Insatiable

The first installment in The Edge of Darkness Trilogy, the novel alternates between its two protagonists' present-day perspectives and flashbacks to their shared past, tracing a volatile love story set against organized crime, abuse, and obsession in western Scotland and America.

A prologue set six years before the main events introduces Kade Mitchell, an antisocial fifteen-year-old who escapes his joint birthday party at his family's manor in western Scotland. He notices a dark-haired girl sitting alone by the pool, the first person he has ever considered pretty. She introduces herself as Stacey Rhodes, a member of his twin sister Luciella's dance class. Kade impulsively tells her to stay away. Stacey snaps back, walks off, and gives him the middle finger. Kade is left smiling, feeling butterflies he cannot explain.

Six years later, Stacey is twenty-one and living with her stepfamily. Her mother died when she was thirteen, and her father moved her in with his partner Nora Fields and Nora's two sons. Kyle is kind, but Chris, four years Stacey's senior, has been sexually and physically abusing her since she was fourteen: drugging her, beating her, and carving a scar into her chest. Her father refused to believe her, and Nora dismisses her injuries as self-inflicted. After a one-night stand, Stacey texts Luciella for a ride, but Kade arrives instead. They have not spoken in two years, since he told her she was "dead" to him after their breakup. He drops her off in silence. Inside, Chris grabs Stacey by the throat and demands to know who drove her home.

Through flashbacks, the novel reveals how Kade and Stacey's relationship developed in secret when they were eighteen. During a camping trip, they were dared to kiss, and both admitted it was their first. They progressed from stolen kisses to increasingly intimate encounters, all hidden from Luciella, and lost their virginity to each other in a London hotel after seeing The Greatest Showman live. Kade realized he was falling in love. Stacey became pregnant, but they lost the baby, a girl. Their relationship ended when Kade received a heavily edited video that appeared to show Stacey having sex with another man. He refused to let her explain. The truth, which Stacey cannot bring herself to reveal, is that Chris drugged her, charged men for access to her, and filmed the assaults. The video was cut from three hours of nonconsensual footage.

In the present, Kade and Stacey keep colliding. At a party at the Mitchell manor, Chris shows up drunk at the gate, groping Stacey through the bars, and Kade threatens him until he leaves. Days later at the dance studio where Stacey teaches, Kade watches her perform a sensual routine, and their physical tension escalates before students arrive and force them apart. Kade's double life also emerges. His biological father, Tobias Mitchell, was institutionalized in America over twenty years ago for kidnapping and terrorizing Kade's mother, Aria, though he remains a caring father. Aria has since married Ewan, a devoted stepfather. After the breakup, Kade made five rules for himself, chief among them to never forgive Stacey, while obsessively surveilling her for two years through hacked cameras and social media.

At nineteen, Kade was approached by Bernadette Sawyer, a senior figure in Police Scotland who secretly controls the Scottish underworld. She offered to help Tobias's legal case, then groomed and drugged Kade into sexual compliance and contract killing. He is now a highly trained assassin also forced into sexual encounters with Bernadette's clients, with his family's safety as leverage. He has secretly built his own team of operatives, led by his assistant Barry, but cannot escape Bernadette's control.

A missed flight forces Kade and Stacey to share a hotel room in Edinburgh en route to visiting Tobias. Their tension breaks into explicit sexual encounters. Kade notices extensive scars and bruises on Stacey's body that dance cannot explain. When he attempts to have sex with her, he experiences a dissociative episode triggered by memories of Bernadette's abuse and locks himself in the bathroom. He calls Tobias, who talks him through the panic.

Kade flies Stacey to America on his private jet. He takes her to a warehouse to conduct business with an armed biker gang. When a member slaps Stacey, Kade breaks the man's nose; when another taunts him, Kade shoots him dead. Stacey witnesses her first killing and is horrified. Kade later returns with his team and massacres the entire gang to prevent them from revealing Stacey's name to Bernadette. He also completes a separate assassination and arrives at Stacey's hotel room covered in blood and high on cocaine. She washes him clean while he passes out.

The group visits Tobias, who confronts Kade about his drug use; Kade storms out. That night at a club, the owner, who is Kade's next contracted target, flirts with Stacey. She dances with him to provoke Kade, but the owner forces himself on her outside. Kade intervenes and kills him. Stacey breaks down, tells Kade he is "out of her system," and walks away. She then visits Tobias alone with a notebook documenting Kade's behavior. She reveals the truth about the breakup: She was drugged and assaulted, and the video was edited. She confirms the pregnancy was lost, not terminated, and identifies her attacker as someone living under her own roof. Tobias gives her a private phone number to stay in contact.

When Kade calls from an alley, high and hallucinating, Stacey abandons her flight home to rescue him. He does not recognize her and speaks about his ex-girlfriend without realizing he is talking to her, describing her freckles and the perfume he bought her. He admits he is essentially a paid escort and mourns their lost daughter: "she was pregnant. A girl. We lost her" (322). She lies beside him, and he holds her all night.

The next morning, sober, they have sex repeatedly. Each time Kade tries to kiss Stacey on the mouth, she turns away, insisting it is "too intimate." He notices the scar between her breasts and silently vows to investigate. He asks her to stay, buys a motorbike, and takes her riding to a secluded pier, where Archie Sawyer, Bernadette's husband, interrupts them, photographs Stacey, and sends the image to Bernadette.

A violent chase ensues as Bernadette's armed men pursue them while Barry's team returns fire. At the hotel, Kade reveals the full scope of his entrapment and tells Stacey they cannot continue. Bernadette places a hit on Kade's best friend, Sebastian "Base" Prince, as leverage. Under fire, Kade's men escort Stacey to the jet. At the stairs, Kade grabs her face and kisses her, their first kiss since the breakup. She begs him to come; he refuses. Their fingers separate. Stacey boards the jet without looking back. Kade watches it take off, then lights a joint as a gun is pressed to the back of his head.

He wakes strapped to a chair. Archie interrogates him while Bernadette demands Stacey's identity over speakerphone. Kade lies, claiming the woman was a random hookup, and endures beatings without breaking. Bernadette threatens Base's life until Kade begs her to call off the hit. She relents but orders him to return for a month of forced service in Italy. The novel ends with Kade accepting a brutal beating to ensure Bernadette never learns who Stacey is to him. The story continues in Voracious.