Trap And Tundra

The cruelest trap is the one you walk into knowing...

LYRA I'm a Special Agent for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and I don't believe in coincidences. Officially, I've flown into the frozen, sub-zero isolation of Kaltvik, Alaska, to investigate an arctic fox poaching ring. Unofficially, I'm hunting for ghosts. My partner and mentor went missing in this brutal tundra eighteen months ago, and the agency buried the case. I won't stop until I find the truth. But the moment I step off the bush plane, the air tastes like metal, and I realize I'm not just facing an unforgiving winter—I'm being watched.

RONAN For three long years, the Arctic tundra has been my architecture of survival and my weapon of choice. I'm a former Marine scout sniper, and I didn't come to Kaltvik to run a standard trapline. I built an invisible surveillance trap for one specific predator: Viktor Sable, the monster who murdered my younger sister and ran a multi-million-dollar trafficking syndicate through this valley. I had a promise to keep to a dead man to protect his "Birdie". Now, Lyra Finch is here, digging into a hornets' nest, completely unaware that she's walking into a lethal setup orchestrated by a mole within her own command.

When a catastrophic Arctic whiteout slams down, sealing the valley and shutting out the rest of the world, the mathematics of survival change instantly. To keep her out of the crosshairs of an advancing kill squad, I do the only thing I can: I lock her in her room, binding her wrists in cold steel.

Trapped together in a claustrophobic ten-by-twelve cabin while the storm rages outside, our hostile standoff begins to fracture. Lyra is sharp, stubborn, and highly trained. She tracks my secrets just like I track my targets. But as lines blur and dangerous truths are traded in the dark, an explosive psychological and physical alliance sparks between captor and captive.

To tear down Sable's empire and survive the storm, we must fight as one. But the closest proximity brings the ultimate danger: letting someone past the perimeter might be the one thing neither of us survives.