by Lisa Lace
To Fury’s surprise, he had seen the man before. He was skinny and sweated profusely, but the gimlet gaze he recognized from Natasha’s porch was unmistakable. The man was Nick’s friend Colin, the person who was overeager to know Fury’s background. The driver looked confident even though he had no weapons. When another person stepped out of the passenger side, Fury understood Colin’s confidence.
The passenger was a cyborg. He was the same size as Fury and looked like he would be a match in a fight. The other cyborg’s plasma gun charged with a squeal as he advanced in front of the car. The man with the gun had vanished.
“Do you remember me?” Colin asked. “Because I sure as hell remember you. The only reason I asked you those questions was to see if you had any memory loss. As soon as Nick described you to me, I recognized who you were. You see, I operated on you. I’m your father, in a sense. I was the surgeon who made you a cyborg.”
“How nice of you,” Fury replied. “What do you want?”
Colin leaned against the door of the car and crossed his arms in front of him, leaving any potential heavy work for his cyborg companion. “Times are tough for former employees of Cyborg Sector. My buddy Nick makes good money at his bar. Most of it comes in as cash. He has a big chunk of it waiting for anyone who can take you down. That won’t be a problem for me. I know everything about how you work.”
“Why does Nick care what happens to me?” Fury asked. He already knew the answer. It was no surprise that Nick would come after him in the mad hope of getting Natasha back. But he needed to keep Colin talking. If Colin had a cyborg on his side, Fury didn’t have a chance to win a fair fight.
The surgeon wiped the sweat from his brow and laughed. “Nick is heading to Natasha’s right now. He thinks he can threaten her with your secret and get her to move back in with him. Between you and me, he doesn’t have a chance to get her back. Nick’s an idiot. I’m not worried about Nick’s plans.”
“You’re not?” Fury’s system had finished analyzing the other cyborg. He had the same enhanced skeleton and plasma gun as Fury, but the other cyborg had modified arms. A titanium alloy coated his bones and contained a massive hydraulic system capable of producing incredible amounts of force.
“No.” Colin appeared to be unaware Fury was doing anything more than listening to him. “I could get a big reward for turning in a rogue cyborg like you. We’ve never had an escapee like this before. I would get my fifteen minutes of fame and a boost to my reputation in the scientific community. There’s also a nice reward for whistleblowers. I’m not opposed to making money in any way.”
Fury nodded. “So you’re going to turn me in regardless of what Natasha does?” He wasn’t a fool and had an idea of how Colin would behave.
“Of course.”
“What you’re telling me is that my only choice is to kill you right now.” Fury could tell Colin had no concealed weapons. The only threat he posed was revealing information. The initial battle would be cyborg against cyborg. If Fury prevailed, he would have the opportunity to deal with the surgeon.
Colin shrugged. “I guess you could, but what would happen after that? If you don’t come with me now, I will make sure Natasha is dead by sunrise. I brought Mack here to protect me, but don’t imagine for a second that he’s the only cyborg devoted to me. I’ve been responsible for the creation of many cyborgs. I always made sure that they felt indebted to me. There’s a cyborg stationed in her backyard right now.”
Fury ground his teeth together. He didn’t know if Colin was telling the truth or not, but he had to assume Colin was honest. If he didn’t take the scientist at his word, he was taking Natasha’s life in his hands. There was no way to determine the truth. “You win. I’ll go with you.”
“Smart decision.”
The backseat of the sports car was tiny, but Fury managed to fold his body into it. Colin was a terrible driver. He swerved around corners too fast then slammed on the brakes. Perhaps he thought it was amusing to see the cyborg in the back brace himself so he wouldn’t slide into the door panel.
Fury knew that Colin thought he had the upper hand. But the cyborg had already worked out a plan. It meant biding his time until the right moment, but it guaranteed Natasha’s safety. He hoped Nick didn’t have different plans for her.
The cyborg did not know his destination, but it was a long drive. The car didn’t head back through town. Instead, the path they took was straight out of the city. They passed farm fields and tree lines, fences and horse pastures. Fury hadn’t bothered studying anything this far out of town, but he continuously watched out the window.
Natasha would be awake by now. He imagined he could feel her worry. The thought of her discomfort infuriated Fury. He couldn’t do anything to stop it. He had to save his energy and see where they were going. If his kidnappers had been human, he could have done things differently.
After several hours, the car swerved off the road and passed through a gate. The driveway they traveled was rutted and full of potholes. The gravel lining had sunk into the dirt long ago. An old house with loose siding and broken windows waited at the end of the driveway. Colin pulled the car into a large door in the side of a barn, and his cyborg closed it behind them. The midday sun streamed through the dirty windows, illuminating the remains of horse stalls that clung to the ancient walls.
As soon as they stopped, Colin ushered Fury out of the car. They headed toward one side of the large room. A panel was visible on the floor, and the scientist opened it.
Fury took a look inside. It was darker than the city on a moonless night. He couldn’t see the floor or any walls, but he knew it was deep. The air rushing up out of it carried the scent of rat urine. “Is this a bomb shelter?” he asked. Any other time, it might have been flattering that someone thought they needed a structure like this to contain him. Now it was worrisome.
“People used to build them all the time to withstand a nuclear attack,” Colin explained. “I’m sure they had no idea that they would also be fantastic for holding in dangerous cyborgs. Are you waiting for an invitation or something? Get in,” he said. “The whole structure is set in concrete, and the door is solid steel. Mack is prepared to guard you until Cyborg Sector gets here. And, of course, I’ve brought a little extra insurance.” He hoisted a thick length of chain from the floor. The scientist could barely lift it with both arms.
Fury reassessed the situation. He had a chance now, and he had to take it. Once he was down in the bomb shelter, he wouldn’t be able to get out without exhausting himself. And he would still have to deal with Colin’s cyborg.
Fury made his move. With one swift motion, he yanked the chain out of the scientist’s arms and whipped it around the other cyborg. The two grappled, Mack pushing against the chain with raw power and Fury relying on his leverage. The two of them were locked together, each determined to be the winner. Just as Mack’s hands were about to close around Fury’s neck and crush his windpipe, Fury summoned every bit of strength in his body and pushed. Mack fell into the pit with a cry of surprise, disappearing into the darkness. He landed with a thump, and Fury slammed the door shut after him.
“Don’t touch me!” Colin screamed as he backed away. “I know how to shut you down! I put that chip into your head, and I can take it out again.”
“You’re a sack of shit,” Fury said, slowly advancing toward the corner where the scientist cowered. “You say you created me like it’s a good thing. I would have been better off dying than rotting away in a laboratory.”
Now that Fury had full access to his memories, Natasha was the only thing in his life that didn’t make him feel like a waste. He had tried to absolve himself of responsibility, but Fury knew he had caused the car accident. If he hadn’t looked away from the road at the wrong time, he might still have been a human police officer. But he wouldn’t have met Natasha.
Colin fished around in his jacket pocket, but Fury already knew that he had no weapons. Instead, the scientist produced a small device the size of
a screwdriver. “One zap from this and your biochip is fried. Do you hear me? Do you know what that means?” Colin was becoming hysterical. “That chip controls everything inside you. You’d die on the spot. You wouldn’t be the first cyborg I needed to kill. Not all surgeries are successful, you know. There’s too much room for error. Yours should have been a failure, but I made it work. That’s the kind of doctor I am!” He was sweating profusely. Drops rolled down his face.
Fury had no more time to waste on this man. He had to leave the barn and find Natasha. He was willing to let the doctor go free, but Fury suspected he would be back to harass him and Natasha in the future. Colin held the device out, ready to disable the biochip, but Fury batted it out of Colin’s hand like a child’s toy. The cyborg reached out, grabbed one side of Colin’s head in each of his hands, and snapped his neck.
The cyborg didn’t take the time to stand around and look at the body. He went out the door and started looking for his woman.
CHAPTER 28
“I think your time is finally up, Tasha. I have your cyborg friend, and I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to get you back.” Nick had shown up as soon as John left for the evening. He didn’t give Natasha a chance to speak before he wormed his way through the door and started pacing around the living room.
“Where was this attitude when we were still married?” Natasha asked. “I’m sure it would have made a difference, you know.”
“If you want to talk about attitude, you can take a look in the mirror,” Nick retorted. “I’m giving you one hell of an opportunity here, and I can already see you’re wasting it. You haven’t packed a thing, have you?” He gestured wildly around the room.
“Of course I haven’t packed. And I don’t plan on doing so. I’m not moving back in with you. Wait a second. What did you say?” It was hard for Natasha to stand her ground, and she hadn’t been listening to the nonsense coming out of Nick’s mouth. “What do you mean you have him?”
“I know plenty of people around this town, and they like me. They don’t like cyborgs. They want to do things for me. I tried to tell you.” Nick looked down his nose at Natasha with a familiar look of condescension on his face. She had seen his aura of superiority numerous times before, despite the fact that she had become a registered nurse, and he was a college dropout.
“Are you telling me you bribed a customer of yours to kidnap a cyborg? What kind of idiot would take on that kind of job?” She was irritated and couldn’t imagine a drunken barfly trying to take down a soldier like Fury.
“He wasn’t just any customer. His name is Colin White, the scientist who made your boyfriend in the first place. This was before your dad got hold of him.” A look of horror passed over Natasha’s face. “I know everything now. Do you? Take a look.”
Nick casually pulled a phone out of his pocket and started playing a pre-loaded news clip. An anchorwoman’s voice narrated various pieces of shaky cell phone footage: “People around town are claiming a vigilante is patrolling the streets at night. Police have found would-be burglars and rapists bound and gagged at the scenes of their crimes. Here’s what one store owner has to say.”
The image changed to show a woman standing in a jewelry store. She was dressed nicely and touched her hair nervously in front of the camera. “When I came to work this morning, I couldn’t get into the building because there was a dumpster pushed against the back door with the keys on top of it. This isn’t how I left things when I closed last night, so I came around to the front of the building. I saw a man through the window. He had a sack full of jewelry, and he was putting everything back in front of the door! Our security camera footage showed he had stopped a burglar and locked him in the store.”
The picture cut to a set of black-and-white footage from the jewelry store’s security camera. The person on the video was clearly Fury.
Natasha’s hand flew to her mouth as her stomach dropped into her feet. Even if Nick didn’t follow through on his threat to expose the cyborg, someone would figure it out soon enough. Now she knew what the cyborg had been doing every night, but he hadn’t been careful enough to conceal his identity.
“I’m the only one who has connected the dots.” Nick put the phone away. “I haven’t said anything to anyone yet, but don’t you think it’s time you and I picked up where we left off?” He shoved Natasha against the wall and ground his hips against her, pinning her hands down at her sides. “I’ve been without you far too long. It’s time you give me what I need.” Nick kissed her and tried to force his tongue into her mouth.
Natasha turned her head to the side. She struggled but didn’t have the strength to fight off a crazy man. Natasha didn’t even get the chance to tell him to stop. She couldn’t speak because Nick covered her mouth. The nurse wildly brought up a knee, hoping to make contact with his crotch.
Nick winced in pain, then slammed his forehead into the nurse, making the back of her head smash into the drywall. “Stop that shit, Natasha. You’re my wife, and we’re going to be together again. You’re the one making everything so fucking difficult.”
Stars danced in front of Natasha’s eyes, making it impossible to tell which way was up. There was nothing she could do.
Without warning, the front door crashed open and slammed into the wall next to her, its hinges snapping in the process. Natasha crumpled to the floor as Fury barreled into the room, shoving Nick away from Natasha and onto the floor. Fury pulled back his fists and pummeled the man underneath him, quickly turning Nick’s face into a bloody mush. Nick put up resistance at first but soon yielded to the burly cyborg.
As Fury was about to deliver the final blow, he paused and held his punch in midair.
“He isn’t worth it,” Natasha blurted out.
Fury shoved himself off the skinny man on the floor and went to Natasha’s side, picking her up from the ground and holding her to his chest. “Are you all right?”
Natasha trembled against the cyborg, feeling his warmth and reassuring herself that he was real. “I am now.”
CHAPTER 29
The police cars disappeared out of the mouth of the cul-de-sac. One of them carried an angry and bloody Nick in the backseat. Natasha closed the door and turned to Fury, who looked sober leaning against the back of the couch. Everything had gone as well as it could have. They were forced to call the authorities after everything Nick did. Fury thought someone might arrest him, but Natasha had produced the falsified documents from John. The cops barely blinked at the cyborg.
Now Natasha was alone with him, wondering where they went next. “I missed you,” she said. It was a start.
“I missed you, too.” Fury put an arm around her shoulders, giving her a feeling of relaxation and safety that she always experienced in his company. They stood quietly together for a moment. There were many things they could have said to each other, but words couldn’t express their feelings. The silence seemed more appropriate.
“I love you, Natasha.”
The words were surprising, but they pleased her. They felt better than anything else Fury could have said at that moment. “I love you, too.” She tipped her head up to kiss him.
Fury scooped her up and carried her up the stairs to the bedroom, never breaking the kiss. The cyborg laid her on the bed and slowly removed every piece of clothing she wore. He kissed each part of her skin as it came into view.
She reveled in the slow process, allowing Fury’s deliberate actions to wash away all the bad things that had happened to them. No matter who wanted to blackmail or control them, they still had each other.
“You are mine,” Fury whispered as he climbed on top of her. “You will never regret it.” Moving down, he stroked her pussy with his tongue, teasing her clit with the touch of his mouth and slowly working her into a frenzy.
She arched her hips and was eager to pull him inside her again. She had no idea what he held in store for her, but she wanted to ask for one thing. “I want to suck your dick.” The nurse had imagined many times what it
would be like, and she needed to know the truth.
“Then get up here.” Fury stood and backed away from the bed, forcing Natasha to get down on her knees.
Natasha stared up and saw a look of possession on Fury’s face. Her core contracted once again. She wrapped a hand around the base of his shaft and took the tip of his cock in her throat, closing her lips around it and enjoying the salty taste. Her mouth slid deeper as she opened her throat to make room for all of it. He threw his head back and groaned.
“Damn, you have a nice dick,” she murmured. Natasha took her mouth off for a moment to see how aroused he was. She started to massage his balls with her hands as she swallowed again.
“If you keep doing that,” he warned, “I’ll be forced to show you just how much I like it.”
Natasha brought her fingers around the base of his cock again and squeezed. “Do it, robot.”
He growled, and a shiver of pleasure ran down her spine.
“Then again, maybe I’ll just make you work harder.” He picked her up and carried her back to the bed. He lay down and positioned her on top. “I know you’ve wanted to fuck me for weeks. Show me how your pussy works.”
The nurse plunged down, ramming his cock into her. She was hot and wet, and it was a relief to feel him fill her up. She leaned forward as she ground against his body, letting her tits bounce against his face. He grabbed her breasts and pushed his face in her cleavage, moving his hips underneath her.
Natasha felt herself clenching, squeezing tighter around him until her core rippled. She cried out with pleasure, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted to see him happy. “How do you want me?” she whispered.
“No,” he said as he pushed her upright. “I want you to do it yourself. Lick your fingers and touch yourself. Make yourself come.”
Natasha blushed. As hot and heavy as she had gotten in the past, she’d never been with someone who liked to watch. Still gyrating up and down, the nurse reached down with her right hand and moved her fingertips in slow circles on her clit.
