The streets of Manhattan had seen a lot—subway delays, snowstorms in spring, and the occasional celebrity meltdown—but a Brachiosaurus stomping through the intersection was new even for New York.

Cars were frozen in place, horns blaring uselessly against the ancient creature’s towering bulk as it lumbered down 7th Avenue, its head disappearing into the low-hanging clouds. You sat behind the wheel of your battered sedan, knuckles white on the steering wheel, watching as pedestrians scrambled for cover.

Typical Monday.

You groaned, rubbing a hand over your face before leaning back into your seat. Parker Genix was going to call you in fifteen minutes, wondering where their top geneticist was. You couldn’t exactly tell them: “Sorry, a dinosaur’s blocking 34th Street.” Or maybe you could. Maybe they’d call that progress.

Just as you dropped your hand from your face, the passenger door creaked open and a voice, familiar and sharp-edged, slid in like cold air:

“Damn, that’s cold.”

You froze.

Zora Bennett.

“I mean, even for New York, it’s pretty cold.”

You turned slowly. Same sharp features, same dark blue coat, same impossible timing. Her voice, dry and amused, sent a chill straight through you.

You knew her from the old missions—Paolo, Pasolini, Blackwater. Operations where everything that could go wrong did, and somehow she still walked away in one piece. Zora was sharp, ruthless when she needed to be, and terrifyingly good at her job. Exactly the kind of person Parker Genix wanted for their latest venture: retrieving DNA samples from places no sane person would go.

That’s where you came in. Convincing her.

But the moment you mentioned the off-limits island—the one crawling with things that should’ve stayed extinct—you watched the interest drain from her face.

She sighed, popped open the door without hesitation (the car wasn’t moving anyway, thanks to the thousand-ton traffic jam ahead), and shot you one last, unimpressed glance.

“No thanks,” she said dryly, stepping out onto the curb. Of course she wasn’t risking her life for some corporate science experiment.

…Well. Not unless the paycheck got bigger.