Total Surrender
“What was it like? Out there, all alone?”
Richard’s lips pressed into a thin line, his fingers stilling in her hair. “It was February, the heart of winter. I landed in a tiny airstrip outside Yakutsk, the kind of place where the cold cracks your skin. I had a jeep for the first leg, but the snow got too deep, so I went on foot—me, a backpack, a rifle, and a map that was half guesswork. The locals said Dmitri was hiding in a trapper’s cabin, three days into the taiga. The cold was relentless, Pamela. It clawed at you, sank into your bones. The first night, a blizzard hit. I dug a snow cave to survive, curled up with a thermal blanket, listening to the wind scream like it wanted me dead.”