Chapter Twenty-Five
VICTORIA
The Next Morning
The weight of Sin’s arm across my waist anchors me to him like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
I hold my breath, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing behind me.
Deep. Even. Peaceful in a way I’ve never seen him when he’s awake.
Sin is always on, always strategizing, always three steps ahead, always carrying the weight of his club on those broad shoulders.
But right now, fast asleep, he’s just a man.
A man I’m falling hard and fast for.
The guilt wraps around my throat like a fist, squeezing until I can barely breathe. I need to move. Need to think. Need to figure out what the hell I’m going to do about the bomb that Marcus dropped in my lap.
A bomb with multiple detonations.
Captain Rourke murdered my brother.
The club has been protecting me this whole time while I’ve been investigating them.
And Sin’s name is Diesel Moretti—I think that one is hitting the hardest at the moment.
Carefully, I extract myself from Sin’s embrace.
He stirs, his arm tightening instinctively before I gently lift it away.
A soft murmur escapes his lips, something I can’t quite make out, and my heart cracks a little wider.
I freeze, watching his face for any sign he’s waking, but he just shifts, rolling onto his back, one arm thrown over his head.
God, he’s beautiful like this. Unguarded.
The hard edges of his face softened by sleep, his mismatched eyes hidden beneath dark lashes.
The tattoos that snake across his chest and arms tell stories I’m only beginning to understand.
Tales of survival, of loss, of a boy who grew up too fast and became a man too soon.
And that damn poker chip sitting on his nightstand, catching the morning light.
The chip his mother gave him before she disappeared. Before the Hidden Hand Alliance supposedly dumped her body in the desert.
His mother—Maria Moretti.
The name circles in my mind like a vulture, twisting in my stomach like a knife.
Chief Detective Maria Moretti, my superior.
The woman with those sharp eyes and that no-nonsense demeanor. The woman who looked at me yesterday, like she was trying to figure out if I was an asset or a liability.
Could it really be the same person?
The timing fits. The name fits. And when Sin told me about the poker chip, about his mother’s gambling addiction, about being thirteen when she vanished—it all lines up too perfectly to be a coincidence.
My hand moves to my phone before I can stop myself. My fingers shake as I unlock it, the screen brightness harsh in the dim room. I glance at Sin again, still sleeping, thank God, and then I do the most unforgivable thing I’ve done since this assignment started.
I take a photograph of him.
The camera clicks softly, barely audible, but in the silence of the room, it sounds like a gunshot. I hold my breath, waiting for him to wake, to catch me in this violation of his trust.
But he doesn’t move.
I zoom in, making sure his face is clear. Those mismatched eyes might be closed, but his features are unmistakable. Then I shift the angle slightly, capturing the poker chip on the nightstand—red and white stripes worn smooth from years of handling.
Evidence.
Proof.
The key to confirming whether Maria Moretti is Sin’s mother.
The guilt threatens to swallow me whole.
What are you doing, Victoria?
I’m trying to help him.
That’s what I tell myself as I slip out of bed, my bare feet silent on the hardwood floor. I’m gathering information that could reunite him with his mother. A mother he thinks is dead but who might be alive and working in the same department I do.
But I know the truth.
I know that what I’m really doing is taking something sacred—Sin’s vulnerability, his trust, the story he shared with me—and weaponizing it.
I’m using his pain to solve a mystery he didn’t ask me to solve.
I find my clothes scattered across the floor, remnants of last night when he’d peeled them off me with those skilled hands.
The memory sends heat flooding through me, but I push it away.
I can’t think about that right now. Can’t think about how right it felt to be with him, how for those few hours I wasn’t Victoria the cop or Elizabeth the journalist, I was just a woman with the man she’s fallen for.
A man I’m actively betraying.
I pull on my jeans and tank top, fingers fumbling with the zipper. My leather jacket hangs over the chair where Sin draped it last night, and I grab it, needing its familiar weight. Combat boots next, laced quickly, quietly.
One more glance at Sin. He’s shifted again, his face turned toward where I was sleeping, like even in his dreams, he’s searching for me.
The words slip out before I can stop them, barely a whisper, “I’m sorry. But I have to do this.”
He stirs at the sound of my voice, his brow furrowing slightly. His lips move, forming words I can’t quite hear. My name, maybe. Or maybe just a sleep-murmur that means nothing.
My heart breaks a little more.
I grab a pen and paper from his desk.
My handwriting is shaky as I scrawl a note.
Had to run some errands.
Back later.
Generic. Impersonal. The kind of note that gives nothing away.
The kind of note that hides everything.
I leave it on the pillow where my head was, right next to where his hand is now resting, and then I slip out of the room before I can change my mind.
Rushing out of the clubhouse, I make my way to my car, jump in, and take off out of the clubhouse without looking back. Because I feel like if I do, it will stop me from doing what needs to be done.
The drive to the precinct feels like it takes hours and seconds all at once. My hands grip the steering wheel so tight my knuckles turn white, and the photographs on my phone feel like they’re burning a hole through my pocket.
What am I doing?
I’m about to show Sin’s face to the police, to Maria Moretti, specifically.
The ultimate betrayal.
Every turn of the wheel takes me closer to a point of no return, and I can’t stop analyzing it from every angle.
If Maria is his mother, this changes everything. It means Sin’s mother didn’t die in that desert. It means she survived, rebuilt her life, and became someone powerful.
It means Sin has been carrying grief for a ghost all these years.
And maybe, just maybe, this is the key to taking down Rourke and the Alliance. Maybe this is how I protect Sin and do my job.
Maybe this is how I get justice for Marcus.
Or maybe I’m just lying to myself to justify another betrayal.
The precinct looms ahead, all concrete, glass, and institutional authority.
I pull into the parking lot and sit for a moment.
What I am about to do sits heavily in my gut.
The guilt is weighing me down. I pull out my phone, and Sin’s sleeping face stares back at me from the screen.
Peaceful. Trusting. Completely unaware that the woman in his bed had just photographed him like a suspect.
You have to know, Victoria. You have to confirm.
I shove the phone back in my pocket and get out of the car before I lose my nerve.
Before I start the walk toward the building, I inhale deeply.
When reaching the glass doors, I push them open and head inside.
The precinct is quiet this early, just the weekend skeleton crew and a few detectives working cold cases.
I navigate the familiar hallways with my head down, avoiding eye contact, until I reach Maria Moretti’s office.
The door is closed, but light spills out from underneath.
She’s here.
I knock twice, sharp and professional.
“Come in.”
My anxiety shoots through the roof, but I try to shove it back down from wherever that asshole came from, sturdy my shoulders and open the door, walking through.
Maria’s office is all business, files stacked neatly on her desk, case boards covering one wall with photographs, and red string connecting dots only she can see.
Cold coffee sits in a mug that says ‘World’s Okayest Boss,’ and she’s hunched over paperwork, her reading glasses perched on her nose.
She looks up when I enter, and something in her expression shifts, it sharpens. “Delaney.” She removes her glasses, setting them aside. “What is it? Please tell me you have something useful.”
I close the door behind me, my heart hammering so hard I’m sure she can hear it.
“I need you to look at this.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
I pull out my cell, thumb hovering over the screen before I open the picture on my phone.
“I need you to look at this and tell me if you recognize this man.”
Moretti reaches for it, her expression casual at first—just another piece of evidence from an undercover op.
But then she looks at the screen, and everything changes.
All the color drains from her face in an instant.
Her hand freezes, the phone trembling in her grip.
She stares at the image like it’s a ghost made flesh, her breath catching audibly in the quiet office.
“Where…” Her voice barely registers above a whisper. She swallows, then tries again, “Where did you get this?”
“Las Vegas Defiance MC,” I say quietly. I watch every flicker of her face, every muscle twitch. “He’s the president. His name is Diesel Moretti…” I pause, then add deliberately, “He goes by Sin.”
Moretti sinks into her chair like her legs have given out. Tears well, threatening to fall. “It can’t be,” she whispers, broken and disbelieving. “He… he was just a boy when I…”
“When you what?” I ask gently, even though I already know the answer.
Her mask cracks, years of discipline falling away in seconds. “When I left.” Her voice breaks clean in half. “When I… disappeared.”