Page 14 of Pressure Point (Lantern Beach Blackout: Detonation #2)

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

“What’s going on?” Atlas asked his colleagues as soon as they were out of Quinn’s earshot.

The tension radiating from his teammates was unmistakable.

The air between them felt charged, like the moment before lightning struck.

Even the wind seemed to hold its breath as the men arranged themselves in a loose semicircle, their usual easy banter replaced by the silence that preceded difficult conversations.

They hadn’t come out here and found Atlas by accident. They needed something from him, or they needed to tell him something important.

Hudson’s jaw was tight as he spoke. “Maverick and I were assigned to look into Sigma. We just got back.”

The two men had been tasked with doing a deeper dive into Sigma and to follow up on a couple of leads.

“We’re still unsure who Sigma’s leader is, where they’re headquartered, or how many people they have working for them,” Maverick said.

“There’s a lot of scuttlebutt around them,” Jake added.

“Like what?” Atlas asked.

“I went in search of several people who’ve recently left government jobs,” Hudson said. “I wondered if they’d been recruited by Sigma.”

“And?” Atlas prodded.

“And . . . I wasn’t able to find them, which further makes me question their possible involvement.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“There’s good news.” Maverick raised a finger in the air.

“In a manner of speaking, at least. I’ve been monitoring encrypted communications and noticed a spike in coded messages using specific phrases like ‘oncoming storm,’ ‘pressure release,’ and ‘final countdown.’ The timing and frequency suggest these are operational codes building toward a specific date or event. ”

“It sounds like they’re planning something that may be taking place soon,” Atlas murmured.

Jake’s gaze zeroed in on Maverick. “Can you monitor those communications for anything about Quinn?”

“I was just thinking about that. It’s a good idea, just in case she might be—” Maverick stopped before finishing his question, almost as if he’d thought better of voicing his thought aloud.

“Do I think she might be one of them?” Atlas finished.

Maverick glanced at Hudson, who raised his eyebrows.

No one had to say anything. He knew what they thought.

Atlas’s jaw tightened. He didn’t want to believe that.

Hudson stepped closer. “Think about it, Atlas. A woman with amnesia turns up near our headquarters right when we’re investigating Sigma? A woman who speaks Russian in her sleep?”

“But as far as we know, there’s no link between Sigma and Russia,” Atlas reminded him.

“We’re only skimming the surface on what we know about Sigma,” Jake said. “They could have ties with the country for all we know. We can’t rule anything out at this point.”

Atlas opened his mouth to refute the statement, but then he shut it again.

Jake was right.

Atlas glanced back toward where Quinn stood silhouetted against the gray sky. A moment later, he said, “She’s been hurt. You saw the defensive wounds, the head trauma. Someone tried to kill her yesterday.”

“Or someone made it look like they were trying to kill her.” Hudson’s words contained no emotion, but the implications were still clear. “Sigma’s good at psychological manipulation. What better way to get an operative inside our defenses than to make us want to protect her?”

Atlas wanted to argue, but the logic was sound. Everything about Quinn’s appearance raised red flags. He’d be a fool to deny that.

He glanced at her, at how her brow was still furrowed with confusion as she stared out over the water.

He let out a pent-up breath and shook his head. “Even if that’s true, keeping her close is still our best option. If she’s innocent, she needs protection. If she’s not . . .”

“Then we’ll know soon enough,” Jake agreed. “Just promise us you’ll be careful. We know how you operate, Atlas. You see someone who needs protecting, and you throw yourself into it completely. But this time, your protective instincts might get you killed.”

His throat tightened. He knew what his friends were getting at.

Noreen.

Three years ago, he’d been engaged to a fellow CIA operative. Atlas had thought she was the love of his life. When she was captured during a mission, Atlas had moved heaven and earth to rescue her, going against orders and risking his life.

He’d later discovered she’d been turned and was feeding their enemies information about CIA operations. She’d been forced to take leave from the job in the aftermath. So she’d had to use Atlas to gain the information she needed.

But the worst part wasn’t just her betrayal—it was how completely she’d played him.

Noreen had used Atlas’s love and protective instincts against him.

Every kiss had been calculated. Every whispered confession of love had been designed to lower his guard. She’d known exactly which emotional buttons to push because manipulating him had been her mission ever since her rescue.

The intelligence she’d gathered from their relationship had led directly to the deaths of three operatives and the failure of a major counter-terrorism operation.

Atlas’s psychological profile, his tactical preferences, his team’s standard operating procedures—she’d fed it all to enemy handlers while he’d believed he was protecting the woman he loved.

He’d never forgive himself for being so completely fooled. For letting his heart override his training. For being the kind of man who could be turned into a weapon against his own people simply by someone pretending to love him.

The worst part was that even now, three years later, he wasn’t sure he’d recognize the signs if it happened again. When you truly loved someone, you wanted to believe in them completely—and that kind of trust was exactly what made the betrayal so devastating.

Atlas looked back at Quinn again, taking in her graceful profile as she gazed out over the water. She looked peaceful, almost waiflike as she stood on the shore.

But his colleagues were right—he’d been trained to look beyond surface appearances. He couldn’t forget that. Even hurricanes could appear deceptively calm at their center, while harboring devastating winds just beyond the eye.

“I’ll be careful.” Even as Atlas said the words, he wondered if it was already too late for caution.

When it came to Quinn, his professional objectivity seemed to have taken a permanent vacation—and that was unacceptable.

Quinn tried not to be too obvious as she watched Atlas and his colleagues, but their body language was easy enough to read from a distance.

Tense. Suspicious. And those glances in her direction told her exactly what they were discussing.

Her.

She couldn’t blame them. If she were in their position, she’d be suspicious too. A woman with no memory appears out of nowhere, gets targeted by an assassin, and needs protection from a private security firm that deals with top secret matters.

Even without her fragmented memories, she knew how that looked.

The rhythmic thrum of helicopter rotors in the distance caught her attention. She shaded her eyes against the sky as the sun filtered in and out of the clouds.

A black aircraft moved across the water, probably half a mile out. Something about the sight of it caused the muscles across her back to tighten with concern.

“It’s one of ours,” Atlas called out as if sensing her worry.

She nodded an acknowledgement of his words.

But she kept watching.

The people onboard must be doing training exercises. It seemed the kind of thing a security firm like Blackout would conduct regularly.

But something about the helicopter’s movement pattern appeared wrong. Too erratic, too aggressive for a routine training flight.

Quinn’s muscles tensed. An instinct she couldn’t name screamed warnings, telling her to get ready.

Ready for what?

The helicopter banked sharply.

Quinn’s training—or whatever it was—kicked in before her conscious mind could process what she was seeing.

She had to move—now!

Wasting no more time, she lunged toward a guard walking past her.

She yanked a rifle from his hands.

Her grip found the familiar weight and balance as if she’d been born holding firearms. Without conscious thought, she dropped to one knee, brought the weapon to her shoulder, and tracked the helicopter’s movement through the scope.

“Quinn!” Atlas yelled. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t answer—maybe because she wasn’t sure what exactly she was doing.

Instead, her breathing steadied into the controlled rhythm of a trained marksman. The aircraft banked left, for a split second exposing the pilot’s compartment.

Quinn’s finger found the trigger.

Then she fired three shots in rapid succession.