She looks at me for a long moment. Then her shoulders drop, just a little.
“You’re going to suffocate both of us like this,” she says quietly.
“Maybe,” I answer. “But you’ll be alive.”
She shakes her head, frustrated, conflicted. “You can’t protect me by destroying yourself.”
I step closer now, close enough that she has to look up at me. “That’s not what this is.”
Her lips part, ready to argue again, but a knock slams into the moment.
Sharp. Insistent.
I turn and storm to the door, yanking it open. Nik stands there, stiff-backed, eyes flicking past me into the room.
I squint at him. “What.”
“Your brothers,” he says carefully. “They’d prefer to see you in person.”
Before I can tell him exactly where they can shove that preference, a sudden pressure hits my back. Raelyn.
She plants both hands on my shoulders and shoves.
Hard.
I stumble a step into the hall, just enough for her to slam the door shut between us.
“Raelyn—”
The lock snaps.
Final. Deliberate.
“Go to your brothers, Konstantin,” she calls through the door. “I’ll be fine.”
I stare at the wood like I might burn through it with sheer will.
“Raelyn,” I say again, sharper now. “Open the door.”
Nothing.
I drag a hand down my face, jaw clenched so tight it aches, then turn slowly.
Nik is watching me like a man standing too close to an unexploded bomb.
I glare at him. “Put guards on this door. Armed. No one gets in. No one.”
“Yes,” he says immediately.
“Double the rotation. Eyes on the cameras at all times.”
He nods again. Smarter now not to speak.
I take one last look at the door—at the woman on the other side of it who just outmaneuvered me—then turn on my heel.
I head for the surveillance room.
And every step away from her feels wrong.