He gestured around the room with a sweep of his hand.
"And now you are seeing, in very concrete terms, exactly what your stubbornness is costing you. This is not something I wanted, Cora. Force is never my first preference - it is messy, it is unpleasant, and it produces results that are considerably less satisfying than genuine cooperation." His voice hardened almost imperceptibly. "But you have pushed me to this point, and so here we are."
He stood from behind his desk and straightened his jacket with a calm, unhurried motion, and then he turned and gestured toward the far side of the room - toward the bed that had been sitting there in deliberate, silent significance since before Cora had even arrived.
The door beside it was open.
