-damaged and blurred. But thehandwriting was still there. Elegant Cyrillic at the top. Below it, lines in careful, slanted French.
Victor’s eyes scanned it, line by line, chest rising and falling unevenly.
Rose sat silent. Watching the movement of his eyes. The way his thumb hovered over words like he could pull them off the page and make them speak.
Then, voice raw, he read.
My dearest Viktor,
If you are reading this, then the world has changed again.
Our blood was never meant to survive this long—but if we have, then you are the last breath of something they failed to kill.
This safehouse was built before I fled St. Petersburg. Inside, you’ll find what I could not protect myself: a cipher hidden in ink, a map only a Romanov can follow, and a failsafe meant to burn it all if greed wins over history.
The flash drive contains a list of names—enemies and allies, marked by bloodlines older than the revolution. Trust none until one proves otherwise.
But you are not alone, my boy. Another survived. You are not the only one left to carry this fire.
From blood and ashes, we rise.
—Aleksei Romanov, cousin of the Tsarevich
Victor didn’t speak for a long time after the last line fell from his lips.
He just stared at the signature.
The ink there had faded the worst, feathering at the edges.
He traced the letters with the pad of his thumb so lightly she wondered if he even felt the paper.
