Page 46 of Hooked On Victor
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.
