Chapter Twenty-Two
ELIZABETH
Sleep won’t come.
I stare at the ceiling of the guest room Sin gave me, watching shadows shift and dance across the plaster as moonlight filters through the curtains.
The room is comfortable enough. More than comfortable, actually.
A double bed with soft sheets that smell faintly of lavender detergent.
A dresser against one wall. A small attached bathroom. Everything I could possibly need.
Everything except peace of mind.
My phone sits on the nightstand, the screen dark.
I haven’t checked it since this afternoon, and I haven’t responded to Moretti’s texts asking for an update.
What the hell would I even say? Hey, turns out the bikers aren’t the bad guys.
One of our own captains murdered my brother and covered it up.
Oh, and I’m sleeping in their clubhouse now because I don’t trust anyone at the precinct.
Yeah, that would go over real well.
The revelations from the Chapel replay on an endless loop through my mind. Captain Victor Rourke. The trafficking ring. The Hidden Hand Alliance. Marcus gathering evidence, trying to do the right thing. Rourke shooting him and planting drugs to cover it up.
My brother died trying to expose corruption, and the club, the same club I was sent to investigate, has been fighting for justice ever since. The irony would be funny if it didn’t make me want to scream.
I roll onto my side and punch the pillow into a different shape, trying to find a position that doesn’t make my body ache with tension. But it’s useless. My mind won’t shut off. Questions spiral through my thoughts like vultures circling flesh.
How high does the corruption go?
Who else in the department can’t be trusted?
Does Moretti know about Rourke?
Is she part of it too?
And the biggest question, the one that sits like acid in my throat…
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
I’m a cop.
I took an oath.
But that oath was to protect and serve, not to enable murderers and human traffickers. Not to cover up the execution of my own brother by someone who was supposed to uphold the law.
The club trusted me with their truth. They handed me information that could destroy them, believing I’d keep it safe. Believing in me. While I’ve been lying to them this entire time.
The guilt is a physical weight crushing my chest, making it hard to breathe.
I should tell them.
I should walk into that main room right now and confess everything—that I’m Victoria Delaney, Marcus’s sister, the cop sent to infiltrate them.
But I can’t.
Because the moment I do, everything changes. They’ll feel betrayed. They’ll shut me out. And I’ll lose any chance I have of actually helping them take down Rourke and the Hidden Hand Alliance.
I’ll lose Sin.
That thought sends a sharp pain through my chest, which has nothing to do with guilt and everything to do with the way his hands felt on my body, the way his voice sounds when he calls me wildcat, the way those mismatched eyes see through every defense I’ve ever built.
I throw off the covers, suddenly too hot, too confined, too trapped inside my own skin. The T-shirt Gia loaned me clings to my body, damp with sweat. Even the cool air hitting my bare legs doesn’t help ease the tension.
I need air.
Space.
Something to quiet the chaos in my mind.
The digital clock on the nightstand reads 2:17 a.m. The clubhouse should be quiet this time of night. Most of the brothers are either asleep or have headed home to their own places. I can slip out, grab some water, maybe find a quiet corner to just breathe without feeling like I’m suffocating.
I pad barefoot to the door, ease it open slowly to avoid any creaks. The hallway is dark, illuminated only by the dim emergency lighting near the exits. My bare feet make no sound on the cool floor as I make my way toward the kitchen.
The clubhouse at night is a different place. Without the noise of bikes and brotherhood, without music and laughter filling the space, it feels almost sacred. Intimate. Like I’m seeing something I’m not supposed to see—the quiet moments between the chaos.
I round the corner into the kitchen and freeze.
Sin stands at the counter, a glass of what looks like whiskey in his hand.
He’s wearing jeans and nothing else, his cut draped over one of the chairs at the small table.
Tattoos flow across his chest and arms, telling stories I haven’t learned to read yet.
His dark hair is disheveled, as if he’s been running his hands through it.
He looks up when I enter, those gorgeous eyes finding mine across the dimly lit space. Neither of us speaks for a long moment. The air between us feels electric, charged with everything we’ve been through tonight and everything we haven’t said.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” His voice is rougher than usual, gravelly with exhaustion or emotion or both.
“Too much in my head.” I move farther into the kitchen, drawn toward him like gravity I can’t resist. “You?”
“Same.” He takes a drink, his throat working as he swallows. “Want some?” He gestures to the bottle on the counter.
I should say no.
Should grab water like I planned and go back to my room.
Should maintain some semblance of professional distance between us.
But I’m so tired of fighting. So tired of pretending. So tired of carrying the weight of secrets that are crushing me from the inside out.
But I already had a taste of him in the storage shed, and fuck if I don’t want to binge on him again.
“Yeah.” I move to stand beside him, close enough that the heat radiating from his skin makes me even hotter than I already feel. “Actually, I do.”
He pours amber liquid into a second glass and hands it to me. Our fingers brush in the exchange, and that simple contact sends electricity racing up my arm. I take a drink, welcoming the burn as it slides down my throat. It’s smooth, expensive, and nothing like the cheap whiskey I usually drink.
“Can’t stop thinking about Marcus,” I say, because it’s true and because the silence between us is starting to feel too heavy. “About what you told me.”
“I figured.” Sin leans back against the counter, studying me in that way he does, like he’s trying to read the truth written in the spaces between my words. “It’s a lot to process.”
“That’s an understatement.” I let out a bitter laugh, taking another drink. “Finding out that a police captain murdered someone and covered it up? That there’s a whole trafficking operation running through this city with law enforcement protection? Yeah, I’d say that’s more than a lot.”
“You believe us.” It’s not a question, but there’s something vulnerable in the way he says it, like my belief matters more than it should.
“I do.” And I realize, standing here in this dimly lit kitchen at two in the morning, that it’s the truth. I believe them completely. “Everything you told me… it fits. It makes sense of things that never made sense before.”
We fall into silence again, but it’s different now. Less heavy. More like we’re both lost in the same storm, trying to find our way through the turbulent waves.
I should go back to my room.
Should put distance between us before this moment gets out of my control.
Again.
But then Sin shifts closer. I smell his cologne mixed with whiskey and something uniquely him. His hand reaches up, fingers trailing along my jaw with a gentleness that seems at odds with his rough exterior.
“Elizabeth.” My name on his lips sounds like a prayer and a curse all at once.
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe we both do.
His mouth crashes against mine, and I’m drowning.
His kiss is desperate, almost violent in its intensity, like he’s trying to consume me, claim me, make me forget everything but this.
His hands are in my hair, gripping, controlling, angling my head exactly where he wants it.
I respond with equal fervor, my hands clawing at his chest, feeling muscle, heat, and the rapid thundering of his heart beneath my palms. Every touch of his lips sends fire racing through my veins. Every stroke of his tongue makes my knees weak.
He breaks the kiss only to lift me, his hands gripping my thighs as he sets me on the kitchen counter. Then he steps between my legs, and I wrap them around his waist, dragging him closer, desperate to feel something other than the guilt and confusion tearing me apart.
“Wildcat.” His voice is rough, scraped raw with hunger. His hands slide under the borrowed T-shirt, palms branding me with heat. “You think I’m walking away this time? Not a fucking chanc—”
“I know.” I cut him off with another kiss, pouring all the fear, longing, and desperate need into it. “And I don’t fucking care.”
He pulls back, just enough to trap my gaze. His chest heaves, eyes dark with desire and something heavier, something that makes my heart stumble.
“You wanted this,” he growls, his grip tightening on my waist. “Now you’re going to take every damn bit of me.”
There’s no question. No out. Just a statement that crashes over me like a tidal wave. The smart thing would be to push him away. Keep my cover intact. Keep my heart safe.
But I’m done being smart. Done fighting. Done denying him.
“I need this. I need you,” I whisper, already surrendering.
Something dark and certain sparks in his expression, his hold on me firm and unrelenting. Then he’s lifting me again, carrying me through the quiet clubhouse like I already belong to him.
We pass the main room, deserted now except for shadows and silence, through a door that he kicks shut behind us with enough force to make it shake in its frame.
Then Sin’s mouth is on mine, a collision of hunger and fury that steals my breath.
He’s already stripped me bare with his eyes, and when his hands shove up my T-shirt, I don’t resist. The fabric is gone in seconds, tossed somewhere into the shadows.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he rasps, his gaze devouring every inch of exposed skin. “Every time I look at you, I want to ruin you.”