He stood and refilled our whiskey glasses from the bottle he’d brought in with him.
“What would you call it?” he asked, motioning to the organizational chart on the board.
“Call what?”
“This.” He gestured at the room, the board, and us. “It needs a name.”
“I’ve been thinking about that.”
“So have I. Tell me your idea, and I’ll tell you mine. Count of three.”
I raised a brow, then nodded. “One, two, three, go.”
We said the same word in the same breath.“Genesis.”
I looked at him. He looked at me. That we both came up with the same name was eerie.
“The Genesis Consortium,” I said.
“That’s it.”
I raised my glass, he raised his, and we drank.
Later that night, after we’d all had dinner, Henry raised the same question Blackjack had. “We aren’t Minerva anymore. Who are we?”
For the second time, Blackjack and I answered together. “Genesis.”
“The Genesis Consortium,” I added.
I surveyed the room, and everyone in it was nodding.
Lyra’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s perfect.”
The last thing I should’ve thought of was my inability to do the same, but I did.
When Blackjack and I said good night later at the top of the grand staircase and I made my way to my room, I wondered whether I should feel guilty about not being able to cry for what we lost. Not that it would change anything if I did.
7
BLACKJACK
Kingston found me in the corridor after dinner. “The boss wants to talk to us.”
I followed him down the hall to the study. Kingston’s pace was faster than usual, and he didn’t make conversation, which, from my brother, indicated the serious nature of what was coming.
Doc was inside with Gunner. Mercury sat in her chair with Henry on one side and Beacon on the other. Gunner stood near the fireplace. His posture was the same one I’d seen on base commanders before they delivered bad news. His feet were planted, and his weight shifted forward.
“Close the door,” said Doc.
I did, and my brother and I sat in the two empty chairs.
“We told you yesterday you weren’t safe here,” Doc said. “What we intercepted tells us exactly why.”
Gunner turned from the fireplace. “Mercury is Vasiliev’s primary target. Whatever else the bombingwas meant to accomplish, for him, it was always about getting to her. She wasn’t in the building when the charges hit. Which means he failed. And Vasiliev doesn’t leave unfinished business. He took out an entire building to get to her and missed. He knows she survived. He knows where she is. Everyone on this estate is in danger, and he won’t stop at one bomb.”
“I feared this,” said Mercury. “Before Eleanor died, she warned me about Vasiliev. I need to disappear.” Her eyes were on the window. “Completely. Take Mama and Polina somewhere he’d never think to look.”
“It can’t be you alone,” Beacon said. “He’ll go through every one of us to find you. We all move, or none of us do.”
