Page 21 of A Ballad of Blackbirds and Betrayal (Dynamis Security #4)
Chapter Eleven
Forty-seven faces stared back at Sabrina from the screen—men, women, children, entire families captured in satellite imagery of the small community downwind from Mitchell’s demonstration site.
She’d been studying them for the past hour, memorizing features, ages, the way a mother held her toddler’s hand in one image, how an elderly man tended his garden in another.
These weren’t abstract numbers in a casualty projection.
These were people with no idea that a US senator had designated them as expendable test subjects.
After grabbing a couple of hours of restless sleep, she’d returned to the lab with renewed determination.
The brief rest had cleared her mind enough to see patterns she’d missed before, and she’d made promising advances with the bioweapon sample Eden and Nate had procured.
Still, something crucial eluded her—the final piece that would transform her theoretical model into a viable countermeasure.
The sample itself sat inside a containment unit to her right—clear liquid in a nondescript vial that could pass for water or saline to the untrained eye.
Nothing about its appearance betrayed the devastating potential locked within its molecular structure.
Yet that innocuous-looking substance could slaughter an entire community within hours of release.
Behind her, the lab door opened with a soft hydraulic hiss. She didn’t need to turn to know who it was. Somehow, she’d developed an awareness of Atticus’s presence that surpassed ordinary senses—a shift in the air, perhaps, or the almost imperceptible sound of his measured breathing.
“Making progress?” he asked, voice crisp and energized. He came up behind her and put his hand on the small of her back, an intimate touch that made her remember why she’d only gotten a couple of hours of sleep.
She leaned into him slightly, as if her body couldn’t help but touch him in some way. “Good morning.”
His mouth quirked in a half smile and his brow arched. And then he leaned down and kissed her, nibbling at her bottom lip. “Good morning.”
She pulled back and tried to slow her racing heart and get her thoughts back under control. This was why business and pleasure didn’t mix. She had to focus. She had to work.
Atticus looked refreshed and focused, dressed in black BDUs and a fitted T-shirt that did nothing to hide the muscled contours of his chest and arms. Despite the standard tactical attire, he carried himself with the authority of someone who commanded respect regardless of what he wore.
“I’m making some progress,” she said, remembering what he’d asked her. “I’ve isolated the primary binding mechanism. Now I just need to develop something that can block it before it attaches to lung tissue.”
“You need fuel. You missed the team briefing this morning.”
Sabrina hadn’t even realized she’d worked through the scheduled meeting. “I lost track of time.”
He moved away, his gaze intent on the monitors where she’d been working.
“What if it’s not about blocking the binding sites?” he asked, his voice thoughtful. “What if it’s about creating a chemical decoy—something that mimics the cellular receptors and draws the toxin away from the actual targets?”
Sabrina stared at him, her fatigue momentarily forgotten.
“That’s…not a bad idea. Instead of developing an antidote that acts directly on the toxin, we create a molecular sponge that absorbs it before it can reach vital systems.” Her mind raced with the implications, the possibilities opening before her. “I need to run some simulations.”
She turned toward her workstation, already calculating parameter adjustments, when Atticus’s hand closed gently around her wrist, stopping her.
“After you eat,” he said, his voice firm but not unkind. “You can’t save anyone if you collapse.”
She started to protest, but the sudden awareness of his fingers against her pulse point—warm and strong, his calluses creating a delicious friction against her sensitive skin—scattered her thoughts.
Their eyes met, and something electric passed between them, a current of mutual awareness that had nothing to do with the crisis they were facing and everything to do with the man and woman they were beneath their professional facades.
Atticus released her wrist slowly, his fingers trailing across her skin in a touch so light it might have been accidental if not for the heat that flared in his dark eyes.
“Take a break,” he said. “Twenty minutes.”
The reminder of how seamlessly Dynamis operated startled a laugh from her. “Is this how it’s going to be? The entire organization conspiring to make sure I eat and sleep?”
“Only when it serves our purposes,” he admitted with a ghost of a smile. “Come on. The food’s in the conference room. Twenty minutes away from the lab won’t derail your breakthrough.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to refuse, to insist that every minute counted. But her body betrayed her with a sudden, audible rumble of her stomach. Atticus’s raised eyebrow dared her to deny her hunger.
“Twenty minutes,” she conceded. “And then I’m back to work.”
The conference room on sublevel three was smaller than the main operations center, designed for briefings rather than full team deployments. A wall of screens displayed security feeds from around the complex, while a polished walnut table dominated the center of the space.
“Who prepared all this?” Sabrina asked, surveying the impressive spread of fresh omelets, fruits, and pastries that looked like they belonged in a Paris patisserie rather than a high-security bunker.
“Chef Matthews,” Atticus replied, pouring coffee into two waiting mugs. “Former Navy SEAL who decided killing people wasn’t as satisfying as feeding them. He joined us years ago—says he sleeps better making eggs than he did making widows.”
Two cups of coffee sat steaming beside the food, and Sabrina realized with a jolt that Atticus had planned this, had anticipated her resistance and prepared accordingly.
“You’re very sure of yourself,” she observed, taking a seat and selecting a strawberry from the fruit platter.
“I’m sure of you,” he corrected, settling into the chair opposite her. “You’re driven and determined enough to work until you drop. It’s both your greatest strength and your most dangerous liability.”
Sabrina paused, the strawberry halfway to her lips. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
Something flashed across his face—recognition, perhaps, or a shared understanding that went deeper than their brief acquaintance. “Let’s just say I recognize the signs.”
She bit into the strawberry, its sweetness exploding across her tongue, and realized just how hungry she’d been. For a few minutes, they ate in companionable silence, the tension between them settling into something more comfortable, more genuine.
“You didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” he said.
She felt the heat rush to her cheeks. She was a grown woman. A doctor. And she had nothing to be embarrassed about.
“And when you did sleep you were restless.”
She rotated her coffee cup between her palms, watching the dark liquid swirl. “Sleep and I have always had a complicated relationship. My father was a surgeon—brilliant, demanding, perpetually disappointed that his only child was a daughter rather than the son he’d wanted to carry on the dynasty.”
The admission surprised her; she rarely spoke of her father to anyone. Yet something about Atticus’s steady gaze, the focused attention he gave her, made the words flow more easily than they should have.
“He used to say sleep was a luxury for people without purpose,” she continued, studying her coffee to avoid meeting Atticus’s eyes.
“By the time I was twelve, I could recite every bone in the human body, could stitch a wound with textbook precision. By sixteen, I was sitting in on his surgeries, observing. Nothing was ever quite good enough.”
“And yet you followed in his footsteps,” Atticus noted.
“I became a doctor to prove I could,” she admitted. “I joined the Navy to prove I didn’t need his connections to succeed.”
“You excel at what you do,” Atticus said, and there was genuine respect in his voice. “Your record speaks for itself.”
Sabrina’s eyes met his, curiosity piqued by his careful phrasing. “Just how thorough were those background checks of yours?”
A faint smile touched his lips. “Thorough enough. What I find more interesting is what’s not in your official records.”
“So I’m learning.” She took another sip of coffee, using the moment to collect her thoughts. “After that tour, I had opportunities. Research positions, private practice offers. But none of it felt…enough.”
“So you chose trauma surgery. The front lines of medicine, where every day is a battle between life and death.” Atticus leaned forward slightly, his gaze holding hers. “Where you could prove yourself over and over again, not to your father, but to yourself.”
The insight struck too close to home, cutting through layers of self-protection she’d built over years. Sabrina looked away, uncomfortable with how easily he’d read her.
“We all have our demons,” she said softly. “What are yours, Atticus? Besides the obvious.”
For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer. His expression shuttered, the professional mask slipping back into place. Then he exhaled slowly.
“Failure,” he said simply. “Not being enough to protect the people who matter.” His gaze drifted to the security feeds, where a small window in the corner showed a college campus quad.
“Anna was twelve when Jane died. Old enough to understand what happened, young enough to have her entire world shattered.”
“She looks like you,” Sabrina observed, studying the campus scene. “From the photographs I’ve seen.”