My Bad Boy's Secret: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (33 page)

              Ada embraced me tightly. “Tell me where that scumbag lives, and I’ll take care of him for you.”

              I smiled and hugged her back. “Thanks. We’ll do that someday.”

              Ada pulled away. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve got a tattoo I regret as well.” She turned around and let me see her back. I shifted my gaze down and saw what she was referring too. Just above her butt, coiled black lightning bolts decorated her lower back, accompanied by a pair of powerful wings. It was a tramp stamp that guys could stare at all day. Even I was hypnotized by it.

              “That’s not bad at all,” I admired. “What was the story behind it?”

              I heard Ada groan. “Nothing as romantic as yours. I went out with a bunch of guys one night. They got me really drunk, and told me to do it. I was really into one of the guys, so I agreed. We hooked up once and he left me right away. So I’m stuck with this piece of shit.”

              I gave her ass a playful spank. “I like it. Keep it. You’ll be just as miserable as me.”

              We hit each other a bit more for fun, and finished soaping up and cleaning ourselves.

              We found our clothes laid out in the adjacent changing room, and put them on. Slowly recovering our energy, we walked out of the room and saw Jake and McKenna waiting for us.

              “It took you long enough,” muttered McKenna.

              “Nice of you girls to join us again,” said Jake happily. “I’ve got assignments for all of us, and we have to hurry. Starting today, I have requests that both of you will have to comply with. No excuses. Ada, from today you will start dying your hair blonde. All women of mine will do as I tell them. I love blonde hair, and I never tire of it. I can’t wait to see you blonde.”

              Ada reached to touch her hair, as if she could protect it from changing color. She looked too shocked to say anything.

              Jake reached into his jacket pocket and drew out a tiny bottle of pills, then handed it to me.

              “This is for you, Sabina,” he said. “From today, take one pill a day. You are to adhere to this. If I find that you haven’t been taking them, you will regret it.”

              There wasn’t any label or information on the bottle. I was nervous. This didn’t sound safe at all.

              “Um, what are these pills for? What do they do? Will I get hurt?” I asked. I had too many questions.

              Jake just smirked. “No questions. You’re taking them, and that’s final. I assure you, it’s not poison. I need you to stay alive. If I wanted to kill you, I’d do it more efficiently.”

              “Now start taking them.”

              I had no choice. I unscrewed the cap and swallowed a pill. As I felt it slip down my throat, I thought about the situation I was in. I had given up all freedom to be at Jake’s mercy, so that I could help the US government arrest him. Was it worth it?

              “We need to make some business trips,” continued Jake in a tone of voice banning any argument. “Sabina, you’ll come with me. Since you promised me drugs, you’re going to give them to me. Ada, accompany Addy to South Africa. We’ll meet each other again in a couple days.”

              McKenna grimaced. “I suppose there’s no choice,” she complained. “Hurry up. We have work to do.”

              “Give the girls a minute to say goodbye,” said Jake nonchalantly. “Make it quick, ladies.”

              Ada pulled me into the changing room. We huddled and whispered  to each other.

              “All things considered, we’re actually handling this pretty well,” she told me.

              I nodded. “Yeah, we’re at least not dead yet. But we haven’t really made any real discoveries or progress yet.”

              “Well, all we’ve done is stay on the boat. We might actually learn something on our missions. Stay strong, OK? I’ve got your back,” Ada reassured me as she hugged me.

              “Not anymore,” I lamented. “We’re separating.”

              “Just for a few days.”

              “Yeah, but you know why they’re doing this. To weaken us. They’re probably going to try to break us and get inside our heads when we’re alone. They know we’re a team. They want to get rid of our team.”

              “Look,” said Ada firmly. “Both of us are tough. I’ve seen you kick ass. We both have the training to keep our cool. Even without each other, we’ll be all right.”

              I looked at her squarely and got to see her injuries again, which I had been avoiding. I winced upon seeing the damage I did to her. I could see lumps and bruised skin, along with her black eye. Ada was putting on a brave face, but I could tell she was hurt. I still ached in some parts.

              “And, uh, I’m sorry about doing all that to you,” I muttered. I felt ashamed and angry. I knew we had no choice, but I still felt pissed at Ada for beating me. I knew it was wrong to hold a grudge, but it was too late. I had a grudge against my partner and the only person I could trust within a thousand miles.

              Ada turned away and avoided my gaze. “I’m sorry too,” she replied very quietly. I had a feeling that she wasn’t very sincere either.

              I broke away from Ada’s embrace. “We better get going,” I said passively.

Chapter 5 – McKenna

              I got on the plane and lay down on the bed. I normally didn’t like lying in bed when I was awake. If I wasn’t sleeping in bed or having fun with Jake, then it was time wasted to me. It felt good, but wasting time was something I didn’t tolerate. Sleeping in was a sin to me, in addition to forgiving my enemies and wasting food.

              I learned those values ever since I was a kid. They’re about the only useful things I ever gained from my childhood. I wish I could rewrite or at least forget the rest of my life before I met Jake. That was when I finally started opening my eyes and living.

              Some people like to brag about they rose from a horrible life to the great position they’re in right now. They ramble on about how shitty their neighborhood was, how dysfunctional their families were, how much bad luck they had. They insist that no one had it tougher than them, and that they’re hot stuff for leaving behind all that and managed to get onto cloud nine. I like to punch all these people in their pathetic faces, or just slam my knee into their shriveled balls if I’m in a good mood. What those people have been through doesn’t hold a single goddamn candle to what I’ve suffered. I ate more shit in my first 18 years than they can even begin to imagine. I started with literally nothing, and by all probabilities I should be dead now. Instead, I fought my way to greatness, and I’m going to be queen of the world one day.

              I almost died when I was born. I came out three months before I was supposed to be born. I weighed less than a pound and had to have a machine help me breathe. Every doctor who saw me as a kid told me I didn’t have much time left. From an early age, I learned not to trust experts who were sure that I had no future. The woman who gave birth to me didn’t even remember she was pregnant with me. She never bothered to tell me who impregnated her and made me. I’m sure that even if she wanted to know, she wouldn’t be able to find out. Besides, I have no desire to find the deadbeat redneck who met her at a gas station, knocked her up, and forgot about her five days later.

              The man who made me was a redneck, the woman who carried me was a redneck, and I was born a redneck. I was born into a redneck family in a redneck community in a redneck state. Hornhead, Mississippi, was a town of 182 sacks of bacterial growth known as humans. The leading industries were meth, prostitution, and human trafficking. Popular social groups included church, the militia, and the Ku Klux Klan. I’ve seen reality shows where the stars boast that they’re dyed-in-the-wool, larger-than-life rednecks, but those shows make me yawn. My life was too awful to even make up. If it was shot on camera and shown on TV, no one would believe it was real. Everywhere around me, I saw rednecks and their lives. I stopped thinking of the woman who raised me as my mother. I refuse to call her that. She had plenty of kids, but that was virtually the only motherly duty she performed. When it came to feeding us, protecting us, or loving us, we were all on our own. Me and my seven other siblings. There may have been others too, but they were out of the house so often that I can’t even recall if they exist. I’ve already successfully forgotten the names and faces of siblings who live with me.

              Our cramped and rotting house was never a home. It only occasionally got running water and electricity, and we didn’t even know what Wi-Fi was. Rats and roaches roamed as if they owned the place. They ate, wandered, and fornicated anywhere they wanted. I can still remember hearing the squeaks of rats and feeling their feet and tails over me as I slept, and stepping on a bug with my bare feet when I walked to the bathroom. The roof leaked, mold festered, smells wafted, floorboards cracked, and windows shattered. We took turns sleeping on beds; on certain days, I had to take the couch or the rug. Food was whatever we could rummage from trash cans or anything we stole from markets. During luckier times, someone actually had a job for a while and earned some cash to actually buy food.

              Attending school was optional, so we rarely ever went. I tried to go, but walking yourself to school is intimidating for a little kid. Getting made fun of by other people at school made me hate being around other kids. I ended up crying alone at recess after kids who were poor but still not as poor as I was cut my hair and spat on me. The girls were jealous of how I looked on the very first day, and wanted the boys to stop paying so much attention to me. The boys were just as vicious to me as the girls were, teaching me early on that gentlemen were a myth. Eventually, even the promise of free lunch couldn’t persuade me to go to school on a regular basis.

              My days consisted of waking up irregularly at any time I wanted, fighting for any scraps of food lying around, getting beaten up and tortured by my older brothers and sisters, and meandering through the local forests and streets, seeing what kind of trouble I could get into. I had to learn to defend myself as soon as I could walk, so I got good at fighting all sorts of people and using anything I had to my advantage. There was no such thing as fighting dirty. If it kept me alive, I would do it. I liked spending time alone in nature the most, since I felt safest there. I found out, though, that I wasn’t actually safe. Snakes, bears, and dark shadows creep out a little girl right away, and although I became an expert in foraging and living off the land, I always had to go back to find a somewhat warm place to sleep and eat some real food.

              The less I saw of my so-called mom, the better. As strong as my memory is, I can’t recall a single time when she ever hugged me, gave me a word of praise, or cooked something for me. There were no bedtime stories, no playtimes, and no kisses. If she somehow remembered my name and called me, I tried to run and hide, because I learned that it was never a good thing to hear my name. She left me alone when she was happy, and only called for me when she was angry and wanted to punish someone. It didn’t matter if I was innocent or not. She sometimes just called me to take her anger out on me. Once I heard my name, I knew I’d be getting a whipping, a spanking, or a pot of hot water to my face. She got creative with punishments, like throwing me out of the house, locking me in the freezer, or forcing me to kneel on grits until my legs bled. She made me eat bugs, threw me down the basement and wouldn’t give me food and water for days, and burned my clothes and toys in front of me. I stopped crying eventually, and learned that feelings are worthless in life. It doesn’t matter how hard you cry, scream, or wish things would be different. Life will rape you, and all you can do is take it.

              I thanked whatever higher power there may be when she was strung out on some drug and stretched out on the floor, porch, or ground, incapacitated by her own addictions and unable to hurt anyone. Her drug abuse was a double-edged sword, however. Those were usually times when she found herself a new man and brought him to the house for a few weeks of fun. Sometimes those guys stayed for a day or two and left of their own accord, either bored of one broad already or sober enough to see how fat and hideous the bitch really was. When a guy for whatever reason stayed a few months at our place, things would improve slightly. We’d get to take baths and watch TV because the bills were getting paid. We had reliable transportation thanks to having a functioning car that wouldn’t break down every mile or so. We could take trips to movie theaters and libraries, and get a glimpse of how civilized people lived. We could eat at restaurants, buy new clothes from Goodwill, and pretend for a while that we were a real family.