The heavy oak door remained firmly shut.
Adonis stood in the dimly lit corridor of the house, his towering frame perfectly still. To an outside observer, he was the stoic, unmoving God of War.
But internally, a violent storm of conflicting data was tearing through his core processor.
[EMOTIONAL ANOMALY DETECTED: BETRAYAL.]
The flashing red prompt hovered in his digital vision, mocking his advanced intelligence. If this had happened three months ago, Nikki's behavior would not have moved a single line of his code.
A locked door was simply a physical barrier, an obstacle easily bypassed by overriding the security mainframe or shattering the wood into splinters. He would have dragged her out, entirely unbothered by her defiance.
But now, his system was reacting with an entirely foreign, jagged energy. He felt edgy. He felt a sharp, burning frustration that closely mimicked human anger.
