Blake: A Romantic Suspense (V Mafia Series Book 1) Read online

  “This is incredible,” I said to Blake, turning my attention to the city view.

  “I fell in love with the city.” He took a sip of wine, his eyes connecting with mine. “There have been some definite perks to moving back full-time.”

  “Do you miss being on the road? Playing? The fans?” I asked, taking a bite of my salad.

  It was delicious.

  “I do.” He nodded, a somber expression crossing his face.

  “I’d imagine it would be hard. Has your family been understanding?” I suddenly felt like I was treading on dicey territory. “Supportive?”

  “They’ve been wanting me to come back to the family business for a long time.” He wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin and sat back in the chair. “I think they’re more happy than sad about my situation.”

  “And you?” I questioned.

  “It depends on the day.” His eyes locked on mine. “Like today, I couldn’t be happier to be back.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked, my voice almost cracking.

  “You’ve made being in the city exciting again.”

  “Exciting?” My brow arched. “I don’t think psychiatrists are known for excitement.”

  He nodded. “Thrilling, actually.”

  I rolled my eyes, which prompted him to continue.

  “I don’t know where I stand with you. I know where I want to be, and sometimes I even feel like I’m getting close.” His grin widened. “And other days, not so much, so yeah, it’s exciting.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  The servers traded out our salad plates for small soup bowls.

  “Curry pumpkin soup,” one of the servers told us.

  “It smells delicious. Thank you.” I smiled at the server closest to me and noticed she was giving far more attention to Blake, which made sense. He seemed to cast his spell time and again.

  “Anything else we can get you for now?” she asked.

  “We’re fine. Thank you,” Blake answered, and both servers returned to the kitchen.

  I took a bite and the delicate flavors warmed me up.

  “I could get used to this,” I teased.

  “I hope so.”

  Everything about Blake was sexy. The way his dark hair rumpled up on the sides, how his blue eyes darkened with an extreme intensity, and the way his mouth puckered when he smiled, were all the tiny parts of what made him wickedly charming.

  It didn’t hurt that I got to see him play, got to hear the fans, and got to see the respect his teammates had for him. It had all made Blake appear like a completely unattainable man, yet here we were in his apartment.

  “So why don’t you tell me what made you leave a job you loved only to return?” Blake asked, sitting back in his chair.

  He’d finished his soup and was just watching me, but for some reason, it didn’t make me self-conscious.

  I actually liked being the center of his attention.

  “The short story is that I left that position because a patient had escaped. He was infatuated with me, and I felt it was better that I not be at the same institution he’d be returned to when he was apprehended.”

  “Are they really patients when they’re criminals?” His questioning wasn’t offensive. It was laced with curiosity. I appreciated I could tell the difference with him.

  “Yes. In our legal system, they’re patients while also being incarcerated.” I took a breath. “At least at the facility I worked at that was the case. Unfortunately, many of the criminally insane still wind up in the general population, and that’s when even worse trouble starts.”

  “I take it this individual hasn’t been caught?” His voice lowered, and he leaned toward the table.

  “Correct.” I felt a spark of fear run through me. “It appears he’s back in the state, or maybe he never left. We had reason to believe he was in other parts of the country, but I’m not sure any longer.”

  “What made you think that?”

  I took in a deep breath and looked at my empty soup bowl.

  “He would send me letters and packages. The postmarks were from various states, so I always pinned my hopes on that.”

  “What would make you want to go back to that facility if that’s where he’ll be going back to or where others like him remain?” Blake had a concerned expression.

  The servers took our bowls.

  “I miss the work.”

  He studied me carefully, and I tried to focus on anything but the attraction I was feeling to him. We weren’t alone, and what we were discussing wasn’t exactly an aphrodisiac, but for some reason, being with him made me feel safe and like my problems were a world away.

  “Do you really?”

  I nodded. “I felt like I was doing something that made a difference.”

  “You don’t feel that way now?” He looked surprised.

  “Not in the same way.” I debated what all to tell him. I still viewed Blake as nothing more than a good time, but he was pulling more out of me and I wasn’t exactly fighting it.

  The problem was that with every new revelation came a vulnerability that I’d never experienced before, and it unsteadied me.

  “My focus has always been on . . .” I stopped myself as his family business flashed into my mind.

  A wry smile spread across his lips. “Yeah?”

  “I’ve been fascinated with the criminal mind for most of my career.” I left it at that and took a sip of wine.

  “Is that so?” There was a hint of playfulness behind his gaze as he mulled over the dilemma neither of us wanted to discuss.

  The chef delivered our entrées.

  “Filet mignon, Yukon mashed with truffle oil, and baby carrots.” He set my plate down first. It was artwork with the fancy oils drizzled around the white china and green flakes outlining the edge.

  “Looks beautiful.”

  “I invite you to cut into your steak.”

  I looked at the chef and at Blake, who was waiting for me to pick up my steak knife. I did as requested and sliced into the steak.

  “Medium-rare. Perfect.” I nodded, and the chef waited for Blake to do the same before refilling our wine glasses and walking back into the kitchen.

  “Wouldn’t the darkness bring you down day after day?” Blake asked.

  I shook my head. “It didn’t feel like a cloud was hanging over my head or anything. The staff there is great, quite empathetic, and most of us are full of a different kind of hope.”

  “How so?” He looked utterly fascinated.

  “Imagine if we were able to correct an illness that caused so much evil in this world.” I felt my throat tighten, and I quickly took a sip of wine. It felt like we were getting too close to my reality, to the real reason I wanted to fix these people.

  “Imagine.” He nodded and scooted forward in his chair. “So in your view, what separates a criminal from the criminally insane? Not all who get off with that defense are psychopaths, so where’s the line drawn?”

  “True.” I nodded, feeling more in my comfort zone than ever before. “Psychopaths lack empathy. They’re literally incapable of experiencing emotions. They lack a conscience, for all intents and purposes. Psychopaths are extremely talented manipulators. Since they can’t form the emotions they should be experiencing, they often mimic what they see around them to fit in. They’re as charismatic as they are chameleons. Remorse isn’t something that would ever cross their mind, and they generally adapt to their surroundings because they have learned how to survive, how to mirror others. Most importantly, not all psychopaths are criminals. In fact, psychopaths are far more common in our world than we realize.”

  “So you’re not completely surrounded by psychopaths at that other facility?”

  I smiled and laughed. “I didn’t say that. They do make up a high percentage of the ward. But people who are deemed criminally insane must fit a special set of circumstances that usually surround that particular moment in time when the crime was committed, a cognitive insanity. Ba
sically, the defense or diagnosis is when the individual is so taken and impaired by his mental disease that he is unaware of the crime he committed while it happened, and it is then argued that the individual didn’t know the act was wrong. Another type is volitional insanity, and that’s where the individual is able to assert the difference between right and wrong, but his mental disease made it impossible to for him to control his actions.”

  Blake shook his head and sawed into his steak. “I don’t buy it. I get the psychopath thing, but the other sounds like a way out for bad guys.”

  “It’s not an easy defense to prove, but there are occasions when the evidence does point to something beyond the individual knowingly causing the act.”

  “Do you actually believe it? Don’t you think that’s just an out for criminals who don’t want to go to prison?”

  “I can’t say that our facility is much better. It’s actually on prison grounds.”

  Blake shrugged. “You know far more than I ever could, but I feel like people know what they’re doing more often than not, and barring psychopaths, understand the implications of certain acts.”

  “I think more times than not, you’re absolutely right.” I studied Blake and saw an intense interest in the subject.

  “If the men who killed my sister tried to get off on a defense like that, I don’t know what I would have done. Then again, the men involved weren’t even charged.”

  His words stabbed me in the heart, but the coldness behind his eyes kept me in the moment and very aware that my views might not be shared.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said softly.

  His eyes darkened.

  Blake circled his index finger around a saltshaker, and the emotions rolling off him filled me with the same rawness I’d experienced from my mom’s death, but I felt like there was something he wanted to add.

  “I lost my mother to violence.”

  His gaze flashed to mine.

  “My mom was murdered.” I couldn’t believe I was opening up to a Volkov brother. I’d read the pages my father sent over. I knew what they were capable of, yet here I was, divulging personal information I didn’t even discuss with my close friends.

  “How could you surround yourself with murderers if . . .” He didn’t even bother to finish his sentence.

  “It gave me a purpose. I didn’t want her death to be in vain. The facility is one of the top in the nation for research, and I believe there is something we can do to help.”

  “But what about all the people claiming to be criminally insane who aren’t? How do you weed them out of your research?”

  “We have ways. We can’t undo what the court has decided, but we certainly won’t include them in anything that would jeopardize our findings.”

  Blake’s mouth formed a circle and he blew a long, steady breath out.

  “I didn’t mean to rock your world,” I said, feeling a knot in my stomach. I was overwhelmed with emotion.

  “You rocked my world the first time I met you.” He smiled. “But this . . . this explains things a little more.”

  I bit my lip to stop me from going down the rabbit hole of ugly emotion. No tears on a date. I glanced out the window and saw helicopter lights in the distance. Blake followed my gaze and grinned.

  “Right on time.”

  “What’s right on time?” My brows knitted together.

  “I wanted to show you something, and I thought this might be the best way to do it.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, pushing the fear away. I’d never been in a chopper before, and the thought was both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

  “I saw the file on your desk, Ava.” He held out his hand. “I want to show you that whatever you think about my family isn’t the whole story.”

  My body began to tremble. I should’ve known he saw the papers on my desk. I looked down at the dining table, horrified and unable to say a word.

  He knew and didn’t say a word.

  “I know my family has a history. I’m also aware there are a lot of stories circulating about us, and I’d be willing to bet most of what you read isn’t true.” He stood up, linked his fingers through mine, and motioned to the chef that we were leaving, while I stood numb.

  What had I done?

  “Where are we going?”

  “A tour of the city at night is breathtaking, and it’ll allow me to point at some of my family’s accomplishments.”

  I wanted to explain that I really didn’t believe what I read, but that would be a lie. It wasn’t a question of whether I believed it. I saw information that should have turned me away, but instead, here I was, walking hand-in-hand with a man whose family members were involved in the most notorious mafia in New York.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  I nodded, and we walked out of his apartment to the elevator. Excitement pulsed through my veins, and I knew this was a very bad idea that I had every intention of doing.

  As the elevator opened to a small room with glass windows overlooking the helipad, I sucked in a nervous breath.

  “There’s nothing to be worried about,” Blake said softly, squeezing my hand. Kindness darted through Blake’s gaze, and I felt compelled to tell him why I had those pages on my desk.

  “My father’s a policeman.” But that was all that tumbled out.

  He stopped walking and waited for me to finish, but I didn’t.

  “I know.” He stood in front of me and cocked my head slightly with his fingers. “I guess in our line of work, we all have to do our homework.”

  “Even for a fling?” I questioned.

  “Ava, you were never going to be a fling.” He brought his lips to mine and the rest of the world fell away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Blake

  The flight above the city was even more beautiful than I’d expected, and experiencing it with Ava made it a night I’d never forget, no matter what the future held. She looked so happy as she pointed at iconic landmarks throughout the city. It made me really happy to know I could make her this excited.

  “See that?” I pointed to a building under construction and she nodded. “That’s one of the projects Wolf Industries is involved in.”

  “Really?” she asked, looking genuinely interested.

  I nodded. “My oldest brother, Jaxson, has been working years on redeveloping this block. We’re close to the end.”

  “And over there is one of the last projects my father finished before he died. He was up against another developer who wanted to tear down the building and displace all the low-income residents. That wasn’t my father’s vision.”

  She leaned her body against mine, and I felt her breathing calm.

  “My dad managed to keep everyone there while remodeling the units and rehabbing the retail stores below, which is where he assumed he’d see the real profits, and he was right. Families didn’t need to be displaced, but a large profit can still be made.”

  She squeezed my hand, and I looked into her eyes. I swept a soft kiss along her luscious lips, and I suddenly wanted to cut the ride short.

  “You’re so beautiful,” I whispered. The headset still managed to pick my words up.

  “Thank you.” She smiled and looked over the city as the pilot hovered over a green space.

  “Have you ever been there?” I pointed down below.

  “I’m so turned around, I don’t know if I have or not,” she confessed.

  “It’s a pea patch for the local elementary schools. My mom loves gardening.” I laughed. “Actually, she loves flowers and fresh vegetables more than what it takes to get them, but regardless, she donated this piece of land to the local school district.”

  She nodded. “You know, I do know where this is. It’s always so brightly colored in the spring. Kids show their outdoor sculptures out there too.”

  I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and brought her into me. “I can only imagine what was in that folder, but I wanted you to see another side of my fam
ily. Not everything is black and white in the world. There’s this grey area that kind of dictates how life actually runs.”

  “I know that more than most, Blake.” She licked her lips and took a deep breath. “But I wasn’t expecting this.” Ava glanced out the window before bringing her eyes back to mine. “Thank you for showing me.”

  “I doubt it will help with your father’s view.”

  “You’re absolutely right about that, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. He may never need to know.”

  Her words crushed me, and I didn’t even know why. Maybe because it sounded like she couldn’t see a future with us?

  I nodded as the pilot turned the chopper around, flying us back to my apartment building.

  “I know my family’s not perfect, but I’m not like those men you study.”

  She turned quickly in her seat, shock registering on her face. “I never thought you were.” Ava shook her head quickly. “Never did I even—”

  “Just checking,” I said, only half-joking.

  “I wouldn’t be here if I thought there was any sort of similarity.” She laughed, and the sound was intoxicating even through the headset.

  I wanted her so badly it hurt, but I didn’t know if after everything tonight, she’d feel the same.

  The pilot landed on top of my building, and we removed our headsets as he turned off the switches.

  “That was incredible.”

  I helped her out of the helicopter, and I gave a quick wave at the pilot. The chill in the air moved us quickly inside and back into the elevator to take us home. Since dinner, something had been weighing heavily, but I didn’t know exactly how to approach it. I didn’t want her to know I’d already been to her house before tonight . . . that I’d followed a guy there, no less, but she needed to know.

  She kept her hand in mine as we walked off the elevator and back into the apartment. The chef had cleared everything away, and it was only the two of us inside. We moved into the living room, and I felt electricity charging through the air.