Flora’s Guide to a Second Chance at Love and Life

The place was buzzing-everywhere you looked, people were working on something different.

Fiona and Jackson had already seen most of what the design facility had to offer. They weren't in any hurry to leave, just taking it all in.

Curious, Fiona struck up a casual conversation about the cyborgs. It turned out they were pretty good at spotting which ones were unfinished or defective.

From a few offhand remarks, they picked up some useful intel about where Country M kept its research institute. Most of these flawed cyborgs were basically mindless, barely able to mumble a few sounds, let alone form real words.

But for Fiona, figuring out those syllables was no big deal. She cracked the pattern in no time.

She gave Jackson a quick look, and he met her gaze. They didn't need to say a word-both knew they'd learned what they came for. No reason to stick around any longer.

"Ms. Fiona, I was wondering if you and Mr. Woods are free tonight?" their guide asked. "If you have time, I'd love to take you out to dinner. We can talk more about the contract."

smirk tugging at her lips. "Sounds good. You choose the

to pick you up. That's what good hosts do, right?" he

really get our

"You give me too much credit, Ms. Fiona. We just try to follow your example. I hope we didn't get anything

then," she said, her tone

straight back to the hotel. Instead, they wandered through

shop, but to tire out the person taiting them. When their shadow finally gave

their way to the next spot, picked up their concealed weapons, and checked that

all. There were limits to what they could risk. Once things kicked off, someone would be

outside, they ducked into another high-end boutique Sure enough a new tatho appeared almost immediately. This time, they didn't bother to hide, buying plenty before heading

came downstairs, someone was already waiting to escort them