Ruthless Creatures

Ruthless Creatures Plot Summary

Introduction

# Sweet Poison: When Love Blooms in Shadows The champagne glass trembled in Natalie Peterson's fingers as she stared across the empty restaurant table, five years of grief crystallizing into another lonely evening. David had vanished the day before their wedding, leaving behind only questions and a ghost that haunted every corner of her small Lake Tahoe existence. She'd become the town's tragic figure, frozen in time like a photograph left too long in sunlight. But tonight, darkness took human form. Across the crowded restaurant sat a man who moved like predator among prey, his obsidian eyes cutting through the noise and laughter to find her. Kage Porter had come to her quiet mountain town with murder in his heart, tasked with ending the life of a woman who knew too much about stolen money and disappeared accountants. What he hadn't expected was that she would become his salvation instead of his victim. In a world where love bloomed in shadows and happiness came with a body count, their collision would shatter everything they thought they knew about survival, loyalty, and the price of choosing passion over safety.

Chapter 1: The Ghost That Haunted Her Heart

The phone call arrived on a Tuesday morning like a scalpel through silk. Chris Hendricks, deputy sheriff and would-be savior, delivered his ultimatum with practiced casualness that fooled no one. "I can't do this anymore, Nat. I'm the only one trying here." Natalie stood at her kitchen window, watching September sunshine paint her yard in golden mockery. Perfect weather for a wedding that would never happen. Five years since David had disappeared during what should have been a simple hiking trip, five years since she'd become legally widowed to a ghost. Chris was the third man who'd tried to resurrect her heart from its tomb, and like the others, he'd failed against the immovable wall of her grief. Her best friend Sloane arrived with wine and unwanted wisdom, dragging her to Downrigger's for what she called emergency therapy. The restaurant buzzed with familiar faces and comfortable conversations, but Natalie felt like she was watching life through bulletproof glass. Present but untouchable, alive but not living. That's when she saw him. He sat alone at the bar's end, a mountain of muscle and menace nursing whiskey like it held the secrets of the universe. Dark hair fell across a face carved from granite, all sharp angles and dangerous beauty. When their eyes met across the crowded room, electricity shot through her chest, the first real feeling she'd experienced in years. Sloane noticed immediately, following her gaze to the stranger who looked like he could melt polar ice caps with a glance. But when Sloane sauntered over with her best seduction routine, he dismissed her with two words that cut like glass: "Not interested." His dark eyes never left Natalie's face, as if she were the only person in the room worth seeing.

Chapter 2: A Dangerous Stranger's Dark Promise

The collision outside the restaurant bathroom was inevitable. Natalie rushed out, distracted by wine and memories, straight into an immovable wall of muscle and violence barely contained. Kage's hands steadied her with surprising gentleness, but his touch burned through her like electricity seeking ground. "Careful," he said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate in her bones. Up close, he was even more devastating. Massive shoulders, eyes like dark honey, and an aura of barely leashed danger that should have terrified her. Instead, it made her feel more alive than she had in years. The next morning brought Diane Myers to her door, the town's gossip network made flesh, practically vibrating with excitement over the mysterious newcomer. Kage had bought the house next door with a briefcase full of cash, she reported breathlessly. No mortgage, no questions, just money changing hands like something from a crime movie. "Very, very odd," Diane whispered, eyes gleaming with malicious delight. "The only people who keep that kind of cash handy are up to no good." When Kage appeared at her door later, delivering a misdelivered package, Natalie found herself drowning in those dark eyes. He caught her in her wedding dress, the cursed gown she'd been trying on one last time before finally letting it go. The sight of her in white silk and lace hit him like a physical blow. His face went hard, hands clenching into fists, and for a moment she thought he might be sick. "It doesn't suit you," he said finally, voice rough as gravel. "Too fussy." The insult should have stung. Instead, what came next took her breath away. "You are beautiful," he said, the words torn from him like a confession. "But it has nothing to do with that fussy fucking dress."

Chapter 3: Secrets Buried in Blood and Bullets

The young man at her door looked nervous, shifting weight from foot to foot as he held out a stained envelope. Josh Harris, son of the apartment complex owner, had found something during renovations, something trapped behind mailboxes for years. Natalie's name was written across the front in David's precise handwriting, and her hands shook as she opened it to reveal a heavy silver key marked with numbers: 30-01. The bank teller's cheerful smile confirmed her worst fears. Yes, there was an account. Yes, both their names were on it. No, she had no memory of ever signing paperwork or providing identification. Somehow, David had forged her signature, used her driver's license, created this secret without her knowledge. Inside the safety deposit box lay a single letter, folded like a prayer. David's words reached across five years of silence, speaking of love and dreams and a future that would never come. But it was the final line that broke her heart again: "I hope you'll find me there, too." Find him where? In her art, he'd written. In the paintings she'd stopped creating the day he disappeared. The letter was beautiful and heartbreaking and completely inexplicable. Why hide it? Why the elaborate setup with the safety deposit box and mailed key? David had never done anything without reason, but this secret made no sense. Unless he'd known he was going to disappear. Meanwhile, Kage circled her life like a predator testing defenses. Their first dinner unfolded at an upscale restaurant where he moved through the space like he owned it, commanding attention without effort. Over wine and perfectly prepared food, she found herself drawn deeper into his orbit, fascinated by contradictions he presented. Cultured yet dangerous, gentle yet commanding. When he spoke about art and literature with surprising depth, she began lowering her guard, sharing pieces of herself she'd kept locked away since David's disappearance.

Chapter 4: The Reaper's True Face Revealed

Kage returned on Christmas Eve like a dark angel, bleeding and beautiful and utterly unrepentant about the violence that stained his shirt. The bullet wound in his shoulder was just another scar to add to his collection, he said, as casual about gunfire as other men were about paper cuts. "Some asshole shot me," he explained, as if this were perfectly normal Tuesday evening conversation. Natalie should have called the police. Should have run screaming from this man who spoke of murder like other people discussed weather. Instead, she found herself stitching him up at her kitchen table, hands steady despite the magnitude of what she was accepting. He told her his story in fragments. Parents murdered by Irish gangs, sisters raped and tortured in retaliation, a boy of sixteen who'd picked up a gun and never put it down. The Russian mafia had given him purpose, direction, a family built on blood and loyalty. They called him Reaper, he said, because death followed in his wake. "I'm not a good man," he warned, dark eyes searching her face for signs of revulsion or fear. But Natalie had spent five years in her own kind of hell. She understood that sometimes survival required becoming something monstrous. Sometimes the only way to honor the dead was to become death yourself. "I don't care about your past," she told him, hands gentle on his face. "What you've done. How you got here. You don't ever have to tell me anything you don't want to. But if you do want to talk, I'll listen without judgment." When he kissed her, it was with the desperation of a drowning man reaching for salvation. When he carried her to bed, she went willingly into the darkness, finally understanding that some kinds of love required you to lose yourself completely. In his arms, she felt complete for the first time since David vanished, her body responding to his touch with intensity that frightened and thrilled her. When he whispered words of love in Russian against her skin, she believed she'd finally found her way back to happiness.

Chapter 5: Betrayal's Price: When the Past Comes Calling

The dinner at La Cantina was supposed to be simple, but nothing involving Kage could ever be simple. The moment they walked into the restaurant and he spotted Sloane's companions, three men in identical black suits with matching tattoos, his entire demeanor shifted. Stavros and his crew were Russian mafia, lower-level operators running gambling operations in Kage's territory. What should have been a pleasant evening became tense negotiation, conducted in coded language and meaningful glances. Then the Irish arrived. Gunfire erupted without warning, shattering the civilized veneer of the restaurant. Bodies dropped, screams echoed off walls, and chaos reigned as civilians fled in terror. In the middle of it all, Kage moved with lethal precision, dispatching threats with the cold efficiency of a professional killer. Four men died that night. Kage killed two of them himself, point-blank executions delivered with the same casual indifference he might show swatting flies. Morning brought Detective Brown to her door, the same woman who'd investigated David's disappearance with suspicious eyes and pointed questions. They had Natalie's purse, left behind in the chaos, and a police sketch that looked remarkably like Kage. But Natalie had learned her lessons well. She said nothing, admitted nothing, gave them no ammunition to use against the man she was falling in love with. The confrontation with Chris that followed was brutal in its honesty. He revealed that Kage's real name was Kazimir Portnov, known in criminal circles as the Reaper, second-highest-ranking member of the Russian mafia. The man she'd fallen in love with, the man she'd given her body and heart to, was a professional killer. When Chris tried to convince her to cooperate with the investigation, Natalie's world tilted on its axis, but her loyalty to Kage ran deeper than logic. That night, when Kage returned to her bed, she saw him with new eyes, but when he held her, when he whispered her name like a prayer, she couldn't reconcile the tender lover with the monster Chris described.

Chapter 6: Paradise Lost: Confronting the Truth in Panama

The phone call from prison changed everything. Maxim Mogdonovich, the imprisoned head of the Russian mafia, knew about her relationship with Kage, knew about her parents, and made it clear that her continued existence was no longer acceptable. The call ended with Viktor's appearance, a cold-eyed assassin who'd come to finish what Kage apparently failed to start. Viktor's interrogation revealed layers of deception Natalie never suspected. He asked about money, about David, about things that made no sense until the horrifying truth began to emerge. Her missing fiancé wasn't the innocent accountant she thought he was. He was connected to these people, to this world of violence and betrayal that had now claimed her as well. David's real name was Damon, and he was the Russian mafia's accountant who stole one hundred million dollars before disappearing into witness protection. The explosion of violence that followed was swift and brutal. Mojo, her usually docile dog, attacked Viktor with surprising ferocity, giving Natalie precious seconds to run. But it was Kage who saved her, appearing like an avenging angel with a shotgun that removed Viktor's head from his shoulders in a spray of blood and bone. As she sat in shock, covered in another man's blood, Kage gathered her into his arms and whispered that everything would be all right. Driven by desperate need for answers, Natalie followed clues David left behind to Panama, where she found him living in luxury with a new wife. The confrontation destroyed her last illusions. David, tanned and healthy, lived like a king on stolen money while she spent years in grief-stricken poverty. His explanations rang hollow, his justifications for abandoning her sounded like the lies they were. When Kage appeared, gun pointed at David but eyes on her, burning with love so fierce it took her breath away, Natalie finally understood the choice before her. The man who was sent to kill her had become her salvation.

Chapter 7: Crown of Thorns: Choosing Love Over Safety

Back in New York, in Kage's penthouse overlooking Central Park, Natalie discovered the true scope of the world she'd entered. Russian mafia lieutenants came to pay respects to their new leader, for Kage had eliminated Maxim Mogdonovich and claimed the throne that was always meant to be his. The transformation from enforcer to king was seamless, but Natalie saw the weight of command in his eyes, the burden of leading an empire built on blood and fear. Their relationship deepened in ways that transcended the physical, though their passion burned hotter than ever. In the artist's studio Kage created for her, surrounded by paints and canvases and the promise of a future she never dared imagine, Natalie found herself painting again for the first time since David's disappearance. The colors flowed like emotions too complex for words, capturing the beauty and terror of loving a man who killed for a living. When Kage proposed with a ten-carat diamond and promises of children they'd raise together, Natalie saw past the violence to the man beneath. Scarred by loss, hardened by necessity, but capable of love so pure it redeemed them both. His proposal wasn't just an offer of marriage but a promise to build something beautiful from the ashes of their broken pasts. The arrangement should have been impossible, but somehow they made it work. Kage would disappear for weeks, conducting business across the country while Natalie maintained her cover as a small-town art teacher. They spoke on encrypted phones, shared stolen moments when he could slip away from his responsibilities. When Chris became a problem, stalking her house and making threats about her dangerous new lover, Natalie surprised herself by pulling a shotgun on him. She was no longer the helpless victim everyone remembered. She had teeth now, and she wasn't afraid to show them.

Summary

In the end, Natalie discovered that love wasn't the gentle emotion poets described, but something far more dangerous and consuming. It was sweet poison that killed you slowly, beautifully, until you couldn't imagine living without the toxin in your veins. She'd traded her ghost for a monster, her safe small life for something vast and terrible and utterly intoxicating. Kage had come to her town as an assassin, tasked with eliminating a threat that turned out to be the salvation he'd never known he needed. The novel's power lies not in romantic fantasy but in its unflinching examination of what we're willing to sacrifice for connection. Natalie trades safety for passion, certainty for adventure, and in doing so finds a version of herself she never knew existed. Together, they create something beautiful and terrible, a love story written in blood and sealed with devotion that will either destroy them or make them immortal. In a world where trust is currency and betrayal is death, they've found the one thing worth dying for: each other. Some flowers, after all, can only grow in poisoned soil.

About Author

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J.T. Geissinger

Geissinger interrogates the complex interplay between love and danger, crafting narratives that span from romantic comedies to intense erotic thrillers. Her literary work is deeply rooted in emotionally charged romance and women's fiction, often featuring dark, twisted plots, and characters such as kick-ass heroines and alpha heroes. By blending elements of contemporary and paranormal romance with suspense and gothic themes, Geissinger creates stories that resonate with a diverse readership. Her debut book marked the beginning of a prolific career, capturing the imagination of readers worldwide, and leading her to become a bestselling author across multiple major charts.\n\nBeyond storytelling, Geissinger's writing journey reflects a deep personal transformation. Formerly a headhunter and entrepreneur, she pivoted towards writing after being inspired by "Twilight", channeling her newfound passion into stories about supernatural romances. This unique path to writing has contributed to her distinctive style, which often challenges genre conventions. Readers looking for stories that mix humor, intensity, and fantasy will find her books highly rewarding. Her standout series, such as the "Queens & Monsters" and "Night Prowler," offer engaging narratives that explore themes of power dynamics and love under perilous circumstances.\n\nGeissinger's contributions to the romance genre have been widely recognized, earning her numerous accolades, including a Prism Award and multiple nominations for the RITA® Award. Her ability to seamlessly intertwine romance with elements of suspense and fantasy has established her as a significant voice in contemporary fiction. This short bio highlights her evolution from a late-blooming writer to a celebrated author whose works continue to captivate audiences, showcasing her talent for merging romance with thrilling narratives.

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