Unlawful Seizure (Filthy Florida Alphas Book 1)
Read Unlawful Seizure (Filthy Florida Alphas Book 1) Online
Authors: Baylee Rose
Baylee Rose 2015
Cover created by: Yoly Cortez with
Cormar Covers
Photos provided by:
Dollar Photo Club
Formatting: Angela Shockley with
The Formatting Lady
Editing: Claire Allmendinger with
Bare Naked Words
Proofreading: Dessure Hutchins with
DD's Bookroom
This book is a work of fiction. Owned, created and copyrighted by the author. Any similarity to real events, people, or places is entirely coincidental. Some names were used to further the reader’s enjoyment and imagination, but are no way endorsees of this book. All rights are reserved. This book may not be reproduced, or distributed in any format without the permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used for review purposes.
All quotations used in this book are part of public domain works and/or translated copies existing in public domains. The author acknowledges the use of trademarked status of products referred to in this book. Trademarks have been used without permission.
This book contains adult content including graphic sex, violence, and language. Please do not continue reading if you are under the age of 18 or if this type of content is disturbing to you in any way.
Thank you to all the readers who will take a chance on an unknown author. I hope you enjoy this book.
First and foremost, thank you to Dessure Hutchins. Without you this book would not have been possible. You make my days better and brighter. I’m blessed to have you as a friend. I love you.
Thank you to Claire Allmendinger. You not only rock as an editor you made editing fun. I’m so glad to have “met” you.
Thank you to Crystal Radaker for staying by my side through it all and agreeing to be my beta not only for this book but the second. You friendship is invaluable. Thanks for helping me on this journey.
Thank you to Julie Sandlin for your help fine tuning the first half of this book. Your suggestions were spot-on.
Thank you Michel Prosser for your support during this. I’m so honored to call you friend.
My awesome reading group, Veronica Garcia, Randi Vassal, Maryann Christopherson, Denise LaMee, Krystal Fhal, and Sheila Karr thank you all so much.
Thank you to the kind authors that I have met on this journey, who don’t know me but treat me like an old friend, K.L. Donn, Mayra Stratham, and Sierra Rayne.
Grady Hutchins thank you for all of your help, and allowing me to intrude into your lives and borrow your wife.
Finally, Tracey McDonald thank you for taking part in the contest on my author page! I hope you don’t mind that I made you (gasp) a lawyer! Lol.
Ruthless, Demanding, Wicked and Running from the Law.
Tessa
It was a routine parole hearing until I got caught in the middle of a prison break.
Now I’m property of Max Kincaid, Florida Correctional Inmate Number 91428.
I should be terrified.
I should be demanding my freedom.
Instead, I’m begging him to deliver on all the wicked promises in his eyes.
The longer I’m with him, the more I need him.
His touch answers yearnings I never knew my body had.
Now, all I hunger for; is him.
Max
My life ended years ago.
I have no right to touch Tess. I should let her go.
I can’t. Instead, I lose myself in her body.
I’m living on borrowed time.
But when the devil comes to collect his due.
It will be with her taste on my mouth.
My brand on her body.
And her name on my lips.
This Book is a standalone containing one hot alpha and the woman who wants him even more than the cops chasing them both.
Contains Adult Situations and not intended for readers under the age of 18.
Guaranteed Happily Ever After inside, because every woman should have one.
I
wake up with a migraine and feeling sick to my stomach. That is sign number one. Sign number two is my horoscope warning me I shouldn’t leave the house today. Sign number three is when I go outside to discover my old, beat up, 1990 something model Toyota, sitting on a flat. I’m stressed out already, and it’s only 7 am. I’m all set to call in sick when my boss calls me with his usual song and dance. I’m sick today Tessa. I really need to take the day off. Clear all my appointments. Make up some excuse for me. What he really means, is he and his wife are flying to Tahoe for the weekend. I know because Claire, the other secretary, let that little tidbit slip.
When I remind him that Judge Ryson appointed him as counsel in a case that was on the docket this morning, he goes silent. When I inform him it is a parole hearing and can’t be rescheduled, that sick feeling only increases. When he asks me to get Stuart to cover for him, we begin a ten-minute conversation on why Stuart is hopeless and will end up losing the case and destroying a man’s chance for freedom.
I’m not usually so concerned, but his client today is Max Kincaid, and I’m more than slightly obsessed with this case. Max deserves someone who will actually try to get him free.
I shouldn’t be that concerned with this case. I should have kept my fat mouth shut because the next thing I know, Charles, my boss, has volunteered me to go before the parole board and present the case as his proxy. I try every way in the world to stress that I can’t do it. I point out that Mr. Kincaid was unlawfully put in jail, and he needs a real attorney looking out for him. I might as well have saved my breath. His response was that I know the case better than anyone and Mr. Kincaid would best be served with me, by his side.
“Tess you know the law inside and out. You can do this.” Click.
That’s the only response I get from my final plea for him to do what the freaking state pays him to do. I really should have quit this job ages ago. I haven’t because I can’t afford to. I would have loved to go on to law school, but I put myself through school to get my paralegal license. There’s no way I can work full time to pay back student loans, and go back to school.
I was stupid enough to think that I would get a job right out of school. Well, not completely stupid. I did get a job immediately—at McDonald’s and then later at Shoe Warehouse and Dollar Mart. I had three jobs and still could barely manage to pay rent on my apartment. It was also an apartment I barely visited, unless it was to collapse on the bed to nap before my next shift started.
I was drowning in debt from school loans and so tired I could barely hold my eyes open. When I walked into Charles Barger’s, and he offered me a paralegal position, it seemed like the answer to my dreams.
It turned out to be a nightmare.
It does keep a roof over my head though and the damn collection calls down. That’s what I remind myself of again today, as I put on my big girl panties and suck it up. It’s a parole hearing and on a case I do, in fact, know inside and out.
I get my tire changed and head to the office, grabbing the files and things I will need for the hearing, then head straight for the federal prison in Ormond. It takes a good hour to drive there, and the hearing is scheduled to start in forty minutes. That’s when yet another sign from the universe falls in my lap, in the form of a speeding ticket. Fuck my life!
I try to pay attention to my speedometer the rest of the trip, but it’s hard. My mind is swirling as I go over the facts I need to present to the panel. My boss wasn’t lying when he said that I knew this case better than anyone. The truth is I’ve been consumed with Max Kincaid’s case. I must have read his file a thousand times. I know it’s not healthy. I do. I just can’t seem to make myself stop. I stare at his picture, and something about those dark, inky, onyx eyes call to me. His features seem familiar, even though there’s no way that’s possible.
I’ve even memorized his information. Max Kincaid, age thirty-six, date of birth February 11, 1979. Dark black hair, black eyes, and three distinct scars. A small one above his right eyebrow, one on his side from an appendectomy he had as a teen, and one jagged scar on his chest he received in the line of duty as a soldier in the Middle East. Max is a hero, awarded the Purple Heart for heroism in battle when he saved his entire platoon from a mortar attack by driving straight into the line of fire and drawing it away from his men. He had more men offer to stand up for him during his murder trial than the judge would allow to testify. By all accounts, Max was the golden boy, the man that women loved, and men wanted to be. His downfall came from loving the wrong woman, marrying her, expecting a child with her and then brutally extracting revenge for their deaths.
I lay awake at night recounting the facts of the case, and having my heart hurt for the man who lost so much, because of a decision filled with revenge. Truthfully, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have tried to do the same thing as he did if I were in his shoes. A part of me cheers for him. That’s why I’m doing this; but find myself a little giddy at the chance to actually meet Max Kincaid and be close to him.
Claire, my co-worker, likes to joke that I’m halfway in love with the man. If she knew some of the dreams I’ve had, that involve Max, she’d be ready to call the men in white coats.
This is important. This could be the single most important thing I ever do. Not only will I get to meet the man, but I also get the chance to be the one to right a wrong. Yes, he killed a man, and yes, that is wrong. However, the circumstances of the case, the outstanding character witnesses that testified on his behalf and the fact that he has already served five years of his sentence without a single demerit or mark against him, all combine and tell me he should get parole. Now, if I can just convince the court of that.
I feel strongly that he was wronged. I think I’m supposed to do this. I’m supposed to be the one to rescue him. That’s the real reason why I ignore the signs the universe keeps throwing my way. It’s also why I don’t let the fear that floods me when I drive through the prison gates, after checking in at the guardhouse, overpower me.
I go through all of the security points at the main entrance and have my files, purse and items searched. I manage only to be five minutes late, but in the end that doesn’t matter since a couple members of the panel are running behind. That will give me a few minutes to meet with Max…I mean Mr. Kincaid before the hearing and go over our battle plan.
“Could you have Mr. Kincaid brought down now? I’d like to meet with him before our hearing.”
“You’ll have to wait here until I have the prisoner brought in and settled,” the guard tells me.
“I…okay. That’s fine. I’ll just wait here.” He doesn’t reply and goes out.
My heart is beating out of my chest. I need to move past my excitement of getting to meet Max Kincaid and get my mind onto obtaining his freedom for him. It’s another ten minutes; which only serves to increase my nerves, before the guard comes back and escorts me in. For a minute, I think I stop breathing. Max is sitting at a table, and if I ignore the orange jumpsuit, he looks even better than he did in his pictures. His black hair is straight and lays lazily on his head, making it look like someone has lovingly run their fingers through it. His dark eyes pin me immediately and with such intensity it takes all I have not to hesitate when walking towards him. His large hands are lying on the table with chains around them. I know that is normal procedure, but on him it feels wrong.
I don’t know what I imagined our first words would be to each other. In my daydreams of Max, I thought we’d meet, and I’d rescue him and he’d be the one. The man who would understand me, who would just…fit me. I thought somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind he might recognize that feeling when he saw me for the first time, too. It sounds all kinds of stupid and juvenile and normally I’m not that kind of woman. I don’t know why I am where Max is concerned.
All of those wishes and silly dreams are blown out of the water when his harsh, barking voice rings out and stops me in my tracks.
“Who the fuck are you?”