The Ice Garden Protocol

Some secrets are frozen in time. Some hearts are meant to thaw. Twenty years ago, Anya Petrov watched her father die. Hidden inside a ventilation shaft, nine years old and holding her breath, she heard the gunshot that ended his life—and the Consortium's promise that she would be next. Now she's back, wearing stolen credentials and a heart carved from permafrost, ready to destroy the cryogenic station that stole her family from her. Chief Mikhail Volkov has spent a decade preserving the dead. As head of security for CryoPreservation Station Alpha-9, his only purpose is maintaining the ice—especially Chamber 734, where his younger brother Kirill has been suspended between life and death for ten years, three months, and four days. Mikhail doesn't believe in thaws. He believes in control. In silence. In keeping the past perfectly frozen. But when a climate breach traps them together in a concrete bunker with seventy-two hours until the ice claims them both, the temperature isn't the only thing rising. Anya knows the station's original design—impossible knowledge for a stranger. Mikhail notices everything—especially the scar above her left eyebrow that matches his own. As the cold closes in and the Consortium's darkest secrets begin to surface, they discover that the line between captor and captive is as thin as frost on glass, and that the genetic code linking them might be deeper than blood. To survive, they must do the unthinkable: melt the ice. Expose the prisoners. Awaken the dead. And risk everything on a love that feels like standing too close to a flame after a lifetime of winter. The Ice Garden Protocol is a gripping, atmospheric romance that explores the difference between preservation and living, between surviving and loving.