His Dark Desire: Contracted to the Mafia Billionaire

Anna's Pov "Fuck.” I yelled out as I hurled my laptop onto the couch and leaned over the coffee table, my palms pressed flat against the wood as I dropped my head between my shoulders. The pain behind my eyes throbbed, deep and relentless, like my brain was trying to claw its way out of my skull. I stayed there for a moment, breathing through it. In and out slowly. Trying to calm myself,just the way my therapist taught me to ground myself. When I finally looked up, I glanced around the room. It felt like a crime scene. Papers strewn everywhere—flyers, pictures ,notes, half-finished scribbles. Names circled, crossed out, and then circled again. Red strings taped to the wall, connections that led nowhere. Every path I had followed ended the same way. Dead ends. Every single lead collapsed into nothing. I had been an anonymous investigative journalist for eight years, and I had never come across a case like this. Never hit a wall this hard. Usually, when I got a request to dig into someone, they went through my agent. It's how I had stayed mostly untraceable for so long This time, they hadn’t. They had contacted me using my personal number. Not my burner. Not my office line. My private line. That alone should have been a sign to walk away but yet I was intrigued. They had sent a single text three weeks ago. 'A million dollars to expose Christian Keller.' Not Keller Industries. But Christian Keller himself. I had read it three times, waiting for more instructions but all I got was this vague text. Then I texted back. Once. Twice. It had started with Follow up Questions. Conditions for me to go through with it. No response Then a dozen times.Proof of funds. Names. Leads. But I was still met with silence. No follow-up. No negotiation. The number never responded. I tried tracking it. They had used a burner phone. Routed. Scrubbed clean. Another dead end. Dead end. That was the theme of this case. I should’ve walked away then. Anyone with that kind of money and that kind of reach didn’t hire people like me by accident. But the more I looked into Christian Keller, the more intrigued I got. His paper trail was spotless. Corporate filings. Property records. Tax documents. All pristine. His online presence or lack off was just as clean. No old interviews. No college photos. No leaks. No scandals. Not even rumors worth chasing. It was all too clean sending alarms off in my head. Nobody with that much money, that much power, lived without having shady dealings, without leaving a mess somewhere. I had built my career on finding those shady messes and exposing it. The hidden debts. The buried lawsuits. The quiet settlements. The occasional drug or trafficking crime. Bribing government officials. But there was nothing here. And that scared me, it sent shivers down my back. The days had begun to blur together. I stopped eating real meals. My couch had become my new bed. Ignored calls from editors asking about other exposes. Everything else was on pause while I dug deeper, convinced I was missing something obvious. The headache came and went, but never fully left. I gathered a few papers from the floor, more out of habit than hope, and tried to organize them. Dates. Locations. Subsidary companies. Foundations. All clean. All useless. I scanned the files again, my vision swimming, frustration pressing tight against my ribs. Then something shifted. A small click in the back of my mind. His address. There wasn’t one. No home address. No listed residence. No property tied directly to him.There were apartments owned by subsidiaries. Houses registered to holding companies. But nothing that said Christian Keller lives here. That wasn’t normal. I stared at the pages, my pulse picking up. If I could find where he actually lived,where he slept, where he felt safe maybe something would c***k. Maybe there would be neighbors. Staff. Security contracts. Cameras. Just something that would give. I knew exactly how to get it. I bit my lip, already aware of the line I was about to cross, and grabbed my phone. Cheryl worked in municipal records. We’d traded favors before. Nothing illegal. Just… flexible interpretations of what counted as public information. The phone rang twice before she answered. “Cheryl,” I said, skipping the pleasantries. My voice sounded rough, even to me. “I need Christian Keller’s home address.” The words hung there. And the moment I said them, I knew there was no backing out now. "Christian Keller," she repeated back to me. I could hear a thousand questions in her voice, but I kept talking. "Yes. Christian Keller. How quickly can you get his home address?" I didn’t bother hiding the impatience. There was no answer. I heard movement in the background and then the soft thud of a door closing. "Why would you need his home address?" she asked, quieter. "I'm working on an article," I said, letting the sentence trail so she’d fill in the rest. "I can't find anything reasonable about him online, so—" A sharp inhale. "Listen to me, Anna. Drop this case. It's not worth it," she said finally. I arched an eyebrow. Her fear made me more curious than careful. "Do you know anything about him?" I asked, unable to hide the childlike eagerness in my voice. "Look, I just know that people who poke into his business don't turn up. They're silenced." "I—" "I know you're about to say you've been doing this for years, but Christian is different. He's not some run‑of‑the‑mill corrupt politician," she said, words tumbling out. "He's one of the most powerful men on this continent. No—THE most powerful man. Messing with him won't do you any good." I laughed softly, more amused than afraid. "It's sweet that you care about me, Cher, but if I backed away from every case someone warned me about, I wouldn't even have a career." A brief silence. "There's no changing your mind, is there?" "Nope," I said, smirking, and bit the pen between my teeth. "Fine. Have it your way. I'll see what I can do." I could practically feel her eyes roll through the phone. "Thanks, Cher," I said, sincere. "Anna." "Yeah?" "Please... be careful." Her voice broke on the last word. "I’ll try," I said, trying to ease her restlessness. She didn't say anything after that, just a soft, uneven breath. I ended the call without saying goodbye, I tapped my phone lightly on a stack of papers as I looked at a printed out picture of Christian and smirked. I'm coming for you