Some are even afraid of clowns.None of those things scare Sara. But she is terrified of one man, who comes to her house every year, in the middle of the night.Santa. Curl up with some frightening Christmas horror from the Queen of Scream, Willow Rose. Warning: you might not feel like putting out cookies for Santa ever again after reading this short story.

    I had a three-day notice to pay rent or quit. The ad was the answer to my problem. Someone needed a party hostess for 24 hours on a private island. With my catering experience and model looks, I could get the gig. But when I set eyes on the man about to fly me to the island, I realized I might have made a mistake. The tall, older, arrogant stranger didn’t just undress me with his eyes, he used me right there on the pavement. Deviant desires seemed to radiate from him. He pulled a black leather dog collar out of his pocket. “Wait. You have to sign this before we do anything. Read it.” He handed me a contract. The wind swept a bottle down the runway and blew my skirt up. It was hard to read with his dark eyes looking right through my underwear and into my secret places. “This is a mistake. I didn’t know the ad meant —.” “You thought you were going to serve canapes on a tray?” He chuckled. “No, Brittani. You’re the main course.” His eyes worked me over again. “And you’re perfect.” He handed me a pen that probably cost more than my laptop. “Just sign at the bottom of the page. Full disclosure, full consent. That’s the way I do business.” “Can I leave?” “Of course you can leave. If you leave now. But you don’t get paid if you leave. Once we get to the island, you’re ours for 24-hours.” He tapped the contract with his long finger. “When your service is over, I transfer $10,000 to your account and send you home.” “$10,000?” I choked on it. That was more than generous. I scanned the contract again. It had long, dense paragraphs of disclaimers and waivers but not much in the way of details. “I’ll be — okay — when it’s over?” “You’ll be okay.” He smiled. I liked his smile. I needed the money. I signed. He put the collar around my neck and buckled it. If you like dark short erotica, kinky alpha billionaires — and no-entrances-barred hard-and-unprotected group interracial action with a white woman at the center, you'll love Q. Zayne's creamy story about Brittani’s scary-hot visit to The Billionaire’s Club. Click Buy and get the adventure! All characters are 18+ and readers should be, too, due to language and sexual content. If you're over 21, enjoy the dash of interracial BMWW romance sparked amid all the juicy action. :)

    A female officer who is attacked in the line of duty must protect her own husband from his worst impulses in this short story, first published in The Blue Religion (Michael Connelly, ed.) and recognized as one of 2009's Best American Mystery Stories (Jeffery Deaver, ed.).

    Then, the breathtaking sequels, Sara's Past and Sara's Fear, continued the terrifying journey where no one was safe and evil played by its own rules. Now, Lindsey returns with a final chapter, One More Game, the thrilling spin-off from The Sara Winthrop Series. **Novella-length title.**Teddy Rutherford, former coworker and arch nemesis of Sara Winthrop, now turned trusted friend and multi-millionaire, has left the United States behind for the supposed safety of Moscow. His beautiful and tolerant wife, Irina, pregnant and thrilled to once again be back in her homeland, has only one word of advice: "Relax." As if anything were really ever that easy in the life of Teddy Rutherford, especially when his closest in-laws are aren't shy about their connections to the Russian mafia. When Teddy tries to help, and the delivery of a small briefcase goes terribly wrong, he may find out just how many lives he has left.

    Her heart is filled with love for them. It’s a life that excites her every morning when she gets out of bed. She is lucky to be living in a beautiful home overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and she loves her career as a crime fiction novelist.Until Her Life is Shattered…A late-night knock at the door destroys her world when news of her family’s fate is too devastating to bear. Her life turns into one of the stories she only writes about.When She Finds Out Who is to Blame…Marni must act on the shocking truth. Like in her books, the perpetrator needs to be caught and held prisoner until she decides their fate. Nothing too quick—they need to suffer slowly before they’re sentenced to death.

    Carlos Ninguna is seventeen. His father is a snake-handler and Carlos is his apprentice. When a man who may or may not be on the FBI's Most Wanted List moves into the apartment above them, Carlos is faced with a whole tangle of complicated decisions.Anthony Doerr is one of the country's most honored young story writers. His short stories have appeared in the Atlantic, McSweeney's, the Paris Review, and Zoetrope: All-Story, where "The Snake Handler" originally appeared. His most recent collection, Memory Wall, won the 2010 Story Prize.

    She might be the only one. When Mercy’s best friend, Ellen, shows up in the middle of the night, shaken and afraid. Mercy starts digging for a truth that might not even exist. Is it a mental illness or has the Missouri drought revealed something that could’ve remained hidden forever?

    

    His first kill defined the man he became. This is a short story based on characters from the Michael Sykora Novels, and includes an excerpt from No Justice, the first book in the series.

    Andrew and James are looking forward to meeting their favorite author, but when a homeless woman, who claims to be the author’s “biggest fan,” begins to stalk the two friends, they have to wonder if this creepy old woman is who she appears to be, and why the sound of bells follows her wherever she goes.

    Sicily, 1862. In the newly united Italy, Judge Surra arrives in Montelusa to take charge of the local court, in a town where conflict has been kind to a select few. At first, Surra is baffled by the quaint local customs: cryptic anonymous notes, mutterings in the street, tasty - if tasteless - gifts of disembodied animal heads. However, buoyed by his twin passions for justice and fine dining, Surra is determined to settle into island life, no matter who stands in his way. Distilling his customary humour and tension into this miniature masterpiece, Andrea Camilleri casts an ironic eye on the corruption and charm of a turbulent small town, testing his naïve but noble hero against the darkest arts of the Mafia.This story is available in print as a part of the collection Judges, published by MacLehose Press.

    Both Detective Mark Whitman and Sorcerer Merrick Stone have expressed a desire to woo her, but she’s had to put them both on the back burner while she and her son have gotten their thriving restaurant and B&B up and running. But now that things at Habernackle’s have settled down a little, Linda is at a crossroads. It’s time to pick which man has her heart! Unable to make up her mind, Linda enlists the help of local matchmaking witch Sweets Porter to help. But when everything goes haywire will Linda be forced to start back at square one again? Or will she finally choose one of the men to call her own? ​ This is a Witch Squad Cozy Mystery Short-Story. It falls after Witch School Dropout and before The Witch Within in the series. If you haven’t read the series yet you may discover a few character spoilers.

    Ellory's electrifying ebook-exclusive trilogy, THREE DAYS IN CHICAGOLAND. The testimonies of the sister, the cop and the killer will at last reveal the dreadful truth behind the brutal murder of a young girl in Chicago in 1956. That final minute should have lasted forever, but it was gone before I knew it.Four years, five months, fifteen days, and twenty-two hours collapsed into sixty seconds.Today I will see a man die. Today I will see justice delivered. Four and a half years ago a man - a monster - put his hands around my sister's fragile neck and squeezed the life out of her. He confessed without hesitation. He gave no explanation, no defense, and he did not ask for mercy. And as I sit here, counting down his final seconds on this Earth, I know my wait is over. I will finally get what I truly desire: to see my sister's killer executed in front of my eyes.

    The Book of Spies brings us the aristocratic intrigues of The Scarlet Pimpernel, in which French émigrés duel with Robespierre’s secret service; the savage political realities of the 1930s in Eric Ambler’s classic A Coffin for Dimitrios; the ordinary (well, almost) citizens of John le Carré’s The Russia House, who are drawn into Cold War spy games; and the 1950s Vietnam of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, with its portrait of American idealism and duplicity. Drawing on acknowledged classics and rediscovered treasures, A Book of Spies delivers literate entertainment and excitement on every page.

    Maloney delivers a heartpounding tale as fast, cold, and sleek as a 9mm bullet . . .FOR DUTY AND HONORThe unthinkable has happened to operative Dan Morgan. Captured by the Russians. Imprisoned in the Gulag. Tortured by his cruelest, most sadistic enemy. But Morgan knows that every prisoner has a past—and every rival can be used. With the most unlikely of allies, Morgan hatches a plan. To save what’s important, he must risk everything. And that’s when the stakes go sky-high. Dan Morgan’s got to keep fighting. For duty. And honor. And even certain death . . .