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 6
Avery couldn't sleep.
She watched the sky bleed from ink-black to a bruised, pale gray. She lay there, eyes wide, as Dominic's words played on a loop in her mind: "I wanted to see if you would use Wenger's method. To kill me."
Beside her, Dorothea's chest rose and fell in a rhythmic, innocent slumber. Avery brushed a stray hair from her daughter's forehead. Her own fingertips were ice-cold.
A sharp double-knock broke the silence.
"Dr. Clair. Boss has canceled today's appointment."
Avery froze. "Where is he?"
"In his study. He gave strict orders not to be disturbed."
Her chest tightened. After last night's confrontation, he hadn't pressed her. He hadn't threatened or tested her. He had simply... discarded her. This sudden silence was more unnerving than any interrogation.
She stood by the window, peeling the curtain back just enough to see the courtyard. Sunlight shattered against the fountain into a thousand jagged pieces. Everything looked peaceful, as if the midnight standoff had never happened.
Dorothea stirred. Clutching her rabbit, she padded over and wrapped a tiny hand around Avery's finger.
"Mommy," the little girl whispered, her expression hauntingly serious. "That uncle... he's unhappy."
Avery looked down at her. Dorothea was staring toward the door with an intensity that didn't belong on a child's face.
"I'm going to the study," Avery said softly.
As she turned to leave, Dorothea tugged at her shirt. The girl shook her head slowly, her eyes locking onto Avery's for a long, heavy second. Then she let go, hugged her rabbit tighter, and turned away. She didn't look back.
Avery stopped before the heavy oak doors of the study. She knocked twice.
Silence. She tried again.
"Dominic."
Still nothing.
She pushed the door open. The room was a tomb of shadows, the heavy drapes cutting off the world. Only a single desk lamp was lit, carving out the sharp, brutal lines of Dominic's profile.
He was sitting there, twirling a syringe between his fingers-the very one she had refused to use on him. The pale yellow liquid caught the light, swaying like a rhythmic, golden trap.
His movement stopped the moment she entered. He tossed the syringe into a drawer and leaned back into the darkness.
"Who gave you permission to enter?"
She held up the key card. "You did. Yesterday."
He stared at her, saying nothing. Dark shadows bruised the skin under his eyes; his collar was rumpled, his usual lethal composure slightly frayed.
Avery had guided him through a relaxation exercise last night. She had watched him drift off. Clearly, his peace hadn't lasted.
"You didn't sleep," she noted.
"I slept fine," he countered, his voice gravelly. "Until I woke up."
She stepped closer, invading his space. "By what?"
He didn't answer. His gaze shifted past her, lost in the void outside the window.
Avery noticed the documents scattered across the desk-the folder with her clinic's logo.
"Dominic... Drake told me about the hospital. My brother's medication has been restored. Thank you."
"It was part of the deal."
She watched his broad shoulders, the tension radiating off him. "You said if I treated you, you'd save him."
"Is that why you're here? To check on your payment?"
"No." Avery's voice dropped, turning clinical yet firm. "I'm here to keep my word. As your psychiatrist, I'm going to treat you. But not with Wenger's poison. We're doing this my way."
Dominic turned, his eyes narrowing as he studied her.
"I need the complete records," she pressed. "Level Two access."
His fingers twitched. "You've already seen enough."
"I've seen the sanitized version. I need the truth."
Silence reclaimed the room. The lamp cast him in stark chiaroscuro-half a saint, half a monster.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because," she said, refusing to flinch, "you're starting to trust me."
The air went still.
He reached for a USB drive. As his fingers brushed the metal, they began to betray him. It wasn't just a tremor; his entire hand was convulsing. He slammed his fist shut, knuckles turning white, but the shaking wouldn't stop. His breathing turned jagged, his throat working as he tried to swallow the mounting panic.
He pressed his hand against his knee, eyes snapping shut.
After a brutal moment, he forced himself to slide the drive to the edge of the desk. "Take it," he rasped.
She picked it up, but he didn't pull away. His hand remained suspended in the air, grasping at nothing.
"Dominic-"
"Don't," he hissed. "Don't ask."
Avery turned toward the door, but a sickening thud stopped her.
She whirled around. Dominic had slammed both fists onto the desk. A glass had shattered under the force, blood immediately blooming from his knuckles.
Then, he began to count. His voice was low, the numbers tumbling out faster and faster, a desperate mantra against the dark.
Drake burst in from the hall, moving toward his boss, but Dominic stopped him with a single, lethal glare.
Avery didn't leave. She stood her ground.
"Dr. Clair," Drake warned, his voice low. "He needs-"
"I know what he needs." She cut him off and stepped back into the lion's den.
Drake blocked her path. "Going in there now is suicide. You'll only make it worse."
"And staying out will let him break every bone in his hand."
Their eyes locked in a silent battle of wills. Drake stepped aside.
Avery approached the desk and crouched beside Dominic. She didn't speak. She didn't offer platitudes. She simply placed her hand over his, pinning his bloodied knuckles to the wood.
The counting stopped.
He kept his head down, his breath hitching, but the tremors slowly began to die down under her touch.
Her eyes fell on his wrist-on the star-shaped scar.
Up close, it was hideous. The edges were raised and irregular, like flesh that had been burned and re-burned. It wasn't an accident.
She remembered the diagram in the file. The Vagal Nerve Sensitivity Test. This was the exact spot.
She stayed there, anchored to him, until his breathing leveled out.
Finally, Dominic lifted his head. His eyes were dark, haunted. He looked at her for a heartbeat, then tore his gaze away.
"Get out."
Avery stood, walked out, and pulled the door shut behind her.
Drake was waiting in the hall, silent as a grave. She didn't say a word to him either as she retreated to her room.
Dorothea was still tucked in bed. Avery sat on the edge, plugging the drive into her laptop.
The files were meticulously named by date-Wenger's signature style. But at the bottom sat a file with a scrambled string of characters.
She stared at it. Wenger didn't make mistakes. She reversed the string in her mind. A date. And at the end, a single letter: D.
Her heart skipped. The ring from the explosion site... the engraving inside was also a D.
She punched in the restored date as the password.
The screen flickered to life.
Level Two was a nightmare of data. At the bottom was a hidden folder filled with surveillance footage of Dominic's treatment room.
She opened the earliest file.
Red text flashed in the corner: Project 030 | Subject 047.
In the video, a younger Dominic sat on a couch, limp as a marionette. Wenger stood over him, fixing electrodes to his forehead. Without checking the monitors, Wenger twisted the dial.
The current shot past the safety line.
Dominic let out a choked, muffled sound. His body lurched, hands clawing at the armrests, but he didn't dare move.
Wenger leaned in, whispering something-a command, a threat.
But it was the shadow in the corner that stopped Avery's heart.
A silhouette stood there, watching. Unmoving.
Every time Wenger tortured him with the settings, the shadow just loomed.
Avery stared at the screen, her breath hitching. Wenger had said he was just a piece on the board.
She thought of the wax seal. The shadow in the video. She didn't know his name, but she remembered her own name listed in Project 030. A cold sweat broke out across her neck.
She dragged the progress bar forward, video after video. Her skin crawled.
This wasn't medicine. It was a lobotomy of the soul.
Avery reached up, her fingers trembling as she touched the side of her own neck. Right here. The spot Wenger had marked for 'Candidate A.'
If Dominic was 047, then she was...
She tried to shove the thought away, but the realization took root. She hadn't been sent here by chance. She had been delivered.
She closed the laptop. The room plummeted into darkness.
At the end of the hallway, Dorothea stood in the shadows, her rabbit dangling from her hand. She was as still as a statue.
She wasn't looking at her mother. She was staring toward the study, her tiny lips moving in a ghostly whisper.
"He's going to break today," the child said, her voice like a chilling sigh.
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9.3
I woke up in a freezing, desolate wasteland, my body weak and covered in sores. A mechanical voice in my head informed me that I was a defective rabbit-mutant, and if I didn't conceive within twenty-four hours, I would die permanently.
The terror was suffocating, but the system left me no choice. To survive the brutal cold and the decay of my own heartbeat, I had to force a pregnancy with a stranger.
I stumbled through the snow, my fingers turning blue, until I found a massive, wounded Arctic Fox-mutant in a dark cave. He was a Tier-9 predator, dying and radiating the exact heat I needed to stay alive. I threw away my dignity, crawling into his fur to merge our energies, desperate to trigger the life-reset protocol before my time ran out.
I felt like a monster, forcing myself onto a man who didn't even know I existed, just to keep my own heart beating. How could I ever face him if he woke up? Why did I have to be the one to pay the price for this twisted, mechanical ultimatum?
The fusion was a success, but when I woke up the next morning, the apex predator had me pinned under his massive claws, his fangs inches from my throat. I didn't beg for mercy. I stared into his feral, ice-blue eyes and made a deal that would change everything: I would be his anchor, and he would be my protector. But then I dropped the final, terrifying truth: I was pregnant, and he was the only one who could save us.
9.7
Eighteen months ago, the man I loved shattered my heart, claiming everything between us was a mistake. Now, he's back, a ghost of his former self, a rookie tryout in my pro esports team. And I will make him regret crawling back.
Clifton, captain of a legendary esports team, was secretly battling a severe wrist injury that threatened his career, every match a fight against his own body. He pushed through the pain, ignoring doctors' warnings, desperate to maintain his god-like status.
His world was already on the edge, but nothing prepared him for seeing Justice Terry again in the team basement. Justice, pale and trembling, his eyes wide with naked terror, was now a rookie tryout.
Clifton had spent a year and a half trying to forget that rainy Chicago alley, the raw revulsion in Justice's eyes, the whispered "it wasn't real" that had left him heartbroken. Justice had vanished, and Clifton had erased every trace. Now, the boy who once looked at him like he was the sun was back, flinching at his touch, displaying a deep, primal fear. Amidst sponsor pressure and whispers of being "washed," Clifton saw Justice's return as a chance for vengeance. He publicly humiliated Justice on a live stream, forcing him into a suicide mission, then coldly benched him.
Yet, the satisfaction never came. Instead, a hollow emptiness and a torrent of questions: What had truly happened in the past? Why was Justice here, and what trauma had carved such fear into his bones?
Clifton, unwilling to be fooled again, swore to uncover every secret and every lie. He would force Justice to explain why he had returned, even if it meant tearing down everything they both had left.
9.3
She thought their love could survive anything. She was wrong.
For five years, Amara Hayes was the perfect wife - loyal, gentle, and endlessly forgiving. She believed her husband, Ethan Blackwell, when he said his late nights were for business. She trusted him when he swore his heart was hers.
Until the night she walked into his office and saw him making love to another woman.
Humiliated, heartbroken, and betrayed, Amara left without a word - leaving behind her wedding ring, her identity, and the man who destroyed her faith in love.
Three years later, she returns to New York as a powerful businesswoman with a new name and a cold smile. She's no longer the naive wife he controlled - she's his rival, his downfall, and his punishment.
But Ethan isn't the same man either. He's haunted by the woman he lost and desperate for redemption. And when fate throws them together again, old flames reignite amid a storm of revenge, pain, and forbidden desire.
He once broke her heart. Now, she'll make him wish he never did.
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.
8.7
Kaylee woke up to the smell of rotting leaves and blood, realizing she had transmigrated into the grimdark fantasy novel she was reading last night.
A robotic system in her head immediately delivered a death sentence: she was the tribe's vicious cannon fodder, and the male lead—a brutally tortured slave named Elijah—was currently dying on a totem pole outside.
"If he dies, you will face instant soul-detonation."
Kaylee rushed to the plaza, using her villainous authority to stop the execution and drag his mangled body back to her hut.
But saving him was a nightmare.
The original owner's sadism had traumatized him so deeply that her gentle touches and clean bandages only triggered his PTSD.
His feral energy spiraled out of control, his golden eyes burning with paranoid terror as he waited for a new, twisted psychological game.
To keep his energy from detonating and killing them both, Kaylee was forced to act like a monster.
"I didn't save you because I care. A dead slave is useless to me."
Only her cruel insults and threats of future torture calmed his broken mind.
Adding to her despair, she stumbled upon the novel's supposedly innocent heroine in the forest, only to hear her system detect a terrifying anomaly.
The fragile heroine had her own cheat system.
Trapped with a paranoid future-tyrant and a rival player manipulating the tribe's strongest warriors, Kaylee shoved a bowl of hot stew at the bleeding slave with a mocking sneer.
To survive this hell, she had to play the villain perfectly.
8.5
Alexa Thorne was just an eighteen-year-old girl trying to survive her wealthy friend's sweltering summer pool party.
But a violent asthma attack, triggered by heavy cigar smoke, forced her to confront the man smoking it—Armando Holmes, a ruthless Wall Street billionaire and her friend's older brother. She begged him to put it out. He complied, but his cold gaze instantly shifted into a terrifying, predatory obsession.
From that moment, her quiet life was over. Armando cornered her in a dark hallway, staking a terrifying claim. He forced her into his Bentley, practically kidnapping her to his secluded Hamptons estate, a gilded cage he called the Rose Manor. When he offered her a dark rose and declared his "enchantment," the sheer terror finally made Alexa run. But she tripped, tumbling down the hard stone steps, breaking her arm and severely gashing her face.
Waking up in the hospital, facing the horror of a permanent, ugly scar, Alexa wept in sheer despair. She didn't understand why this dangerous, powerful man had targeted her, tearing her away from her modest life just to lock her in his terrifying grip.
"I swear to you, you will not have a single scar."
Armando vowed, his eyes burning with dark possession as he effortlessly dismissed her own brother's attempts to protect her. As he personally tended to her most humiliating needs with trembling hands, Alexa realized with chilling clarity: the real nightmare wasn't the fall, but the inescapable, obsessive love of the monster who had claimed her.