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.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
SIN
The Chapel feels smaller with my mother in it. Twenty-four years of believing she was dead, and now she stands across from me in the heart of my club, wearing a detective’s badge and carrying the weight of two decades between us like armor.
My poker chip moves through my fingers. The rhythm is automatic, grounding, the only thing keeping me from completely losing my shit right now.
