Chapter Twenty-Six
SIN
Two Days Later
The paperwork in front of me blurs into meaningless lines of text. Numbers, invoices, legitimate business, bullshit that keeps the club running clean on the surface. I flip the poker chip between my fingers, the familiar weight grounding me as my mind drifts where it shouldn’t—to her.
Elizabeth.
She’s been different these past two days. Distant. Like she’s carrying something heavy and doesn’t know how to put it down. My instincts scream that something is coming, that the other shoe’s about to drop, but I can’t pinpoint what.
Outside the Chapel, the clubhouse hums with normal chaos.
Koa and Bear’s voices drift from the garage, arguing about carburetor settings.
The crack of pool balls tells me Deek and Will are wasting time at the table.
Nitro’s voice cuts through, sharp, professional, as he goes over security protocols with Ghost.
Just another day.
I flip the chip again, catch it, flip it. The motion usually calms me, helps me think.
Today it does neither.
Suddenly, the door crashes open. Ghost stands in the doorway, and the look on his face makes my blood run cold.
His usual calm demeanor, the one that earned him his name, is shattered.
His jaw tight, his eyes hard. “Pres.” His voice cuts like a knife.
“Cops are at the gate. Looks like we’re being raided. ”
The chip stills between my fingers. Every cell in my body locks down, but I don’t let it show. I can’t let it show.
Presidents don’t panic—they strategize.
I stand slowly, deliberately, and flip the chip once.
Just once.
Then walk briskly into the main clubroom. “Everyone hear that? Raid protocol!” My voice carries through the clubhouse, calm and measured.
But the effect is immediate.
The clubhouse erupts into controlled chaos—years of practice kicking in like muscle memory. Brothers move like a well-oiled machine, each man knowing exactly what to do.
Guns disappear into hidden compartments behind false panels in the walls.
The small amounts of personal-use drugs, nothing major, just enough to get us in trouble, vanish into secret floor panels beneath the bar.
Illegal documents, the ones that could actually bury us, go into the safe, only I know the combination to it, which then disappears behind a hidden wall facade.
Millie and Ro appear from nowhere, ushering the few club girls present into back rooms. The women know the drill, play dumb, know nothing, see nothing. They’re good at it. They’ve had practice.
Three minutes.
All contraband disappears in under three minutes.
I watch it happen with a strange sense of detachment, my mind already three steps ahead.
But this doesn’t feel right.
Raids are messy, aggressive, designed to catch us off guard.
This one’s too slow.
They should have been in here by now.
“Positions,” Ghost barks.
The brothers gather in the main clubroom, hands on their heads, dropping to their knees. This isn’t our first raid—we know how to play it. How to look compliant while giving them nothing.
Our last raid took our previous President. That’s how I got this patch. It’s when I lost Rebekka but gained the club.
Am I about to lose everything now?
Nitro kneels beside Ghost, his jaw clenched. “I fucking told you we shouldn’t have let Elizabeth in here, man.”
“Shut it.” Ghost’s voice is low, dangerous. “Not the time.”
Rolling my shoulders, I have to give Ghost props for standing up to his VP like that. I know Nitro will hate it, but Ghost has his reasons. And as I glance over at him, I thank him with a silent nod.
I remain standing, arms crossed, waiting. The poker chip stays in my pocket. I don’t reach for it, don’t flip it, don’t give any tell. Right now, I need to project strength.
Control.
Even if my gut is screaming that everything is about to change.
Then the doors burst open, officers in tactical gear flood in, weapons drawn but not raised aggressively. Instead, they are professional and efficient. “Las Vegas Police! Nobody move!”
The brothers don’t move. Don’t speak. We just wait.
More officers stream in, securing the space with military precision. But something feels off. This isn’t a hostile raid—it’s coordinated and careful. They’re not tearing the place apart, not throwing their weight around.
What the fuck is going on?
My instincts ping again, louder this time.
This isn’t about busting us.
Something is very fucking wrong here.
Furrowing my brows at the calm nature of this raid, I go to speak, seeing as none of these assholes are telling us what’s going on, but then she walks in.
Full police uniform.
Badge visible on her chest.
Gun on her hip.
Hair pulled back, professional, cold.
Elizabeth-fucking-Hale.
The gasp that runs through the club is audible. Brothers shift, tension crackling through the air like electricity before a storm.
“Are you fucking kidding me!” Nitro yells, his voice bursting with rage.
The brothers start to protest, voices rising, but I raise one hand, and silence falls immediately.
Elizabeth walks toward me, her expression somber, conflicted. Those eyes, the ones I’ve seen filled with desire, with laughter, with heat, now carry guilt. She stops a few feet away, and for a moment, neither of us speaks.
“I’m sorry…” Her voice is barely above a whisper.
“You’re sorry? Fuck me!” Nitro groans from his position on the floor.
But a slow smile crosses my face as I stare at her.
She inhales sharply, confusion crossing her features as I feel that same confusion ripple through the room. I chuckle, shaking my head like I’m in on the world’s biggest joke.
Because I am.
She furrows her brow, confusion flickering across her face. “Sin?”
I lean against the bar, completely relaxed.
Let them wonder.
Let them squirm.
“Why do you think an MC would ever agree to a reporter coming into their club?” I ask, my voice casual, almost amused. “Especially a reporter that reaches out to them?”
She tries to swallow past the tightness in her throat. “You said you wanted to change the narrative on yourself.”
I sniff, leaning closer, my eyes locked on hers.
“We run background checks, and as soon as your picture came through with your alias, Elizabeth Hale, I knew who you were, Victoria…” Her eyes widen at me, calling her by her real name.
“You honestly think we wouldn’t have pictures of Marcus’ family in his file?
That I wouldn’t get Ghost to redact all that in case you went snooping?
” I smirk. “Which you did.” I pause to let that sink in.
To let her process.
Nitro lets out a half scoff, half laugh like he’s pissed he was left out of all this critically important information. I’ll have to make it up to him later as Victoria takes a step back, her eyes widening.
Her gaze darts between the brothers, then back to me. “All this time…” Her voice is small, disbelieving. “You knew who I was?”
Everything she thought she understood is crumbling. I see it in her eyes, in the way her shoulders sag, in the tremble of her hands.
She thought she was the only one doing the deceiving.
Maybe it will help her guilt to know I was deceiving her the whole time too?
I shrug, casual. “Yeah. I was trying to show you the corruption in your own department. Trying to help you see the truth about Marcus. I knew we couldn’t bring down Rourke on our own, and when this opportunity presented itself, that opportunity in the form of you, undercover at our clubhouse, I knew I had to take it.
To work you over. To show you that we are not the bad guys here, and that, in this case, it’s your organization that’s corrupt. ”
My expression shifts slightly, and I let a hint of hurt bleed through.
Just enough.
“But I guess I blew it on New Year’s, huh?
Let myself get too close.” I pause, my jaw tightening, remembering me slipping.
I let my animal side take over. I wanted her so bad that night, I took her into the storage shed and showed her how we make our income.
Fucking her on that gold is stained in my memory.
It was the best fucking night of my life.
But now it might just be my undoing.
“That’s why you’re here, right?” I let her get too close to the truth.
Too close to me.
The vulnerability I showed her is now used against me.
Her shoulders sag, her eyes somber, and she shakes her head. “Sin, I—”
She goes to speak, but the clubhouse doors open again, interrupting her. A plain-clothed detective walks through, a woman, put together, with an authoritative presence. Something about her face tugs at my memory, and my brows furrow, but I can’t place it.
She’s older, so different from…
“Wait.” I stare at her, recognition flickering but not quite landing.
The pieces won’t fit.
The image in my mind is of someone broken, someone lost.
The woman speaks, her voice steady, professional, “We’re here because my rookie detective has done an amazing job.”
Victoria looks at the woman, silent communication passing between them. A plea in Victoria’s eyes that I don’t understand.
The woman continues, stepping closer, “I sent her in with a mission to bring down a biker club. But instead, she’s given me something much bigger.
” She moves into better light, and my breath catches.
“Something I believe you helped her uncover…” She pauses, and the world tilts on its axis. “My son.”
The words hang in the air.
My poker chip slips from my fingers, the sound of it hitting the floor echoes in the sudden silence, a metallic clatter that feels too loud, too final.
I stagger slightly, my hand gripping the bar for support. My eyes lock on the woman’s face.
Older, yes.
Different, yes.
Put together, yes.
Professional, yes.
But the eyes.
I know those eyes.
“N-no.” My voice cracks, something that never happens. “You’re dead. They said… the desert…”
Her eyes glisten with tears. “I survived, Diesel. I’m so sorry, but I survived.”
The name, my real name, hits like a physical blow.
Twenty-four years.
Twenty-four years of thinking she was gone. Of carrying that grief like lead in my chest. Of building walls of rage, of armor made of fury, because the world had ripped her from me. Twenty-four years of being abandoned. First by her, then by every other adult who was supposed to give a damn.
And she was fucking alive!
Alive while I slept in alleys and on piss-stained couches. Alive while I starved and stole to make it another day. Alive while I buried the kid named Diesel Moretti and became Sin, the bastard who couldn’t be hurt because there was nothing left to lose.
The betrayal burns so hot it scorches through my veins, and I can’t hold it in. My chest heaves, my throat tightens, my fists clench so hard I swear my knuckles might split open.
“You don’t get to say my name,” I rasp, voice shaking with the fury I’ve buried for decades. “Not after leaving me in the dirt. Not after letting me believe you were a fucking corpse in the goddamn desert.”
The brothers watch in stunned silence. Even Nitro has nothing to say, his jaw slack, eyes wide.
Victoria watches, too, tears in her eyes at the reunion she orchestrated, but all I feel is fire.
I can’t process this shit.
Can’t reconcile the broken woman from my memories with this polished detective standing in my clubhouse.
My mother.
Alive.
Here.
A motherfucking cop!
The professional mask slides back over her face, a defense mechanism I recognize because I use it myself.
“We need to talk.” Her voice is steady, but I hear the tremor beneath. “Privately.”
I nod, but it feels like jagged glass tearing down my throat. My chest is too heavy, my pulse too wild, my insides too raw. I bend down, picking up my poker chip, and two cops raise their guns at me like I’m making some kind of damn move.
Maria turns to the officers. “Stand down. We’re not here for the club.”
I snort out a mocking laugh, shaking my head as I stand and start walking for the Chapel. Ghost and Nitro flank me as we move toward the Chapel. Victoria follows, hovering at the edges like she’s not sure where she fits in all this chaos.
The Chapel doors close behind us, my boots pounding like lead before I sit at the head of the table, staring at the woman across from me.
My mother. The one I thought was bones in the desert.
The poker chip sits on the table between us—the one she gave me, the one I’ve carried every day for twenty-four years.
She reaches into her jacket and slowly pulls out its match, placing it on the table next to mine.
Two halves of a whole, separated for decades.
“I never stopped thinking about you,” she whispers, her voice breaking.
My walls, the ones I’ve built so carefully, so deliberately, are completely down for the first time in my adult life.
“You were alive.” The words come out rough, raw. “All this fucking time?”
And now I don’t know whether to rage like a madman or cry like the scared little boy she left behind.