Illusion Trainer Oblivion Novels & Stories

Sienna Calloway has spent her entire life running. City to city, commitment to commitment, never staying long enough to leave a mark. At twenty-six, she's a professional stunt woman with nerves of steel and a philosophy built on one word: freedom. The moment life demands permanence, the walls close in. So she keeps moving. Until she crashes a motorcycle onto the wrong property at seventy miles per hour. Dante Moretti does not make mistakes. The cold-hearted kingpin of Chicago's underworld operates with surgical precision and ruthlessness honed over a lifetime of calculated decisions. He rules through fear. Fear has never failed him. Until a bleeding, furious stunt woman limps toward his car and tells him exactly what she thinks of him. He should make her disappear. Instead, he offers her a choice: work for him, or vanish permanently. He needs someone fearless, trained, and reckless enough to survive what he's planning. Someone who doesn't scare easily. Sienna should say no. Everything in her screams to run. But for the first time, running means leaving something she cannot bear to lose. What begins as a transaction becomes something neither of them anticipated. Dante discovers that control is an illusion when the person you're trying to control refuses to fear you. She challenges everything he thought he believed. Makes him want things he cannot have. Makes him want to be someone other than what he's become. Sienna discovers that freedom doesn't always mean escape. Sometimes it means standing still. Sometimes it means letting someone in, even when that someone could destroy you. But loving Dante Moretti means becoming a target. And to save her, he'll have to do the one thing he swore he'd never do. Let someone close enough to break him.

Beverly Sinclair and Evan Gray have loved each other for ten years, and they've been married for six. To everyone else, Evan seems madly in love with Beverly. He's devoted, gentle, and basically the perfect husband. But it's only when his mistress shows up at her door that Beverly realizes it was all a cruel joke. He's been cheating for five years, and he even has an illegitimate child. He keeps the other woman right under Beverly's nose, all while wearing the mask of a loving husband. He says he loves her—even more than life itself. But how is this love? Evan hides behind layers of fake affection, dragging everyone around him into the charade, all so he can build the illusion of a perfect marriage. Even Beverly's son has been lying to her. It's a double betrayal from father and son, especially when they act like the mistress is the one who completes the family. Utterly devastated, Beverly decides she's done with this. She returns to her classified team and leaves behind the absurd, hollow life that never truly belonged to her. When the one-month notice period ends, she disappears completely, vanishing from the world without a trace. From that moment on, Evan never sees Beverly again. ... Evan loves Beverly to his core. He was just too afraid to lose her, yet that fear turned their marriage into a tragedy. He thought he hid it well. He thought their marriage was still blissful and that the woman he loved so deeply would never discover the truth. But it's only after Beverly vanishes from his world that he realizes just how wrong he was. Evan breaks down, losing his sanity. He gives up everything. He jumps through hoops and kneels before every god he can find, begging for just one more glance from her. With red eyes and shaking hands, he pleads, "Can you please... love me once more?" However, the truth is that a late apology is worth less than nothing. Beverly already has someone new in her life. There's no place left for Evan or their son.