Page 50 of Hooked On Victor
He paused beneath the wide portico, breath fogging, eyes locked on the tall double doors as though he expected them to open on their own. Or maybe to swallow him whole.
Rose got out more slowly, pulling the scarf tighter around her neck, feeling the rain chill her collarbones through the wool. She stopped beside him, close enough for their arms to brush.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said quietly.
But they both knew he would.
He turned to her, eyes catching the gray light like obsidian.
He didn’t look afraid.
Just resolved.
“I do,” he said simply.
A gust of wind whipped around them, rattling the decorative ironwork above the door.
Nikolai joined them at last, pulling up the collar of his own tailored coat, flipping forged passes in one gloved hand.
“We have two hours,” he said evenly, voice barely audible over the rain. “I pulled strings with a scholar I trust. He believes you’re a visiting researcher from the British Archives.”
Victor didn’t reply at first.
He just took the badge without looking at it, but Rose saw the name in bold black letters:
Dr. Viktor A. Romanov.
She watched the muscle jump in his jaw.
Then he clipped it onto his coat anyway.
Inside, the air was warm but heavy.
The vestibule smelled of damp stone and polish. Water dripped from their coats onto the pristine black-and-white tiled floor. A docent offered them polite, rehearsed greetings inFrench, eyes flicking briefly to their badges before nodding them through.
Rose couldn’t help noticing the cameras tucked discreetly into the ceiling corners.
They moved on.
Beyond the foyer, the main hall opened wide and grand, its marble floors glowing under the shimmer of enormous chandeliers. Their glass teardrops caught the light in fractured rainbows that danced along the ceiling moldings.
Everything smelled of wax and old wood.
Curated nostalgia.
Tour guides moved in quiet loops, their voices pitched low and reverent as they recited the tragedies of the last Tsar and his doomed family.
Victor walked with slow, deliberate steps.
Not dragging.
Not running.
Every stride seemed like it weighed more than the one before.
Portraits lined the walls, each hung in massive gilt frames polished to a near-blind gleam. Nicholas II in full military dress, eyes hollow with exhaustion. Alexandra with her thin, pinched mouth and devoted, haunted gaze.
And the daughters.
