Chapter Three
SAGE
“Boiled water!” Deek states as though it’s obvious.
“Why?”
“That’s what they do in movies?”
“This is not a movie, son.”
“I know that, Dad, but I am under extreme emotional pressure and contributing in the only way I know how!”
Victoria lifts one hand without opening her eyes. “Deek?”
“Yeah, Vic?” His tone is soft.
“If you come near me with boiled water, I will name this baby after your worst ex.”
Deek goes quiet, taking a tentative step back. “Putting it down.”
“Good choice,” Koa mutters.
Even Sin laughs.
Not much.
Barely a breath.
But Victoria hears it, and for a moment, even through the pain, some small part of her settles.
Then Marley looks down, and her expression changes, but the shift is enough to make every nerve in my body stand at attention.
“Vic…” she says gently, “… next contraction, you’re going to push.”
Sin’s head snaps up.
The room goes silent so fast it feels like all the sound has been sucked through the ceiling.
Victoria stares at Marley. “No, not yet. The medics aren’t here!”
“I know, honey. But it’s gonna be okay.”
“No, I’m not ready.”
Marley gently grips her leg for support. “I know.”
“I was supposed to have two more weeks.” The words come out small, almost lost beneath the strain in her breathing.
Marley reaches for her hand. “I know, babe.”
Victoria’s eyes fill, and this time she can’t blink the tears away. They spill over anyway, tracking down flushed cheeks as another shaky breath escapes her. “I haven’t…” She swallows hard, trying to force the words through the knot in her throat. “I haven’t packed the blue blanket.”
For a second, nobody says anything.
Because we all know she isn’t really talking about the blanket.
Ro’s face crumples before she catches herself, her hand smoothing gently over Victoria’s damp hair. “We’ve got blankets, Vicks.”
Victoria shakes her head, tears falling harder now. “N-not the blue one.” Her voice breaks completely. “The one I bought for him. The one I was bringing him home in.”
The room seems to soften around her.
All at once, this isn’t about contractions, ambulances, or how quickly everything has gone sideways. It’s about a mother mourning the picture she’d been carrying in her head for nine months.
Sin cups her face, brushing away tears with his thumbs even though they keep coming. “We’ll get the blue blanket,” he says quietly.
She gives the smallest shake of her head. “He was supposed to have it.”
“And he will.” His forehead rests against hers for a heartbeat. “I don’t care if I have to drive home from the hospital the second he’s in your arms and bring back every blanket in that nursery. Our son is coming home wrapped in the blue one.”
Victoria lets out a broken sob that somehow manages to sound relieved at the same time.
Sin bends over her, both hands framing her face, thumbs stroking along her cheekbones. “We’ll get the blue blanket later.”
Victoria’s eyes fill. “But he needs it.”
“He needs you,” Sin says, and his voice roughens enough that everyone in the room pretends not to hear it.
“He needs you right now, Vicky. So you look at me, and you do what Marley says, and when this is over, I will personally drive, get every blanket in that damn nursery, and bring them back to him one by one if that’s what you want. ”
Her mouth trembles. “You promise?”
“On my life.”
“Don’t say that.”
“On yours, then.”
She swallows hard, then nods. The next contraction builds—I feel it in her hand before she makes a sound.
Her fingers clamp around mine, and I swear something in my knuckles shifts, but all I do is lean closer and brace my other hand against her shoulder.
Ro whispers something soft near her ear.
Marley talks her through it, her voice steady, and Ghost repeats whatever the person on the phone is telling him, but all of that becomes background to Sin.
His entire world is Victoria’s face. “That’s it,” he murmurs. “Right here with me. I’ve got you. I’ve got every second of you.”
Victoria pushes, and the sound that comes out of her is not something I will ever forget.
It is pain, rage, fear, strength, and every ounce of stubborn fire that makes her who she is, dragged out in one long, shaking cry while the entire clubhouse holds its breath around her.
My eyes burn. Ro cries silently, not wiping it away.
Koa clasps both hands behind his head like it is the only thing stopping him from punching a hole through a wall.
Bear stands with his arms folded, but his eyes are glassy and fixed on Victoria as though he is guarding sacred ground.
“Good,” Marley says. “That’s good, Vic. Again with the next one.”
“If you say good again,” Victoria pants. “I’m going to bite someone.”
“Bite Sin,” I tell her. “He started it.”
She gives a broken little laugh.
Sin looks at me with enough gratitude that I have to look away.
Because that is too much.
That is not president gratitude, brother gratitude, or even friend gratitude. That is a man silently thanking me for dragging his wife back to herself for half a breath while he cannot do anything except hold on.
The next contraction comes faster.
Too fast.
Victoria sobs once, and the sound seems to devastate her more than the contractions ever could. She squeezes her eyes shut, angry at herself for losing control, but there is nowhere left to hide from any of this.
Sin catches the sound before it can unravel her completely, his mouth pressing gently against her temple. “No shame, sweetheart.” His voice is low enough that I almost miss it. “None. You hear me?”
She shakes her head against him. “I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I can’t do it!”
He doesn’t hesitate. “You are doing it.”
Victoria lets out a broken breath that almost turns into another sob. “I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I hate you!”
For the first time since this started, the corner of Sin’s mouth threatens to move. “I know that too.”
She looks at him through tear-filled eyes, exhausted enough that even arguing sounds like it costs her. “No, I don’t.”
His thumb strokes slowly across her cheek, wiping away tears that are replaced almost as quickly as he catches them. “I know that most of all.”
Her hand bunches in the front of his cut, twisting thick leather around her fist like she’s anchoring herself to the only solid thing left in the room. “If something happens…”
Every muscle in Sin’s face tightens. “Nothing is going to happen.”
“Diesel…”
He leans closer until their foreheads are almost touching, refusing to let her look anywhere but at him. “Nothing is happening,” he repeats, and for the first time since I’ve known Sin, the certainty in his voice sounds like something he’s fighting to believe himself.
Marley glances up from between Victoria’s knees, calm but focused. “Okay, Vic.” She meets Victoria’s eyes. “One more big push.”
Every person in the room seems to lean forward without moving.
Outside, faint and distant, a siren begins to wail.
For one wild, stupid second, relief sparks.
Then Nitro’s voice cuts through, calm and merciless. “Still several minutes out.”
Of course.
Of course, the baby would decide the ambulance could be present for the afterparty but not the main event.
Victoria cries out as she bears down, the sound tearing through the clubhouse and taking every last breath in the room with it. Her fingers are crushing mine. I can’t feel half my hand anymore, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except the woman beside me giving everything she has left.
“That’s it, Vic,” Marley says, her voice steady despite the sheen of tears gathering in her eyes. “I’ve got him. One more. Just one more.”
Victoria shakes her head wildly. “I can’t…”
“You’re almost there, baby,” Sin tells her, his forehead pressed against hers. “Look at me, sweetheart. I’m right here. Stay with me.”
She finds his eyes, and for one impossible second, everything else falls away.
The shouting.
The clubhouse.
The men gathered around us.
It’s just the two of them.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers.
Victoria lets out a broken sob that somehow turns into determination, every muscle in her body tightening as she gives one final push.
Marley’s hands move. “I’ve got him…” The words leave her on a breath.
Slowly.
A tiny, impossibly small shoulder appears, followed by the rest of him in one slick, fragile movement that somehow feels both endless and over in an instant.
“Oh fuck! There he is,” Ro breathes out, one hand flying to her mouth.
Marley lifts him carefully, supporting the impossibly tiny body in practiced hands, already rubbing at his back as she clears his airway.
For the first time since this started, Sin looks away from Victoria, but only because he has to. His eyes find the tiny boy in Marley’s hands, and every piece of color drains from his face.
Victoria tries to lift her head. “Is he…”
Nobody answers.
Not because they don’t want to.
Because everybody is waiting.
The room shrinks until all I can hear is my own heartbeat hammering against my ribs.
He’s perfect.
He’s moving.
But he isn’t crying.
Marley rubs his back again.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Every second stretches so thin it feels like it might snap.
I stop breathing.
Sin reaches blindly for Victoria’s hand without taking his eyes off his son. “Come on, little man,” he whispers, and I’ve never heard hope and fear tangled together so completely in another person’s voice.
Another rub across the baby’s back.
Another endless heartbeat.
Then his tiny chest expands. His face screws up with magnificent outrage, and the first cry punches into the room.
Loud.
Furious.
Alive.
The sound detonates through the clubhouse.
The breath I’d been holding tears out of me so fast it almost hurts.
Victoria breaks first. A sob escapes her, raw with relief, both hands flying to her mouth as fresh tears spill down her face. “Oh, thank God.”
Sin’s eyes close just for a second. His forehead drops, his shoulders sagging beneath the weight of a fear he’d refused to let anyone else see. When he opens them again, they’re shining, fixed entirely on the tiny, furious little boy announcing himself to the world.
Around the room, the club finally exhales.
Koa laughs.
Nitro lets out something between a yell and a sob.
Ro is openly crying, one hand still clamped over her mouth.
Even Bear has to scrub a hand across his face before anyone notices his eyes aren’t quite as dry as they were thirty seconds ago.
And me, I sit here staring at this tiny little person wrapped in Marley’s hands, trying to understand how one cry could make an entire room full of hardened bikers look like they have forgotten how to stand.
Somehow, in the middle of all the blood, sweat, panic, and chaos…
Everything feels different.
Like the clubhouse itself has shifted to make room for one more heartbeat.
The baby lets out another pissed-off bellow, his tiny face scrunched up while a set of lungs entirely too big for his body makes itself everyone else’s problem.
Nitro makes a sound that starts as a whoop and turns into something wrecked halfway through. Koa laughs so loudly it bounces off the ceiling. Liam starts clapping until Hash smacks him in the arm and then starts clapping too.
“Holy shit, he’s loud,” Deek says, sounding absurdly proud of a kid who isn’t even five seconds old.
Bear sits down hard in the nearest chair, drops his elbows to his knees, and covers his face with both hands like the entire weight of the last ten minutes has finally found somewhere to land.
Ro is crying.
Marley is smiling through tears.
Ghost lowers the phone, and for the smallest second, his eyes find the baby. Then, inexplicably, me. And the corner of his mouth shifts.
It is barely there, almost nothing.
But in the middle of a room that’s just split open and rearranged itself around a newborn cry, I feel something inside me answer before my brain has a chance to catch up.
Then the baby is wrapped in towels, flamingos and all, and placed against Victoria’s chest.
Victoria looks at him like the rest of the room has stopped existing. Her hand trembles as she strokes his cheek, and for a second she just stares, like she’s trying to convince herself this tiny little person is actually hers.
Sin doesn’t reach for either of them straightaway.
He waits until Victoria has their son against her chest, until she’s looking at him instead of the room.
Then he leans in. His forehead rests against hers, one hand slipping into her hair while the other covers hers where it’s curled around the baby.
I don’t hear what he says.
But Victoria lets out this tiny, broken sound, and suddenly she’s crying so hard her shoulders shake.
She grips the front of his cut with one fist and holds her baby with the other, and Sin stays there on his knees like the floor could fall away beneath them, and he would still keep the two of them from going with it.
There are men in this room who have buried bodies in the desert.
Men who have survived raids, bullets, betrayal, and the kind of enemies who wear suits while ordering bloodshed. Men with scars written across their skin and violence etched into their DNA.
And every single one of them is standing around one furious newborn wrapped in a flamingo towel like he is the most extraordinary thing they have ever seen.
Maybe he is.
I sit back on my heels, flexing fingers that are going to remind me of Victoria’s grip for the next week, and take my first proper breath in what feels like hours.
The clubhouse sounds different now.
The panic is gone, and in its place are quiet laughs, relieved swearing, Deek already trying to convince everyone the baby inherited his lungs from him, and somewhere near the back of the room, Koa arguing that the kid should get honorary colors before he’s old enough to crawl.
I smile before I even realize I’m doing it.
Across the blankets, Victoria hasn’t taken her eyes off her son.
Sin hasn’t taken his off either.
Watching them together does something strange to my chest.
Not because it’s perfect.
Nothing about today has been perfect.
The baby arrived two weeks early on a clubhouse floor surrounded by enough leather and tattoos to terrify a small country. While half the club panicked, the other half pretended they weren’t panicking, and Deek nearly started an argument over boiled water.
It was loud.
Chaotic.
Messy.
Completely and unapologetically, Defiance.
And somehow…
It was exactly where baby Moretti was meant to arrive.