International Bestselling Author Harley Wylde

Get ready to dive into the gritty yet heartwarming world of the Dixie Reapers.

Amelia: I know monsters. Hammer isn’t one, regardless of what he says. He’s a born protector with a big heart, and he’s exactly what my family needs. Sure, there’s a big age difference between us, but why should I care about other people’s opinions? All that matters is that Hammer makes me happy. He’s just what my sons need and he and the Dixie Reapers can protect me from my piece of s**t ex. Anything else is unimportant. Now I just have to convince him that we make a good team.

Hammer: I haven’t walked the path of righteousness by any means, but it doesn’t mean I’m a heartless bastard. Found out I had a kid who’s now a Prospect. Discovered I had a granddaughter, and now I’m a great-grandfather. Adopted a kid who didn’t have anyone. None of that makes up for the shit I’ve done in my past, or the fact I’ve been in and out of prison most of my life. So why does the sweetest woman I’ve ever met see me as her savior and not the monster I really am? Somehow she’s become mine, along with her teen boys. If anyone ever said I’d be a family man, I’d have laughed in their faces. Guess the joke’s on me.

Are you ready to experience a love story that challenges the boundaries and proves that every heart deserves a second chance?

Warning: Hammer is intended for readers 18+ due to adult situations, bad language, and violence. There’s no cheating, no cliffhanger, and a guaranteed HEA!

Copyright ©2025 Harley Wylde

Amelia

I sat on the deserted Florida beach as dusk painted the sky in shades of orange and pink, my boys flanking me like sentinels. The rhythmic crashing of waves against the shore masked our hushed voices, nature’s white noise ensuring no one would overhear plans that could get us killed.

We’d chosen this spot carefully — far enough from the tourist areas to avoid casual onlookers, but public enough that Piston wouldn’t think to look for us here. My old man hated beaches, hated sand, hated anything that couldn’t be controlled. The vastness of the ocean offended him somehow, as if the world had no right to be bigger than his ego.

The setting sun cast long shadows across the sand, stretching our silhouettes into distorted versions of ourselves. How fitting. We’d been living as warped reflections of a family for too long — smiling in public while wearing concealer over bruises, making excuses for absences at school functions, practicing cover stories until they flowed from our lips more naturally than the truth.

“Do you think he knows we’re gone yet?” I asked, my voice barely audible above the surf.

Neither of my sons answered immediately. They’d learned to measure their words, to calculate risks before speaking. Another gift from their father.

The breeze coming off the water carried a chill that had nothing to do with temperature. Until this week, I’d been biding my time and slowly preparing. I’d learned the hard way what happened when we ran. Then things changed and I knew I needed to get us out of there. Waiting wasn’t a luxury we could afford. Watching Piston, the boy’s father, slam my youngest son’s head against the kitchen counter had severed whatever twisted loyalty I still felt toward him. I’d been with the enforcer for the Devil’s Minions for seventeen years. At least sixteen years too damn long.

I glanced at Chase’s profile, so much like his father’s it sometimes made my heart stutter with fear. But where Piston’s features were permanently hardened by cruelty and excess, my sixteen-year-old son’s face showed a different kind of hardness — determination, protectiveness, the kind of strength that built rather than destroyed. He’d been taking the brunt of his father’s rage for years, positioning himself between Piston and his younger brother whenever possible.

On my other side sat Levi, his slender shoulders hunched against the evening air. At fifteen, he should have been worrying about homework and video games, not researching safe houses and motorcycle club rivalries. The fading yellow-green bruise around his eye made my stomach knot with guilt. I should have left years ago.

“We’ve got about eighteen hours before he realizes this isn’t a shopping trip,” Chase said finally, scanning the beach for potential threats. Always vigilant, my oldest. “Maybe less if he checks the bank account. Especially since he thinks we’re staying overnight somewhere. When we don’t check into a motel, he’ll come looking for us.”

I nodded, feeling the weight of time pressing down. Piston hadn’t wanted me to have access to money — control was his favorite weapon — but I’d been skimming cash from the household funds for months, hiding small bills in a tampon box he’d never deign to touch. It wasn’t much but combined with the emergency credit card I’d applied for in secret, it might be enough to get us to safety.

“He’ll come after us,” I said, stating what we all knew. Piston, aka John Minsley, didn’t lose possessions, and that’s all we were to him — things to own, to use, to break when the mood struck him.

Levi’s fingers curled around mine, his palm clammy despite the cool evening air. “We planned for that, Mom. The Devil’s Boneyard MC –”

“Keep your voice down,” Chase hissed, though there was no one within a hundred yards of us.

The mention of another motorcycle club sent ice through my veins. Trading one MC for another seemed like jumping from the fire into a different kind of hell. But Levi had done his research, had shown me the forum posts from women who’d escaped abusive situations with their help.

“I know you’re scared,” I told them both, squeezing Levi’s hand. “I am too. But we can’t stay. Not anymore.”

The evidence of that decision was written on my youngest son’s face, in the shadows under his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights and the bruising from his father’s temper. It was etched in the scars on Chase’s back from that time Piston had caught him trying to call for help. It was branded into my own skin, hidden beneath long sleeves even in Florida’s heat.

Behind us, beyond the dunes and the sparse vegetation, our packed car waited — everything we could safely take without raising suspicion crammed into the trunk. Old clothes, important documents hidden in tampon boxes and hollowed-out books, the few mementos I couldn’t bear to leave behind.

The sky deepened to purple as we sat there, three refugees planning a desperate escape from a man who would rather see us dead than free. But in that moment, with the endless ocean before us and my boys beside me, I felt something I hadn’t experienced in years — hope, fragile as sea foam but just as persistent.

Chase stood abruptly, his tall frame casting a long shadow across the sand as he paced a few steps away, never taking his eyes off our surroundings. At sixteen, he already carried himself like a man who’d seen too much, his shoulders set with a tension that no teenager should know. The ocean breeze ruffled his brown hair — the same shade as mine — but his green eyes, Piston’s eyes, scanned the beach with a vigilance that broke my heart.

“Someone’s coming,” he muttered, nodding toward a couple walking their dog at the far end of the beach. “We should move.”

I watched as he shifted his stance, angling his body to place himself between us and the distant strangers. The motion was so automatic, so ingrained, that I doubted he even realized he was doing it. Years of protecting his brother, of trying to shield me when he could — it had become instinct. And it made me feel like a shit mother.

“They’re just walking their dog, Chase,” I said softly. “They’re not his men.”

His jaw tightened, the muscle jumping beneath his tanned skin. “You don’t know that. Piston has eyes everywhere.”

“We’ve been careful.”

“Not careful enough.” He glanced at his brother, his expression softening marginally before hardening again. “Levi’s research is good, but Piston will call in every favor, track every account, hunt down every friend we’ve ever had.” He knelt in front of me, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Mom, if we do this, there’s no halfway. We either disappear completely or we don’t bother running at all.”

The fierce intensity in his eyes reminded me so much of his father that for a moment, fear flickered through me — not of Chase, never of him, but of the genetic legacy he carried. Would my gentle boy who used to catch and release spiders from our bathroom eventually morph into the monster who’d sired him? Or was that intensity, channeled through love instead of hate, the very thing that might save us?