“I do,” Philip says calmly. “And that’s just it. If that sick fuck does manage to get the upper hand, I’m afraid she’ll blink before she breaks his neck. And Prescott’s too new in the field to be trusted to bring him down. Then the fuckhead’s out in the world talking about everything she can do. My vote’s no. Sorry, Cole.”

“Very well, then,” Cole says. “It’s decided.”

With a swipe of one finger, Cole ends the call.

Noah’s advancing on him before the screen’s even dark. “What? Decided? What about your vote?”

“I don’t have a vote,” Cole responds.

“What does that mean?”

“It means our fifth member wasn’t interested in a second run. Since it’s just the four of us, Stephen and Philip thought Julia and I would vote against them every time and there’d be nobody to break the tie. So, for the time being, I have no vote.”

Cole’s never seen anyone literally try to tear their hair out. Zypraxon’s first test subjects came close. But when they raised their hands to their heads, it was usually to rip open their own skulls. Right now, Noah looks ready to pull out two clumps of his jet-black cap by the roots. When he realizes this, he brings his fists to his mouth, shakes his head, then turns back to the screen as if The Consortium’s still on it and he might be able to plead with them.

Painful as it is, Cole reminds himself this is a good thing. He’s getting the reaction he sought in flying Noah halfway across the world.

“This can’t . . .” It’s the first time Cole can remember Noah being rendered speechless.

“This is exactly what you asked for when you showed up on my doorstep out of nowhere after years and said ‘activate The Consortium’ like you were suggesting I turn on the burglar alarm at my house.”

“You cannot agree to this, Cole.”

“You’re not listening. I didn’t agree, because I don’t have the option to disagree. And that’s how I got your labs back. I can’t fund this on my own, Noah. I’ve already hidden all I can from my board.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got something they don’t and never will.”

“What?”

“Charlotte!”

“Don’t overstate my hold on her. We’ve got a mutually beneficial relationship. That’s all.”

“I didn’t say you were best friends. I’m saying you’ve built something with her and if you order her to stand down now, you’ll destroy it in an instant.”

“Got it, thanks.”

Cole goes for the door, a deliberate tactic that he’s pretty sure will garner some sort of revealing response from Noah. But he’s not prepared for how swift and severe that response is.

Noah grabs his shoulder so hard Cole’s jerked backward. No one’s touched Cole with this kind of anger for years, not since he was a child and several young men dragged him into a woodshed, violating him with a viciousness and hate that had nothing to do with actual sexual desire. There have been times when Cole invited Noah to treat his body with force, but those moments were negotiated, almost scripted, two consenting adults choreographing a dance that drew a strange heat from Cole’s old wounds without pulling the scabs away. The word that comes from Cole’s mouth now sounds like a yelp. “Don’t!” Pathetic, childlike. Not a counterattack, but a plea.

Noah’s so shocked by Cole’s reaction, a new set of emotions muddy the anger in his expression. He doesn’t know what Cole suffered that long-ago summer afternoon. True, he’s always suspected, sometimes with brazen, insensitive language, that some past trauma has shaped the outer contours of Cole’s sexual desires in ways that occasionally spike his desire with bits of shame. But very few people know about the abuse he suffered, or how his father responded to it.

Charlotte knows.

Charlotte knows things about Cole the man across from him doesn’t.

And that only serves to prove Noah’s point. Cole shares a connection with her that might be holding this project together.

But in this moment, despite all that’s taking place around them, his focus isn’t Charley.

It’s Noah.

He realizes he’s done it; part of it anyway. Coaxed a version of Noah out of hiding. A version that cares about Charlotte in a way that transcends the end goals of this operation. Noah, always so damn composed, always so vain, looks downright desperate. And if this Noah is truly authentic, he will be more loyal to Cole than to The Consortium, no matter what lies ahead.

“I’m trying to do what you asked me to do,” Noah says.

“How?”

“This is what I learned about her in Arizona. Every moment of her life—every waking moment, Cole—her mind goes back to that root cellar on the Bannings’ farm, to what she imagines it was like for her mom. Do you know she carved a message on the wall?”

“Her mother?”

“Let me hold her please. That’s what it said. When Charlotte got away from her father and went to live with her grandmother, they gave her a computer for the first time and she Googled her mom’s name. And she found that story. From that moment on, she’s never been the same. The trauma of discovering that was worse than anything else she went through before then. Her every thought, Cole. Whenever her mind’s at rest. No matter what happiness she’s experiencing, her mind goes back to that cellar. It goes back to her mother’s final hours. When I learned that about her, I knew, I knew, that eventually she would open up to what my drug could do for her, for the world.”

And yet you tricked her into taking it.

But there’s a sheen in Noah’s eyes that might be tears, so Cole measures his next words carefully. What Noah just said might not be accurate, but he’s pretty sure Noah believes it. He’s also pretty damn sure Noah’s so disconnected from his grief for his own mother that he can only access it by using Charlotte as a kind of proxy. Also good to know.

Cole says, “You can’t stand here and tell me you picked Charlotte for this back in Arizona. Not for what this has turned into, at least.”

“Of course not. She’s the one who chose to go after men like Cyrus Mattingly. For this very reason. Because she wants to save women like her mother, and if you deny her the chance to do that now . . .”

“What? What are you afraid of?”

“I’m afraid she’ll run.”

“We’ll find her.”

“I’m sure, and I’m afraid of what will happen when you do, and I’m afraid that whatever comes after will be nothing like what this is now.”

Cole agrees but isn’t about to say so.

He can see Stephen’s plan already—Charlotte tied down in a lab, horrifying simulations forcing her to trigger while her paradrenaline-filled bloodstream is milked like a cow’s udder.

He hates his urge to linger here, to study the specifics of the pain on Noah’s handsome face, the foreignness and all the dangerous invitations it offers. This feels like the first moment in years when Noah’s been something more than an oppositional force in his life or a reminder of awful memories.

“I will take your opinion under advisement,” Cole says, trying to sound more resolute than he feels.