Claimed and Corrupted: Bound to the MC

Chapter 5 - Raven

"Ameilia, thank God you're here! I can't find Ivy anywhere and Thomas is apparently on an unscheduled vacation. I filed the motion this morning to get Mr. Collins on the docket for his bail, but I am way out of practice here," I whisper because this is incredibly embarrassing. I am one of the top attorneys in my field, but this is not my field. "Can you just please follow me to my office for a moment?"

"Yes," she says looking startled, unsurprisingly. I am known for keeping my cool. I am responsible for negotiating multi-million dollar deals but this is throwing me out of my element and I don't like it. We quickly make our way to my office and I shut the door behind us before taking a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, but as you know, I am not a criminal defense attorney. Thomas recruited me to help on this case, keyword being help. But now I can't find him and I am screwing this all up. I thought I'd be able to get the motion directly to a judge, but I discovered last night that's not how this works."

"No, it is not." Ameilia says, with a little smile on her face. Is she holding back a laugh? I look at her incredulously and she cracks. "I'm so sorry," she says through her laughter. "It's just that I have never seen you like this Raven. You are one of the most self-composed people I have ever met, and I work in a law firm. This isn't you."

"No this isn't me, I'm off my game. I am out of my depth here, I'm not familiar with criminal law, and the ins and outs of everything. I filed the motion with the court clerk this morning, and made sure a copy was sent to the D.A.'s office. Now apparently I have to get a court date, and I need your help. I thought this would be easier, but I need this guy out of prison like yesterday. Is there any way I can get our case put on the top of the calendar?"

"You, probably not, but I can help you. I know one of the women that does the schedule for Judge Bennett. We both have demanding bosses who under appreciate us, we've bonded a time or two. I'll let her know that I'm in a pickle for not getting this scheduled sooner and see if she can help."

"That would be marvelous, and I would be eternally in your debt. Do you know by the way, where Ivy or Thomas are?"

"Ivy called in sick, and I'm not sure where Thomas is. I haven't heard from him since yesterday, but I'm sure he's fine. Sometimes he gets really busy with a case and just kind of goes into a rabbit hole."

"Okay, well that's obnoxious. I suppose since this is the first time I've ever worked directly with him, I didn't know that about his process."

"I will go try to get this motion on the calendar ASAP, I can go with you once the hearing date is set too if you'd like?"

"That would be wonderful. Ivy is amazing, but much like myself she's been so focused on corporate law for most of her career she's out of her depth a bit too."

"I'll let you know as soon as I have a date."

"Thank you," Ameilia leaves and I take another breath. I have a dozen other contracts, deals, and mergers I'm working on but I've been spending an inordinate amount of time on this case. Once I give Luke a call to let him know how we're progressing, I'll put this work at the bottom of my to-do pile until Ameilia gets me a date. I grab my phone and call the number that Luke called from last night, he answers on the second ring.

"This better be important, it's too f.ucking early to deal with bulls.hit."

"This is Ms. Westgate I -"

"Ah Raven, you can call me anytime even if it's not important." He says, and I swear I can hear the smirk in his voice. I wish he could see my eye roll through the phone.

"Thank you, but we'll stick to important matters, we are in the process of getting a hearing date for Mr. Collins for bail. He will remain in protective custody until that happens though, so I can guarantee his safety."

"Hold on, I thought you said he would be out this morning," he says, his voice now sounding clear of any sleep.

"I am sorry about that, my information was incorrect."

"Incorrect? What the h.ell kind of lawyer are you? Collins assured me that you were the best, that's why we hired you."

"Listen, I understand your frustration."

"No, I don't think you do. My brother is sitting in a jail cell for something he didn't f.ucking do. On top of that, his life is in danger while he's in there, and in order to try to keep him safe he's now sitting in a cell by himself with no human interaction. So the longer you take to get him out, the more time he has to go f.ucking crazy in there."

"I assure you, we are doing everything we can to-" I stop when there's a knock on my door and Ameilia walks in. "Hold on just a minute please," I tell Luke and put him on hold. "Did you get us a hearing?"

"Yupp," she says popping her 'p' as she gives me a huge grin. "And you are going to love me. I got us a hearing for this afternoon."

"How the h.ell did you do that? I thought this was going to take a lot longer to schedule."

"Well according to Shannon, the scheduler I know, Judge Bennett had a procedure scheduled for this afternoon so he cleared his schedule, but apparently the doctor messed up and didn't give him the correct preparation details or something. Anyway, he will be in his office this afternoon with a clear schedule. Shannon, told me he asked to keep his afternoon open so he could get some work done but she spoke with his paralegal who spoke with him, and he agreed to listen to your motion this afternoon."

"I could kiss you right now I swear to God. You and Shannon, remind me to send her a basket of fruit or something. What time are we going there?"

"It's set for one o'clock. I still haven't been able to get a hold of Thomas so it might just be the two of us. Are you prepared for that?"

"Not really no, can you sit down for a minute? I'm just going to tell Luke we have it scheduled and then we can talk."

"Okay," she says taking the seat on the opposite side of my desk as I unmute Luke.

"Son of a f.ucking b.itch, how long do you plan to keep me waiting!" Luke is yelling into the phone as I take him off hold. I wonder if he's been yelling this whole time, probably.

"Sorry about that, I'm back."

"About f.ucking time, now what the h.ell is going on?"

"We have a hearing set for this afternoon at one o'clock. I will let the prison know as Mr. Collins will have to accompany me."

"I'll be there too."

"I don't think that's a good idea," I tell him hesitantly. We want to impress on the Judge that Mr. Collins is not a risk, and I'm not sure having a member of his club there will help our case.

"I'm house broken," he snarks, like he read my mind. "And I won't be in there, I'll just sit outside and wait."

"Okay, I suppose that's fine then. Now I have to go and prepare, we'll speak soon." I don't let him say anything else before I hang up. "Okay Ameilia, I need your help. I need a crash course in how to handle this hearing. This isn't the kind of thing I do in my job, which I am getting woefully behind in while I try to learn a whole new area of law."

"Of course I will help you, and I already told you I will go with you. Let's get started, if anyone can pull this off, it's you." I can only hope she's right, because I really don't want a motorcycle club to be p.issed off at me.