Rocco Read online

  We would get him out of there soon, perhaps even convincing the judge to set a bond amount. It would be something – progress in its own right, at least.

  As Roman came into view and sat in the seat on the other side of the glass, I could see the fresh bruises forming around his eyes. It was motivation to pick up the pace on the case and get him the Hell out of there. We were running out of time.

  Roman was in even more trouble than I thought.

  Chapter 14

  Amelia

  I shoved the yogurt into my mouth so hard, I nearly bit the spoon itself. It was a narrow miss, but I was too wrapped up in my thoughts to even notice. While I often ate fruit for breakfast, I tried to incorporate more protein into my lunch, and a sandwich was often on the menu.

  But today, I had been too busy in the morning to make a proper breakfast, and it seemed my day had gone to Hell anyway. It had been the morning of a big case, and things hadn’t gone in my favor.

  I had started the day thinking I was going to walk with the case ending on our side. But, the prosecution threw me a few curveballs, and I didn’t figure out how to respond fast enough. By the end of the trial, my client was more than a little upset with me, and he was on his way to jail.

  It was beyond the point of getting a plea deal, and he was going to have to face the full force of the charges. It meant he was going to be given a few weeks in jail, along with a lot higher of a fee than I wanted him to end up with. But, most of all, it was going to be a black mark on his record, and I really didn’t want him to have to go through that.

  But, there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. I had taken the brunt of a lot of remarks when I got back to the office. Even promising my client I was going to come see him in jail and see what we could work out didn’t seem to be enough to satisfy him.

  He was going to have to go through with the punishment, and it was all because I wasn’t ready for all the angles that the prosecution had thrown my way. It pissed me off, and it did throw a bit of a curveball into the confidence I felt with the other cases.

  It wasn’t as big of a case as I was dealing with for Roman, and I hated to think of what he was facing if he didn’t end up with the results we were hoping for. After all, I had gone over the paperwork and felt sure he was innocent, but that didn’t mean I could convince a jury of the same thing.

  To think that he might go to jail for the rest of his life made me sick to my stomach. Hell, it wasn’t even going to be jail. He was going to prison if he was convicted.

  Perhaps they would even push for a worse punishment. Sure, the victim might not have died, but it was a brutal attack. There was no doubt in my mind that he was going to be seeking the highest prosecution against whoever had attacked him.

  I was, of course, on his side. I hated to think that anyone was going to have to go through that and not get the justice they deserved. But, to think that an innocent man would take the fall for it made me see red. I wanted to bring the guilty party in and have them go through the punishment.

  If Roman wasn’t guilty – and I was sure by now that he wasn’t – then I didn’t want him to have to be the one to be punished. It was easy for the prosecution to push such things on the MC in the area, simply because it was hard to prove that they were innocent.

  I had a hard time taking on the case in the first place because I’d assumed he was either guilty or deserved to be behind bars anyway, and I knew I wasn’t the only one to feel that way. There were a lot of people who would take that route, that was for sure, and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.

  I would do my best, but I hated that I wasn’t more sure of myself, and I hated that I had to deal with the comments from the others in the office because of it. But, I did, and I had to put on a brave face for the next time I saw Rocco, too.

  As if on cue, he suddenly appeared.

  “Working hard?” he asked as he gestured toward my food.

  He had ridden up on his bike, and I wasn’t in the mood.

  “I just had a shitty day in court, and this is the only break I get,” I snapped. “What do you want?”

  “Geez, you don’t have to take it out on me,” he said with a shrug. “I was coming to see how things were going, and to give you a bit more information on the case if I could.”

  “Things are shitty, that’s how,” I said. I tried not to be a real bitch to him, but it was hard for me to keep my temper to myself. I was pissed off at life, and I wanted the whole world to just fuck itself. But, if he had more information that could help me, that was something.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  I shrugged. I couldn’t share with him a lot of information about the trial or the client, but I could tell him how the other lawyers were acting. I didn’t mean to open up to him too much, but before I even realized it, I was spilling practically everything.

  “And, I guess there are just times I feel like I should come out of my shell more, you know?” I said at last. “Fit in with them. Be more of a bitch in the courtroom.”

  “No, don’t change for them,” Rocco said. He had taken a seat on the bench beside me, and he now ran his finger up my thigh. I was wearing a skirt that was as short as I felt I could get away with in the courtroom, and he was taking full advantage of that fact.

  He ran his finger as far up as he could, stopping slightly at the dip where my thighs parted and the skirt prevented him from going any further. The mixed feelings that ran through me were confusing, and I wasn’t in the mood to think about them further.

  I wanted him to continue.

  Another shock ran through the core of my being when he leaned over and kissed my neck, brushing his lips lightly up the side of my face and stopping at the top of my head. He softly ran his fingers down my jawline as he pulled back, looking into my eyes for a brief moment before our lips met again.

  I let a soft moan escape my lips as I leaned into the kiss, but something ran through me almost immediately. It was almost like a warning signal, and I pulled back from him. He looked at me with a hunger in his face, but he didn’t push.

  “We can’t do this,” I said. “We have to keep it professional. I told you it wasn’t going to work between us, and we’ve got to keep it strictly platonic.”

  “Why isn’t it going to work?” Rocco challenged me again. He wasn’t listening to any of my point of view, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from snapping at him once more.

  “It’s just not. We come from two different worlds, and it’s going to stay that way,” I said. “Trust me. It’s not going to work.”

  He sighed. I could see the struggle he was having internally, but he knew better than to push it further. I wasn’t going to put up with it, and if he wanted me to keep helping his friend, he was going to have to rein in what he wanted and play by the rules himself.

  “What did you have you thought could help me?” I asked.

  He sighed. “Those papers we were looking through the other day.”

  “What about them?”

  “You remember how they said that this guy was caught up in some sort of money laundering?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded.

  “Well, the warehouse where they say they keep all their goods is empty. I was down there on something unrelated, and I thought I would check it out, see if there was something in there that might help us. Well, there was something helpful all right, and it came in the form of nothing at all,” he told me.

  I looked at him with my eyebrows raised.

  “And how is this going to help with the case?” I asked. “How does that matter?”

  “It matters because I think we can start hunting for another suspect besides Roman,” he said. “Think about it. If this guy was being double crossed, that could have put him in the line of fire for the person next on the list. Or, he might have been the one to confront someone and end up with a knife in his face because of it. Either way, it’s not going to matter with Roman in the clear.”

  “And, we can pro
ve Roman had nothing to do with that?” I asked.

  “Isn’t that your job?”

  A smartass comment rose in the back of my throat, but I bit my tongue. This was my ally in the case, and if I wanted to get what I was after, then we were going to have to work together. Rocco wanted his friend out of jail, and I wanted to have the case in the bag.

  We both stood to gain from this, so we had to work together to make sure we got the end result we wanted.

  “Alright,” I said. “Then, I want more names. I want more reason behind that happened. I want more names to follow. I want information.”

  I looked up at him, resolution swelling in my chest. “Will you get those for me?”

  He rose. “Yes, I can find out whatever you need. But make sure you do the work on your end and get Roman out of there. I want him on the right side of the bars before we even get this to trial if we can.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I told him. There were still some things I could do, and I hoped the judge would agree with me and at least set a bond for Roman to make. If we could just get him out of jail, we could relax a little.

  But, I wanted those names. I wanted more people to focus on and more reasons and explanations than just Roman. But, that was going to take teamwork, and I had to get back to work if any of it was going to get done.

  So, I grabbed my things and shoved them back in my bag. “I’m going to head back to the office to see what I can pull together this afternoon. Give me a call later and we can touch base.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” he said.

  There was another awkward pause, but I didn’t let it last long. I gave Rocco a nod before turning to head back to my car. I wanted to stay. There was something deep down inside me that wanted to keep talking to him, that wanted to explore what was going on inside my head.

  But, this was my job. I had to stay focused on that.

  I was helping get an innocent man out of jail. That was the entire reason I had taken on this case in the first place. Of course, the truth of the matter might be something different, but I was going to continue to cling to that deep down inside.

  I had to focus on the case. I couldn’t get sidetracked with anything else.

  That’s all there was to it.

  Chapter 15

  Rocco

  The week passed quickly for me in some ways, but slowly in others. I hated each night going to bed and knowing we weren’t any closer to getting Roman out of jail. I wanted to post bail for him and get him out of there now, but the judge hadn’t set a bail for him yet. It seemed the court was taking its sweet time in setting a bail hearing.

  It pissed me off, that was for sure, but I couldn’t help but be glad for all the time I got to spend with Amelia.

  I insisted on working with her at the office. There was no other option in my world, and she eventually gave up on trying to make me leave. So, as the days passed, it became common for me to show up with coffee and something for her to eat in the morning that was better than just fruit, and I would stay as long into the afternoon as she would allow.

  Just as I knew would happen, with all the time we were spending together, she began to open up to me more. I learned so many things about her personal life I knew she didn’t intend to share with me at first, but she just grew more comfortable with me as we spent more and more time together.

  Friday afternoon, a week after she finally decided to let me help out with the case as much as I required, she really started to open up to me when we were in her office. It started simply enough, I was talking about how I had gotten into the MC life and why I was so determined to stay there. Amelia started opening up about her own childhood and why she wanted to become a lawyer in the first place.

  “I guess you could say it was my parents. Well, my mother and my stepfather. I never really knew my real dad, and the guy my mother was with for most of my childhood was a real ass,” she said.

  “Really?” I asked. “That’s too bad, but it happens quite a bit, it seems.”

  “I know,” she said with a shrug. “I hate it. He was in an MC. I don’t know which one, but it doesn’t really matter. One night, he came home drunk and with a gun. He’d been out with his club and came home feeling angry and violent. He and my mother got in a fight, and I got involved. I knew I shouldn’t have. She told me to get to my room and stay there, but I didn’t…”

  Her voice trailed off, and I looked over at her. But, she shrugged as she continued. “My mom ended up killing him that night, and the fucked up thing is that she was the one who went to prison for it. I knew it was self-defense. She was saving us both from him, but she got the heat and she’s still locked up. I want to get her out, and I’m doing everything I can to make that happen.”

  “That’s brutal,” I said with a nod. “How long has she been in there?”

  “Over ten years,” Amelia replied bitterly. “I’ve wasted so much money on lawyers, trying to find one who could get her out, but it all comes back the same. They aren’t going to take her case or re-open it or anything. She’s just going to sit there until I’m able to do something myself.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’re going to get her out,” I said as encouragingly as I could. I wanted her to know that she had my support. It might not be much, but I wanted her to feel secure when she talked about her past and her parents. I knew what it was like to be in a dark place, and I knew what it was like to have fucked up parents.

  But, I had found a new family, and I knew she could do the same. She might still want to get her mother out of prison, but she didn’t have to spend her life alone. If I could just get her to open up, I knew she would see that she wasn’t alone in all this – that there was a way for her to be happy even with the things that had happened to her when she was younger. I knew I could show her that not all MCs were her enemy. I could show her the family that could be found there and the support we could offer.

  We were standing together against her desk, looking down at papers in front of us. There was more on the case for Roman, and she was looking through every possible loophole we could find. Anything that would get him out of there.

  “It’s a shaky alibi, but it could be enough to get the judge to set a bail for him,” Amelia said, changing the subject from her family to the paper.

  “Let’s try it,” I said. “I want him out of there.”

  “Me, too,” she replied. “I hate seeing when innocent people are locked up.”

  “You didn’t seem to think he was innocent before,” I teased. She gave me a look, and I knew I was going to have to tread carefully. I didn’t want to piss her off, but it was hard not to tease her.

  “I didn’t know what he was like before, but now it seems that he’s not the one to blame for this. I don’t want him to end up like my mother,” she said.

  “And, I’m grateful to you for that,” I told her. I took a step to the side, putting my hand on the small of her back and looking down into her face. She looked up at me for a moment, hesitating. I knew she wanted to kiss me, but she wasn’t going to be the one to make the move.

  If it was going to happen, I was going to have to be the one to do it. So, I took the chance. I leaned forward, pressing my lips to hers. She let out a soft moan as I pressed myself into her, pulling her toward me in the same motion. I closed my eyes, kissing her harder, deeper.

  She did the same. I wrapped my arms around her, lifting her up on the desk and turning her to face me.

  “We can’t do this,” she said. “It’s never going to work between us.”

  “Shhh,” I whispered. I kissed her once more, and she didn’t hesitate to kiss me in return. I knew she had her doubts, but I wasn’t going to let those stop me. I wanted this, and so did she. It was obvious from the way she was so hungrily kissing me back, wanting more.

  I slid her to the edge of the desk, slipping my fingers up her skirt and into her panties. She was wet for me, her legs spread wide, waiting for me. It didn’t take me long to pull my hard cock from my pan
ts, while at the same time, she pulled her panties off and let them fall to the floor.

  She was right on the edge of her desk, letting me hold her as I took another step forward and pressed the head of my cock to the slit of her warm pussy. She was so wet, it was easy for me to slide inside, sinking deep within her until I couldn’t go further.

  Amelia let out another moan, and I knew she was trying to keep her voice down. The door to the office wasn’t locked, and it would be so easy for Sarah to step in to check on what we were doing and make sure we didn’t need anything. It was the rush of the possibility of getting caught that made the moment so much hotter, and as I slid in and out of her, I knew she felt the same.

  Amelia leaned forward on the table, taking more of me and wrapping her legs around me as much as she could as she bit my shoulder playfully. She wanted as much of me as she could get. She wanted to give me herself. I knew she was eager to satisfy the feelings rushing through her core, and I was eager to give her all that I had.

  It had been a long time for both of us. She had mentioned she hadn’t had a boyfriend in over a year, and it had been quite some time since she had had a guy in her life that she could call good. I wanted to change that for her, and I wanted to show her while I had her on the desk that I could do it in every part of life.

  I wasn’t afraid to make her mine. I knew she already was. She might not think so. She might insist this wasn’t going to work, but I knew better than that. I just had to prove to her I knew what I was doing, and I would, too. I wasn’t afraid of any of that.

  She moaned louder, doing her best to keep her voice down, but I knew she was cumming as she gripped me, pulling me into her further, taking as much of me as possible.

  It was all the encouragement I needed to finish myself. I wanted to make sure she was pleased and satisfied first, but when she came, I wasn’t going to hold myself back any longer. She felt so good – maybe even the best I had ever had. We might be in her office, but it was still the hottest sex I could remember having in quite some time, and I knew this wasn’t the only time we were going to have it, either.