Nina woke to a ringing in her ears and throbbing pain from half a dozen bruises all over her still naked body. Blakely would definitely not have had a problem kicking her when she was down. She hawked out a metallic taste, her spittle blood-tinged, and ran her tongue along her teeth. One seemed loose, but none were missing.

Through the blurry veil of pain, Nina could see Ewan in the chair across from her. His head sagged to his chest. She could see blood dripping from his nose.

That was all it took. Gritting her teeth, she tested the restraints Blakely had used to tie her to the chair. She tested, too, the pain where the bastard had hit her.

Both eyes would be black. Her nose, definitely broken. Nothing she couldn’t handle. With a slow, deep breath, Nina concentrated on her injuries. Contrary to what at least a couple of the anti-enhancement groups thought, she didn’t have supernatural powers, but she could focus on the parts of her that had been hurt and shift energy toward repairing her wounds, or shift energy into other functions, so she could fight even with broken bones or internal bruising.

She’d kept her eyes mostly closed, her breathing shallow. Blakely must’ve been monitoring her for consciousness, though, because a sudden blow struck her cheek hard enough to rock her sideways in the chair. With a hiss, she tensed, opening her eyes. The man standing in front of her wore all black and a harness of gear, weapons strapped to him in familiar patterns.

She’d been naked in front of him easily a hundred times, but this was the first time she’d been ashamed of it.

“Blakely,” she said. “What the hell, bro?”

“Bronson.” Blakely lifted his chin in her direction. “Sorry about this. Or hey, maybe I’m not.”

He hit her again, on the opposite side of her face. This time, the entire chair fell over and Nina fell with it, tied as she still was at her hands and feet. She thudded to the floor but held back a groan of pain. She wasn’t going to give Blakely a single second’s worth of satisfaction.

She’d tensed her muscles as she fell, and now there was wiggle room at her ankles. Blakely would know that, of course. The trick wasn’t going to be making him think she couldn’t get free. It would be kicking his ass once she did.

For the moment, she could see that Ewan wasn’t going anywhere, and he also didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger. Blakely, on the other hand, she thought with an internal sneer, was about to figure out that all those hours they’d spent going hand-to-hand in training were going to rise up and hit him in the nuts. She knew all his techniques, as he would be thinking that he knew hers. The difference was, and had always been, that Blakely was an arrogant son-of-a-bitch who didn’t believe he could be taken down, and Nina knew exactly where her weaknesses lay.

Blakely would consider Ewan to one of those weaknesses. She knew that. What he didn’t know and could never possibly understand, was that Ewan had become her source of strength.

“Bet you’re surprised to see me, huh?” Blakely nudged her with the toe of his boot. “Bet you are.”

Nina snorted. “Surprised to find out you’re in the hire of some pieces of shit who are willing to pay you to do their dirty work for them? Not surprised at all.”

Blakely spat onto the floor near her head. “You’re gonna want to shut your mouth, Bronson.”

“Oh, Blakely,” Nina sighed. “I don’t think so.”

She didn’t need to have her ankles or wrists free in order to get at him. She’d already felt the chair cracking when she fell. It took a huge effort, but she managed to bend and flex, breaking the chair apart with the force of her body weight. Still attached to the pieces of it, Nina rolled and kicked at the same time, breaking free of the restraints.

The kick caught Blakely in the shin, nowhere near hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough to distract him while she rolled again. She came down hard with her back on the chair against the floor, breaking off more pieces of it. Again, then again, rolling and ducking as Blakely came after her. He grinned, slowly taking a few swipes at her with his boots. Taking his time, because he clearly wasn’t worried about her getting free.

Panting, Nina freed herself from the wooden chair and stood. Her hands were still fastened behind her back, but that didn’t matter. She could dislocate her shoulders and get out of the ties. As it turned out, she didn’t have to. A quick slam of her bound hands against her lower back popped the plastic tie free.

She rolled to her feet just as Blakely came at her. He got in a hit beneath her chin, sending her back two stumbling steps before she ducked the next blow and came at him with both fists connecting. The first to the side of his head and when he staggered, she got in an uppercut that tossed him back a few steps.

Blakely, mouth and nose bleeding, shook himself and grinned at her. “You hit like a girl.”

Nina kicked him in the jaw. Before he could react, she kicked again, this time connecting with his crotch. Blakely wore protective gear there, of course, but the force of her blow was still enough to send him to one knee with a grunt. He launched himself at her before she had time to recover and caught her around her knees, taking them both to the ground.

Time slowed, as it always did for her when she was fighting. Punches. Kicks. Teeth bared, she snapped at his face. There was nothing fair about this, and Nina wasn’t going to give up or give in.

She grapevined his legs, using the strength of her thighs to hold him in place as she twisted and rolled them to get him beneath her. Blakely bucked but couldn’t throw her off. He punched, but she deflected the blows.

“You,” she spat down into his face, “hit like a boy.”

Then she got him with a right hook that knocked him out. Tasting blood, Nina spit again, this time onto the floor. She got off the unconscious man, well aware that he was only going to be out for a minute or so while his enhancements worked to wake him up.

“You should just kill him,” said a female voice from the bedroom doorway. “But oh, what a waste of money that would be, and I’m afraid I can’t really condone that, Ms. Bronson. So might I suggest you get away from him, before he wakes? Because he’s going to come up swinging, and I really don’t have the time to keep watching, as entertaining as it’s been.”

Nina did take several steps away from Blakely, whose eyelids were already fluttering as he struggled to get back to consciousness. She kept her eyes on him, since he was the more immediate threat. She let her glance flick toward Ewan, who looked like he was still out. Then at the woman in the doorway.

“You should probably tie him up,” the woman said with a gesture at Blakely.

“He can get out of anything I tie him with,” Nina replied. “The same way I can. Maybe you should just call him off.”

The woman laughed. “Oh, like a dog?”

Blakely was a dog. They all were, in their own ways. Trained to attack and to kill and to follow commands. Nina wiped away a runner of blood from her nose and widened her stance, waiting to see if Blakely was going to get to his feet.

The woman moved closer, still keeping her distance from Nina but clearly checking out Ewan. “He’s not dead.”

“Is he supposed to be?” Nina asked coldly.

“Nina Bronson. Thirty-two years old. Joined the North American United States Army at nineteen. Wounded and declared legally dead for seven point two minutes, at which time, you were given emergency surgery that saved your life and implanted you with a series of nanochips and a software program that allows your memories and bodily functions to be manipulated.” The woman smiled. “You don’t remember me.”

Nina shook her head warily watching Blakely, who had not yet risen, and Ewan, who was stirring. “I don’t.”

“None of you do. That’s perfectly all right, you don’t have to. I remember all of you. I’m Dr. Wanda Crosson. I was there when they brought you in. I’m the one who cut you open. In a way, you could say I’m like your mother, since I’m the one who brought you back into the world.”

“In a way,” Nina said, “I could say that you talk like you had someone write your villain speech for you and practiced it in front of a mirror for a few hours while you tried, but failed, to figure out how to sound like a badass.”

Crosson recoiled with a sneer. “God, you were always such a bitch.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Nina brought up her hands, curled into fists. Without her weapons, she’d have to count on her hands, feet, and teeth, but that didn’t worry her. If anything, fighting without a gun or a knife was easier, because she could kill someone as easily without them. “Now, do you want to tell me what you’re doing here and what’s going on? Or do you want me to drop you the way I dropped Blakely?”

“I’m here for Ewan, of course.”

Nina rolled her eyes. “Duh. Yeah. I figured that part out already. But what do you want from him?”

“Justice. Retribution.”

Ewan groaned. Nina went to him at once, pausing to drop a kick into Blakely’s temple to keep him down. He twitched and went quiet. At Ewan’s side, Nina put her hand on his shoulder and bent to look into his face, while she kept the corner of her gaze on Crosson.

“Hey, baby. Are you all right?” The endearment slipped out of her and she didn’t care if anyone heard it. She put a finger beneath his chin to tip his face gently toward her. “Don’t fight this. I’m going to take care of you. Of everything.”

She got rid of the ties binding his hands behind him and stood, a hand on his shoulder, making sure he didn’t try to get to his feet. He looked at her with dropping eyelids, still hovering on the edge of unconsciousness. They must have drugged him, too, but he was going to take longer to recover.

“What did you give him?”

“‘Baby,’” Crosson said thoughtfully. “You called Ewan Donahue ‘baby’? Am I to presume that means you’ve entered into an intimate relationship with him?”

“The fact you found us naked in bed would seem to indicate that, yeah,” Nina said wryly with a shake of her head. “Don’t act like you’re so surprised. Now, why don’t you tell me what you gave him, so I can figure out when he’s going to wake up.”

“Perhaps you should put on some clothes.” Crosson snagged one of Ewan’s shirts from the pile of laundry in the basket by the window and threw it toward Nina, who caught it nimbly without even looking.

It smelled of him, but there wasn’t time for her to delight in that. She gave Crosson a smug grin. “You’re afraid of the sight of tits and ass?”

“Crude.” Crosson shook her head. “You think your body is something to intimidate me? Without me, you would no longer exist. You’d be no more than ash and a memorial hologram, if it weren’t for me. You owe me everything, Nina.”

Nina didn’t need to put on Ewan’s shirt. She did, however, tuck it around his waist to keep his body from Crosson’s prying gaze. “Sure. Keep telling yourself that. You think because you’re the one who cut me open that somehow I owe you? I can be absolutely grateful for my life, Dr. Crosson, and still not give a single shit about your part in it. Do you understand?”

“I do. Do you? I wonder.” Crosson took the chance on moving a step or so closer to Nina, her gaze flicking to Blakely, moaning on the floor. “If you don’t kick him in the head again, he’ll surely wake. If you do, you might very well put a final end to him.”

Without hesitating, Nina pivoted and kicked Blakely directly in the temple again. Hard. Hard enough to, as Crosson had said, put a final end to him. Nina’s toes crunched, aching at the impact, but she didn’t even flinch. She kicked him again, harder this time, until he was silent.

Crosson’s lips pursed. “And here I thought you might have more compassion for him.”

“Why? Because we used to fuck once in a while?” Nina glanced at Ewan, whose gaze was clearing, but who still looked a bit out of focus.

“Did you?” Crosson gave a mock-innocent blink. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I meant more because you and he had the same backgrounds—”

“We don’t, actually,” Nina interrupted. “Blakely and I might have both had the same surgeries, and yeah, we both served in the army, but we are not alike.”

Crosson snorted under her breath. “Perhaps you didn’t start out that way, but you certainly grew to be very much like each other.”

Ewan tried to speak, but his words slurred. Nina tipped his chin up again so she could look into his eyes. She tried to reassure him that he was safe, but it remained unclear if he could really see her.

“What did you give him?” she asked again, her calm voice giving nothing away about how close she was to going atomic all over the other woman.

Crosson rattled off a long name with a lot of syllables, then gave Nina a twisted smile. “Don’t tell me you have any idea what that is.”

“Does it matter? When does it wear off?”

“It won’t.”

Nina paused, a comforting hand on Ewan’s shoulder. “Explain.”

“First, he’ll be groggy. When he regains awareness, he’ll find himself compelled to answer truthfully any question posed to him. And shortly after that, his bodily functions will begin to shut down, one by one, and he will slip into a coma. After that,” Crosson said, “he will probably die.”