Page 51 of Hooked On Victor
Olga. Tatiana. Maria. Anastasia.
Victor stopped in front of one painting and didn’t move.
Tatiana Nikolaevna Romanova.
Her face was pale, narrow, elegant. The same serious eyes. The same defiant set to the jaw.
He stared so long that Rose thought he might have forgotten she was there.
She swallowed, voice sticking in her throat before she forced it free.
“She looks like you,” she whispered.
Victor didn’t turn.
He didn’t even blink.
“I never thought I’d see her face,” he murmured. His voice cracked in the middle. “Let alone realize it’s the one I carry.”
She put her hand gently on his coat sleeve.
He didn’t shake her off.
Nikolai cleared his throat behind them.
“It’s time,” he said.
Victor finally tore his eyes away from the portrait, exhaling like he was trying to empty something rotten from his lungs.
They left the public wing, slipping through a maintenance door that clicked shut behind them with a noise like a judge’s gavel.
The corridor beyond was narrow, lined in cold, sweating stone.
Dim bulbs cast long, uneven shadows that wavered with every step.
Their footsteps echoed, sharp and hollow.
Nikolai moved with unhurried certainty, flashing the badges at each checkpoint, murmuring in practiced French to bored guards who didn’t look twice.
Rose felt her pulse in her throat the whole way.
At the end of the corridor, they stopped before a steel-plated door.
It was old, but clearly reinforced. Pitted with age, but unyielding.
It bore no keypad. No handle.
Only the double-headed eagle, carved in heavy relief. One head faced forward. The other backward.
Victor stared at it.
The symbol mocked him.
Two faces.
One future. One past.
He reached out, fingers trembling once before he steadied them.
