My Bad Boy's Secret: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (37 page)

              On either side of us were two fighter jets, and they were preparing to aim for us again with their missiles.

              “Enemy planes!” called the pilot. “What do we do?”

              I ran to the cockpit and pushed the girl aside. “Let me handle this.”

              The missiles fired and nearly hit our wings, but for me twisting and performing several barrel rolls. I pushed down the controls and made the plane nosedive. I knew that our engine was already severely damaged. One more hit and we were doomed.

              I tried every trick I could think of to shake them off. For nearly an hour, they were on our tail. I finally got rid of them when I flew closely to them and did enough spins that they were confused and crashed into each other.

              All four planes were destroyed, and we were finally free of our harassers, but I still felt close to death. The ordeal left me sweaty and exhausted.

              “Are you all right?” I asked Sabina. She was hiding in the bathroom. She turned to me and shook her head.

              “Well, the good news is that they’re gone. I destroyed them. We can go home now.”

              She nodded and tried hard to smile, but she couldn’t. I didn’t blame her. I was deeply worried and on edge as well.

Chapter 7 – Sabina

              I was hyperventilating again. We almost got killed back there, and I had to pull Jake to safety. As if lying my way into a gang wasn’t tough enough, I risked losing my life today. No wonder I felt like I was ready to curl up and die.

              After rehearsing my backstory for so long, I managed to tell it to Jake pretty smoothly, or as smoothly as I could while I worried about being killed by a maniac. Ever since I got on the ship and laid eyes on Jake, I was wondering if the next minute might be my last minute alive. I’ve dealt with some tough and unsavory people before, but I’ve never encountered anyone as inscrutable as Jake. It was simply impossible to read him.

              Even when he was silent, Jake grabbed my attention and never let go of it. He was far more charismatic than any person I’d ever met. No one else in my entire life had the energy that he did. It was like an aura of power and dominance resided in him and touched all the people near him. While I was terrified of him, I couldn’t run away. I wanted to stay and spend as much time as I could with him.

              At first, this feeling was driving me crazy. It scared me. I thought I never knew this state of mind before. It later dawned on me that it wasn’t something new. I felt like this before, but not this strongly. It was a crush. Not just any typical crush, but a burning and unsustainable crush, pressing down so hard against me that the emotions were tearing me apart. I fell for guys before, but Jake was sending my heart and mind into overdrive.

              Someone who was as handsome and seductive as Jake shouldn’t exist. His appearance was unreal. His body was pure energy; over the course of this day, he never seemed to run out of power. His claims about being tired and needing rest were bogus. He might actually have superpowers. Jake had magnetic eyes, a mesmerizing smile, rugged hair, and a mind that functioned at a higher level than anyone else’s. Just being addressed by him made me stand straighter and listen more closely.

              Oh my god, I thought with amazement and horror. I’m falling in love with him.

              On paper, it made no sense. Jake was capable of horrible atrocities. He killed people casually. He sold drugs and weapons, and fostered crime and violence all over the world. He did business with guerillas, drug lords, dictators, extremists, and anyone seeking to make the world a more lawless place. Jake never listened to anyone. He made his own rules, and everyone else had to accommodate him. I was an officer of the law, working for the American government, tasked to spy on him and ultimately bring him to justice. How could I ever have affection for him?

              In the time I spent with him so far, though, I had no personal problem with him. Jake was forceful and made me serve him doing his bidding at all times, but he had done nothing totally objectionable. He never hurt me, abused me, or killed me. He shielded me from bullets, hid me from enemies, and looked out for my safety. He was polite, considerate, and forgiving. He asked me questions, comforted me, and held back if I asked him to. I could think of plenty of guys I met in the past who were worse to me than Jake, who bullied, mocked, and hurt me. They made me scared of getting close to men. In every interaction, Jake had been nothing but a gentleman. He combined respect with ferocity, making me an ideal bad boy. He treated me well, while making me treat him well simultaneously. I couldn’t help it. I loved being his pet and accompanying him. I wanted to be told what to do and receive rewards.

              I thought back about having sex for the first time. Of all the men in the world, I lost my virginity to Jake Strider, one of the world’s most powerful men and most influential criminals. A shy and ordinary girl like me was now with an international crime lord. The craziest thing was that I wanted to take this further, and go even deeper in my relationship.

              My desire to vomit grew even stronger. Why was this happening? Was I really so incapable of controlling my nerves? Now, I couldn’t try any harder. I dashed to the bathroom and opened my mouth, belching and spraying vomit into the sink. Green and yellow sludge coated the white porcelain bowl, doing away with the spotless surface. I wasn’t finished; I kept vomiting more until the slurry was so thick that it wouldn’t flow away.

              I felt humiliated for throwing up. I’d been healthy until today. I later realized, however, that my nightmare just started. I thought that vomiting was horrible enough, but as the hours ticked by and the flight dragged on, more symptoms appeared and racked my body.

I spent most of the flight stuck in the bathroom, suffering from onslaughts of new problems. I began crying, baffled at what was wrong with me. After the vomiting, I doubled over with stomach pain that raged and kicked me so hard that I had to kneel. Standing was too much for me to bear. My head decided to join, as headaches started and my skull felt like it was being stabbed by millions of hot knives turning my brain to mush. Previously sharp images in my eyes glazed and blurred together, so that I could only perceive wavy blobs. I sat on the toilet and filled it with products of diarrhea, flushing and flushing repeatedly. Nausea grew worse, and it was more painful than any nauseous episode I ever lived through.

I began to think that Jake saw through my deception and chose to get rid of me subtly, poisoning me to death. It was only slightly less messy than shooting me. I vomited and excreted so much that I was convinced that I lost all of my organs and bodily fluids. My body was filthy and enervated. I could only crawl out of the bathroom, and I begged for death to take my life swiftly so that the suffering would end.

Jake was standing outside all this time. He of course heard my moans and cries of agony, but he did nothing, leaving me alone to waste away.

I looked up and saw his weirdly impassive face. “Jake,” I croaked, “help me.”

              He pulled me up and helped me lie down on a couch, covering me with a blanket. He then poured me water to drink. I could barely notice what was happening around me.

              “Wh-what is going on? Are you trying to kill me?” I struggled to put words together. I wasn’t even sure if I was looking at him.

              “Relax, Sabina. I’m sure you must have eaten something bad. It’ll pass soon,” he said very softly, as if I just fell and had a minor accident.

              What Jake said rang an alarm bell in my head. Eating something. The pills. Those things that he refused to explain to me. Of course, those were killing me. So it was poison, and I had fallen for it.

              “The pills,” I stammered. “They’re poison.”

              I felt Jake grip my right hand firmly.

              “No,” I heard. “Don’t worry, I didn’t poison you. It’s not my style. You can be sure I didn’t feed you poison. This is just the first stage. You have no choice but to keep taking those pills. You’ll soon find out what they’re for.”

              I no longer had any energy to respond. My mind was even blurrier than my vision. If I was going to die, I couldn’t muster the energy to do something about it. All I could do now was lie back and wait for what would come next.

Chapter 8 – Ada

              I finished dying my hair and walked out of the bathroom, glad to leave. It was agonizing to do it all on my own, but I had no choice, since McKenna sure as hell wouldn’t help. For the very first time in my life, I was now blonde.

              It was too weird to even think about. I never thought blonde hair would look good on me. But Jake ordered it, and how could I refuse? His word was law.

              I sat down opposite McKenna. I wished I picked somewhere farther away to sit. She looked up from a book she was reading and glared, then chuckled harshly.

              “I don’t usually think Jake has bad ideas, but this is one of them,” she sniped.

              “Whatever,” I muttered. “You’re so blonde, I’m surprised that you can even read.”

              I noticed her clench her hands into fists, and I’m pretty sure she wanted to stab me with her champagne glass, but she just stayed quiet and kept reading.

              Considering the tension and hate between us, one could be forgiven for thinking we were sitting in the middle of Siberia. We were both feeling cold toward each other, and we didn’t say a single word for the entire nine hours of flight.

              Our private jet landed on a small airstrip. I got off the plane and saw nothing but endless fields of red dirt and patches of dry shrubs. We were basically alone in the middle of nowhere.

              “Look sharp,” barked McKenna. “We’re about to see how tough you really are. I’m going to be negotiating a new deal with some buyers, and if all goes well, we’ll make some money in this sale. You watch my back for any tricks. This will be harder than wrestling your slut friend.”

              I just nodded. I didn’t want to dignify her order with any words. I saw a cavalcade of cars cruising up to the airport. That must have been the buyers.

              I knew something was wrong when I heard whirling sounds. I looked up to see that the source of the noise was several helicopters. Their twirling blades grew louder as they got closer. Things got truly bizarre when I saw the cars stop moving. From behind, a black mound appeared. It rolled slowly towards us. I almost shit my pants.

              “Is that…” I asked.

              “Yes…a tank,” said McKenna, just as bowled over as I was. “What the fuck?”

              The choppers were hovering, and ropes fell down. I knew what was about to appear.

              “Fuck! It’s a trap! We’re screwed!” I shouted.

              “Ready to fight?” McKenna declared rhetorically.

              We stood with our backs to each other. Heavily armored figures slid down the ropes, carrying assault rifles. We both knew what to do. We drew out our pistols and aimed for the heads, picking off as many people as possible before their feet hit the ground and they became too dangerous.

              The cars were getting closer. I retrieved rifles from the plane, and we blasted away at the mercenaries coming down from the choppers, aware that at any second, we could be dead.

              We got rid of quite a few of them, but more kept coming, and we were surrounded by the caravan of cars and the tank. I saw that I had one opportunity to end this, and I had no better choice than to take it.

              “Wait here, I’ll be right back,” I told McKenna.

              “Where the hell are you going?” she demanded.

              I ignored her and went back into the plane. The pilot was cowering and of no use. I ignored her and opened a long case, taking out the sniper rifle I was looking for. I got out, aimed down the barrel of the tank, and took my shot. If I waited any longer, it would fire first, and all hope would be lost.