The words land like a gunshot.
I look up at him, heart hammering. “No. You can’t just—”
“I can,” he cuts in calmly. Too calmly. “And I will.”
Nik opens his mouth, then closes it again, reading the finality in Konstantin’s posture. “We don’t know what kind of trap it is.”
Konstantin’s jaw tightens. “I know exactly what kind of trap it is.”
I clutch his shirt, fingers digging in. “If that place is connected to Reed…if my father was there—” My voice breaks. “You can’t walk into that alone.”
His gaze finally drops to me. For a split second, the ice cracks.
“I won’t let them use you,” he says. “Not as leverage. Not as grief. Not as bait.”
“And what about you?” I demand. “What happens if they don’t want a negotiation? What happens if this is just about ending you?”
A beat.
Then he cups my face, forehead pressing to mine, his breath warm and steady despite the storm inside him.
“Then they’ll learn,” he murmurs, “that taking from us has consequences.”
Fear coils tight in my chest—but beneath it, something harder forms. Resolve. Rage. The same fire that’s been burning since the bullet hit the glass.
I shake my head. “I’m going with you,” I say.
Konstantin laughs once—short, sharp, humorless. “No.”
“I’m serious.”
He turns his head slightly. “You’re not.”
“I am,” I insist. “This is about my father. About me. You don’t get to—”
He cuts me off with a look and turns to Nik. “Leave.”
Nik hesitates, eyes flicking between us, then thinks better of it. He backs out, closing the door softly behind him.
The room tightens.
Konstantin steps away from the bed and faces me fully. “What,” he asks quietly, “makes you think I would ever let you go with me?”
I slide off the mattress, bare feet hitting the floor, and plant myself in front of him. “Because hiding hasn’t saved anyone. Because people keep dying around me. Because I refuse to be locked away while you walk into hell alone.”
His jaw hardens. “You will not come.”
“I have to.”
The argument fractures into sharp edges—fear bleeding into every word. My voice rises. His drops. He grabs my wristsuddenly, pulling me flush against him, breath hot against my face.
“I will not lose you,” he snarls. “Do you hear me?”
And then I see it.
Not rage.
Terror.