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Teague O’Malley hates pretty much everything associated with his family’s name. And when his father orders him to marry Callista Sheridan to create a “business” alliance, Teague’s ready to tell his dad exactly where he can stuff his millions. But then Teague actually meets his new fiancée, sees the bruises on her neck and the fight still left in her big blue eyes, and he decides he will do everything in his power to protect her.

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Little Drummer Boy

M. O’Keefe

Chapter One

Zilla

One year later

Hell of a party. If you were into open bars and caviar and Christmas. Which, come to find out, Zilla was. She really really was.

“Thank you,” she said to the server, plucking a flute from her tray of champagne. And from another server, she took a napkin and a little potato blini topped with caviar and crème fraiche.

When she was young, she was invited to the Constantine parties like this. Though admittedly, they were a bit more boring. All those people pretending to be good. Moral. Religious. There was something about a Morelli party that held a hint of danger. Anything could happen with this crowd. Beneath the veneer of piousness, there was a vicious undercurrent.

The air tasted…exciting.

These are my people, she thought. Dangerous. Slightly unhinged. Dressed in black and gold, surrounded by thick, lush pine boughs and red and green decorations, all the Morellis sparkled with menace. A threat barely controlled.

It was fucking delicious.

The music changed to another Christmas song. The one about the bells.

Her sister, Poppy, was around here somewhere with her husband, Ronan. The assassin and the widow. A love story no one saw coming, especially not Zilla and especially when everyone found out who and what Ronan actually was. The things he’d done to Poppy. But Poppy was full of surprises.

Poppy with power. It was a beautiful thing to see.

It was even better to see her so in love.

Zilla drained her champagne glass and set it down on a small table.

The goal tonight, however, was to not be seen by her at all.

She had work to do and she didn’t need Poppy getting in her way.

Zilla made her way into the kitchen and smiled brightly into the faces of servers who wanted to know if she needed help or what she was looking for, and took the servants’ staircase up to the second floor of the Morelli mansion.

Behind one of the closed doors she heard a couple arguing. Then silence. Then fucking.

This Morelli crowd was a horny bunch.

She heard the loud booming voice of Bryant Morelli coming up the main staircase and settled herself into the shadows of a doorway. Her heart pounding.