Page 1 of Single Mom's Bikers

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EVIE

Three Months Earlier. Sacramento, California.

I wasnineteen when I met Luca Delgado. Twenty when I got his name tattooed over my collarbone. Twenty-one when Daisy was born. Now, at twenty-seven, I’m drugging my children so they won’t remember the night we escape their father.

The sedative dissolves easily in their bedtime milk. My hands don’t shake anymore—not like they did after Luca’s backhand at dinner. I watch my girls drift off, Violet’s small hand clutching her older sister’s pajama sleeve like she always does.

At four and six, they’re too young to understand why Mama sometimes has bruises, why Daddy has “special” rooms they can’t enter, and why the men who visit always carry guns under their suits.

“Just sleep, my babies,” I whisper, lifting Violet first. She weighs nothing in my arms, her dark curls so like Luca’s. “When you wake up, we’ll be free.”

The Mercedes is packed. While the girls slept, I cleared out Luca’s private safe—the one he thinks I don’t know about. Millions in cash, his prized watch collection, and the diamonds he gave me to apologize for breaking my wrist last year. All stuffed into duffel bags and hidden under princess backpacks and stuffed animals.

Rain starts falling as I ease the Mercedes out of our garage. A message blinks on my burner phone. It’s Rose, my private investigator turned close friend:“The guards are changing shifts. Gate’s camera looped. You have eight minutes, Evie.”

Getting my sleeping girls into their car seats was the hard part. Now comes the rest—navigating Sacramento’s wet streets without drawing attention. Three turns until we hit the bridge. Four more until we’re on the highway. I’ve driven this route a hundred times in my head while lying next to Luca, planning this moment.

The burner phone buzzes with another text from Rose a few minutes later: “GET OUT NOW. He’s left the game early.”

I press harder on the gas, watching my daughters’ peaceful faces in the rearview mirror. The first sign of pursuit comes as I merge onto the bridge—headlights, too many of them, cutting through the rain behind me. One of the guards must have called him.

Lightning splits the sky as I take the bridge on-ramps.

In my rearview mirror, I count the headlights—five, no, six vehicles. Luca’s in one of them. I know exactly which one—the black Escalade, the one he uses for “business.” The one that sometimes comes home with suspicious stains in the trunk.

I know all he wants now is to strangle what little life I have left inside of me. It wouldn’t be the first time—only that he might be successful now.

The first bullet shatters my side mirror. It was about time, anyway. Trust Luca to always bring a gun to a knife fight.

I swerve, my heart hammering as more shots follow. I can already see the news headline: “Crazy Woman Drugs Kids and Drives into a Ditch With Them in the Back Seat.”

“No,” I mutter to myself. No, this is not how my story ends.

My Mercedes lunges forward, engine roaring as I push it to its limits.

Rain pounds against the windshield as I weave through late-night traffic. The bridge turns to the highway, and then to the back roads I’ve memorized. The sedatives will keep my girls under for hours. They won’t remember the gunfire, the screech of tires, their mother’s desperate flight into the darkness.

“Three minutes to the switch point.” Rose’s voice crackles through the phone. “Dark blue minivan, just like we planned.”

I spot the van exactly where Rose promised—the vehicle switch we’ve planned for months. My hands are steady as I pull alongside it, muscle memory taking over from endless practice runs.

Three minutes to transfer sleeping children and vital bags. Four minutes to wipe down the Mercedes. The rain helps, washing away traces of our escape. My daughters don’t stir as I buckle them into new car seats.

A motorcycle engine roars in the distance. Then another. Luca’s sending his fastest men to cut off escape routes. But Roseplanned for this too. The minivan blends perfectly with late-night family traffic, nothing like the Mercedes they’re hunting.

Rose’s final message reads:“Call me when you’re past state lines. Your new life is waiting in Wolf Pike.”

Present Day

I jerk awake to my alarm’s shrill beeping, phantom rain still on my skin. Three months since that night. Two months spent in Lincoln, Nebraska, living in a cramped apartment above a laundromat. Rose’s idea—hiding in the heartland while Luca’s men chased shadows on both coasts. The girls thought it was an adventure, especially when our neighbor gave them a kitten we couldn’t keep.

Now we’re in Wolf Pike, our real destination. The house is bigger than we need, paid for with Luca’s own money. Karma, Rose calls it. The schools are good, the neighbors mind their business, and most importantly, the Black Wolves MC keeps unwanted visitors out of their territory.

Pushing sweat-dampened hair from my face, I silence the alarm. Six AM. First day of school, and I can’t afford to let nightmares slow me down. Not when my interview at Cross Brothers’ Ink Gallery is in three hours.

“Mama?” Daisy’s voice drifts from the doorway. My six-year-old stands there in Pokémon pajamas, already alert. Just like her father before he changed, before the darkness took over. “Violet’s still sleeping.”

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