The Don's Dangerous Addiction
"Take them off yourself, or I will do it for you."
Ten sessions. Two hundred thousand dollars. Her brother's life for her body.
Dr. Avery St. Clair signed a contract in blood. To save her family, she has to fix the mind of Obsidian City's most feared monster, Dominic Kessler. He's a Mafia Don rotting from the inside out. A bullet gave him C-PTSD and a touch so sensitive he can't stand being touched. Avery is the only antidote who can calm him down. So he locked her in his villa.
But Dominic is playing a game he's already lost.
He doesn't know Avery is the woman from seven years ago. The stranger who saved him on that dark gambling ship and disappeared before sunrise.
He doesn't know the scar on his wrist is burned into her memory.
And most of all, he doesn't know the autistic little girl hiding in her clinic is his own daughter.
While Avery hides the truth behind her professional mask, their little girl feels his every nightmare. Every flashback. Every crack in his monster mask.
When the secrets finally come out, his empire will fall. He'll lose his sight. His throne. The only woman who ever made him feel human.
To win her back, he'll have to destroy the monster he became. And help her burn down the man who murdered her parents.
She won't make it easy.
This is not a love story. It's a monster learning to beg.
Why read this?
Obsessive Mafia Hero
Secret Baby with an Autistic and Gifted Daughter
Identity Reveal
"Touch Her And You Die" Energy
Massive Groveling and Revenge
A Heroine Who Fights Back
No Cheating. Happy Ending Guaranteed.
Chapters
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Chapter 7
Dorothea was still standing in the hallway, a tiny, spectral figure in the gloom.
Avery walked over and scooped her up. The child's skin was like ice; there was no telling how long she'd been rooted there.
"Sweetheart, why are you out of bed?"
Dorothea didn't answer. She buried her face in the crook of Avery's neck, her stuffed rabbit crushed between them.
"Mommy," she whispered. "He stopped."
Avery paused, her heart skipping. "Who stopped?"
"The one who was counting."
Avery carried her back, tucked her in, and pulled the duvet up to her chin. Dorothea blinked, clutching her rabbit, and after a long moment, her breathing finally leveled out into a fragile sleep.
Avery sat on the edge of the bed, watching her daughter's face. So small. So eerily quiet.
Before the first rays of dawn could break, a sharp rap sounded at the door. It was Drake.
"Dr.Clair. We have a situation."
She followed him into the hall. Drake's jaw was set, his expression grim.
"The surveillance in the east wing went dark for twenty minutes. The breach originated from your room. Your key card was cloned this morning."
Avery looked down at the card in her hand. She'd used it to enter Dominic's study earlier. It hadn't left her pocket since.
"Dorothea-"
"The child is fine. The hallway is locked down," Drake reassured her, though his voice dropped an octave. "But that's not the worst of it."
He handed her his phone. A message glowed on the screen:
Julian's primary physician was replaced this morning. The new doctor immediately altered his medication logs. The medical trust account has been frozen.
Avery's grip tightened until her knuckles ached. It was a trap-a blatant, jagged hook. Julian was the bait, and they were reeling her in.
If she went, she was walking into the lion's mouth. If she stayed, her brother would pay the price in blood.
She turned and marched toward Dominic's study.
She pushed the door open without knocking. He was standing by the window, already dressed in a sharp, dark suit that screamed power. He had just ended a call.
"Your security was hacked," Avery said, her voice tight.
"I know."
"The access came from my room-"
"I know." He turned, his movement stiff, and handed her a remote.
The wall monitors flickered to life. Two black SUVs sat idling outside the main gate. They didn't move. No one got out. They just loomed there like vultures.
"My East Pier shipment was intercepted. The south side logistics are blocked. Two of my offshore accounts were flagged and frozen," he said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "And your brother's doctor was swapped out an hour ago."
"But you just fixed that yesterday-"
"They're cowards hiding in the shadows," he cut her off. "It's easy to break things when you're invisible."
He handed her a separate file.
"Your brother is holding something. A backup from Wenger. They're coming for him because they need your signature for the authorization. They want you there, and they want that data."
Avery froze. "How could Julian have a backup from Wenger?"
"Wenger gave it to him," Dominic said flatly. "Wenger knew he was a dead man walking. He entrusted his most dangerous secret to someone who couldn't speak. Silence is the ultimate vault."
"What's in the backup?"
"I don't know. But they're moving fast enough to risk a direct hit on me to get it."
A small sound echoed from the hallway. Avery stepped out to find Dorothea standing by the study door, clutching her rabbit and staring through the crack.
"Sweetheart-"
Dorothea wasn't looking at her mother. She was staring into the room, toward Dominic. "Uncle Julian is not okay," she whispered.
Avery quickly ushered Dorothea back to her room, then returned to the study. Dominic hadn't moved.
"You took her back," he noted. It wasn't a question; it was an observation of her maternal instinct.
"I did."
He was silent for a beat, his fingers drumming a restless rhythm on the window frame. Avery noticed something off-his gaze was fixed about five inches to the left of where she was standing.
He raised a hand to rub his brow, a sharp, frustrated gesture.
"Don't get the wrong idea," he rasped. "I just don't like people playing games on my turf."
He turned to Drake. "Get the cars. Notify the hospital team. We proceed as planned. Assign two men to the third floor-they don't leave the child's side for a second."
Drake nodded and vanished.
Avery looked at Dominic, her doctor's eye narrowing. "Your condition-"
"Is nothing compared to being handled like a pawn," he snapped, straightening his cuffs. "The rats in the dark need to be smoked out before I can crush them."
His gaze slid past her face again. He didn't correct it. He simply shoved his hands into his pockets and walked out.
The hospital was unnervingly quiet. The white walls bled cold light under the fluorescent tubes, and the air tasted of sharp bleach.
Avery led the way, with Dominic trailing a step behind. She noticed that as they stepped into the elevator, he reached out to steady himself against the wall. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the railing, letting go the instant the doors opened.
Julian's room was on the third floor. The door swung open. The bed was stripped and empty.
"Julian-"
"In the next room."
The voice came from behind her. Avery spun around to see a man in his forties with gold-rimmed glasses. Dr. Greene.
She remembered him from an academic conference last month. Wenger had introduced them, claiming Greene was "fascinated" by her work on C-PTSD. Now, the memory felt like a premonition.
Dominic stood in the hall, a dark, silent sentinel. Avery looked back at him. He gave her a sharp, imperceptible nod. Only then did she step into Greene's office.
Dominic leaned against the wall outside and dialed Drake. "Lock the exits on the third floor. Switch to the backup feed. I want eyes on every soul in this building."
"Copy that."
He hung up and closed his eyes. When he opened them, the light at the end of the hall dragged a ghostly trail across his vision. He didn't blink. He just stood by the door, listening.
Inside the office, Greene pushed a folder across the desk.
"The new treatment plan. Sign here, and we can begin immediately."
Avery picked up the pen, her hand hovering over the line. She flipped to the second page. A line of fine print caught her eye: Data usage rights transfer.
"What is this?"
"Standard clause."
"There is nothing standard about transferring my research data for a patient's treatment."
"Hospital policy-"
"This isn't policy." Avery slammed the folder shut. "Who are you working for?"
Greene's professional smile curdled. He took off his glasses, polished them slowly, and put them back on.
"Dr. Clair, your brother's account is frozen. If you don't sign, he misses his dose today. Think very carefully about his life."
The door flew open.
Dominic walked in, his presence instantly shrinking the room. He sat across from Greene as if he owned the building.
Greene's face paled, then reset into a mask of feigned ignorance. "And you are...?"
"You know exactly who I am," Dominic said, his voice a low, lethal silk. "You've known since your first day in this dirty business."
Greene said nothing.
"That data transfer," Dominic said, sliding the folder back toward the doctor. "Tell me who the end-user is."
"I have no idea what you're talking about-"
"You have thirty seconds." Dominic leaned back, his eyes cold and predatory. "After that, I can't guarantee what my men will do to your friends in this building."
Greene's fingers twitched.
"Twenty seconds."
Greene looked at Avery, then at the monster sitting across from him. He took off his glasses and set them trembling on the desk.
"I only know a codename," Greene whispered. "Devil."
Avery felt a chill settle in her bones. Dominic didn't move, but his eyes darkened.
Suddenly, Greene's phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and turned the color of ash.
CRASH!
The office window exploded inward. Glass shrapnel rained down. Avery dove for cover, a stray shard slicing a thin, stinging line across her cheek.
She looked up. A figure in a black hoodie and a tactical mask stood on the shattered windowsill, a suppressed weapon leveled at her.
"Don't move," the figure rasped.
"Wenger said we have to bring Avery back alive."
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9.4
I thought the Burch family gave me a loving home when they took me out of the orphanage.
But when the global deep freeze apocalypse hit, my adoptive parents mercilessly kicked me out of the bunker to freeze to death.
As I lay dying in the snow, covered in horrific purple frostbite, my adoptive sister Kendal walked past me in a pristine designer jacket.
Around her neck was my only childhood possession—an antique gold necklace my adoptive mother had ripped off my neck to give to her.
Kendal gloated, bragging that my pendant held a magical space with infinite supplies and fresh food while the rest of the world starved.
I realized I had spent years emptying my life savings to fund their luxury cars and fake medical emergencies.
They had drained my bank accounts, stolen my bloodline's heirloom, and used my magical lifeline to live like royalty while leaving me to die.
I took my last ragged breath in that blinding blizzard, consumed by a toxic hatred.
Why was I so hopelessly weak? Why did I let them take everything from me?
Opening my eyes again, the painful frostbite scars were gone. My skin was warm.
I grabbed my phone. The screen lit up: November 12.
It was exactly three days before the world ended.
When my adoptive mother called, faking a tearful emergency to demand another thirty thousand dollars, I smiled coldly.
"Just tell me where to send the money, Mom."
This time, I'm taking my space back, and I'm going to drain them dry.
9.3
Halie woke up to a sharp pain and a terrifying reality. She was in a new body, her face covered in a hideous web of scars, and her spiritual power reduced to a pathetic D-Class.
Before she could even process the memories of being framed, her bedroom doors were violently kicked open.
Her sister Seraphina sauntered in with a venomous sneer, followed closely by Halie's S-Class fiancé, Jett.
"Look at the disgrace of the Avila family. What a waste," Seraphina mocked, throwing a mirror at her bed.
"I can't be tied to a cripple. As an S-Class, I have to break our engagement," Jett added, his gaze full of disgust.
The nightmare didn't stop there. Her father called, screaming about how she had shamed the family name. He officially stripped her of her inheritance, froze all her accounts, and exiled her to the decaying Southern District to rot.
To make matters worse, a cold, mechanical voice suddenly echoed in her skull, warning her of an impending genetic collapse. Without an immediate energy infusion, she would face total organ failure in thirty days.
A ruined face, a treacherous family, a world that wanted her dead, and a literal death clock ticking in her brain. The original owner had died in absolute despair, a tragic victim of sheer cruelty.
But if they thought she would just sit there and die, they were severely mistaken.
Armed with a mysterious system and her brilliant scientist mind from her past life, Halie packed her bags. She chose the craziest survival quest: head to the slums, find the exiled, sterile S-Class "madman" Coleman, and cure him to harvest his life energy. It was time to start her counterattack.
9.4
My brother and his wife slapped the contract on the table, forcing me to marry Alpha Stone. He was a cruel monster known for breaking his mates' bones, and I was just the price for a new trade route.
Right before I surrendered, the legendary Blackwood Pack arrived. But they didn't offer a glorious rescue. They claimed I was the fated mate of Kaelan, a disgraced, wolfless Omega.
My family laughed in my face, eagerly taking the dowry and throwing me out like garbage. They mocked my miserable future, sending me off to a crumbling shack in the woods. When they later summoned us back to publicly demand a humiliating "tribute" to bleed us dry, they waited for me to break.
"Couldn't handle life in a shack with an Omega? Come crawling back already?" my sister-in-law sneered.
But I refused to let them shame him. I didn't understand why the Moon Goddess gave me an Omega, but Kaelan was kind, giving me the only bed while he slept on the cold floor. Why did my family value a cruel Alpha over a gentle soul? I declared to their faces that his loyal spirit was worth more than any title.
Then, a vicious rogue wolf threatened us at the local market.
My "wolfless" husband stepped in front of me and grabbed the rogue's wrist.
Suddenly, a suffocating, terrifying Alpha King's aura exploded from Kaelan, bringing the rogue to his knees in pure terror.
I stared at my quiet, supposedly weak mate in absolute shock. Who exactly did I marry?
8.5
After surviving years in the Alpha King's brutal prisons, I returned to my pack only to be stripped of my family home and exiled to a rotting cabin.
I accepted the humiliation in silence, until I found a dying baby girl abandoned in a trash-filled alley.
Taking her in awoke the terrifying, protective beast I had kept chained in my mind. The pack, fueled by rumors and a jealous woman's bruised ego, viewed us as abominations. They trespassed on my land to uncover my "dirty secrets," forcing me to build a massive stone fortress with my bare hands just to keep my daughter safe from their cruelty.
We lived in isolated peace for years, until the day I took her outside the walls to visit my parents' graves.
A convoy of royal Alphas arrived, and their Luna fell to her knees at my mother's cousin's grave, weeping and calling her "sister."
I didn't understand. Why was my forgotten family connected to the royals? And why did Cassian Vargan, the most powerful Alpha in the world, freeze in absolute shock the moment he realized who I was?
"You... are you Gideon Stone's son?"
The bloody past I had buried under a mountain of stone had finally found me.
I didn't answer him. I just pulled my daughter behind me and tightly gripped my knife, ready to slaughter a king if he took one more step.
7.6
I woke up to the suffocating smell of copper and sulfur, my fingers wrapped around a blood-soaked leather whip.
Hanging from an obsidian cross in front of me was a boy with silver hair and dead, golden eyes.
His pale chest was torn open to the bone.
I recognized those eyes immediately. I had spent three years describing them on my laptop.
He was Kamari Monroe, the tragic, overpowered protagonist of my own web novel.
And I wasn't just a bystander. I was Benedict Guerrero, the sadistic academy headmaster. The ultimate villain.
A reel of images flashed in my mind: my original ending. Kamari, fully awakened, skinning me alive and burning my soul in a furnace for forty-nine days.
My loyal attack dog, Gideon, stepped forward with a basin of glowing green liquid.
"Headmaster, let me wake him up with this bone-rot acid so you can resume."
If that acid hit Kamari, his hatred would become permanent. My gruesome death would be sealed.
But if I broke character and apologized, the magical world would sense the shift, and Kamari would just think it was a sicker, more twisted trap.
How was I supposed to survive a death sentence I wrote myself?
I couldn't show weakness. I had to play the monster to survive.
Suppressing my terror, I smashed the acid basin, healed his ruined flesh with agonizing dark magic, and lied straight to his face.
"Someone had to be the monster to push you into the fire."
This time, I will rewrite my own fate.
9.2
I woke up suffocating in the dark, only to find my mind trapped inside a tiny, plump, and entirely uncoordinated body.
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in my brain, announcing that I was dead in my original world and had transmigrated into a corporate revenge novel as the six-month-old illegitimate daughter of Edward McClure, the story's ruthless villain.
The system mercilessly outlined my doomed fate. Tonight, my cold-blooded father would abandon me to a state orphanage. By age two, he would officially sign my rights away, leaving me to die miserably at the hands of human traffickers. Outside my nursery, I could hear his terrifying footsteps approaching, his voice devoid of any human warmth as he debated throwing me out like garbage. I was completely helpless, trapped in a baby's body, staring up at a man who looked at me with pure, visceral disgust.
Why did I have to be reborn as the tragic cannon fodder of a tyrant destined to put a bullet in his own head? How was I supposed to win over a severe germaphobe when my unequipped infant reflexes made me literally pee and vomit all over his pristine Tom Ford suits?
"Your ultimate mission is to prevent Edward McClure's self-destruction. Step one: Survive tonight's abandonment crisis."
Hearing the system's terrifying ultimatum, I swallowed my adult panic, forced a pool of pitiful tears into my large eyes, and reached my chubby little hands toward the monster.