My Bad Boy's Secret: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (41 page)

              “You don’t suspect one of those girls is behind this, do you? Are they possibly leaking information?”

              Jake stared at me quizzically. “Not again with this crap, Addy. Once again, I trust Ada and Sabina. You should too.”

              “Ada may be all right with me, but Sabina seems to be shifty.”

              Jake just groaned and went back to staring at his laptop, reading the profiles of people he deemed suspicious. I had no choice in this case. He didn’t want to argue any longer, so I resumed writing the guest list.

Chapter 4 – Jake

              I didn’t want to admit to McKenna then and there that she might have been right. I was, for the first time ever, wondering if we were being trailed by law enforcement. It made no sense. How could we be? We stayed as anonymous as always. We had changed nothing. Logically, we should’ve been on the same old routine.

              Lately, however, things were anything but routine. We were seeing profits decline and shipments get seized and destroyed. The Crew was facing losses for the first time in years since we started. Something was absolutely wrong.

              The recent troubles made it difficult for me to sleep. I was spending more time trying to take my mind off the issues by playing more with Ada and Sabina. The most nagging thing about the setbacks was that they happened with little clue about who was responsible. I was extremely perturbed.

              That was yet another factor that made my final plan so crucial. In a few more weeks, I was going to pull off my most audacious scheme yet. McKenna had been working with me to do it for a long time. If we succeeded, we would be unstoppable, and no one would ever find us. All the brilliant ideas and hard work from the world’s authorities would be useless against us.

              McKenna and I were currently reviewing the final touches to our plan. “We have the viruses ready,” I noted. “We’ve been working on designing them for over a year. Once we release them to infect every computer on the planet, we’ll send every government agency and organization that ever pursued us into oblivion. The viruses are engineered to corrupt websites, bank accounts, databases, and everything else that society needs in order to function.”
 

              “People won’t even be able to buy a latte or make a deposit after that,” remarked McKenna.

              “Exactly,” I confirmed. “What’s more, this particular virus we have here is designed to search out and eliminate the remaining photos and data that belong to the Crew. Everything that could possibly be used to identify us will be erased. We’ve done well so far in hiding ourselves, but the G32 virus is going to finally finish the job.”             

              “A shame it can’t eliminate certain enemies of ours for us too.”

              I smirked at McKenna, brutal as always. “We have no choice but to do that ourselves. We’ll see to it at the wedding. You are comfortable with me doing what I told you about, right?”

              McKenna frowned uneasily at me. “Are you really sure that this is the best idea? What if I don’t reach you in time? What if for some reason, it doesn’t work, and…and I lose you? I can’t let that happen.”

              “Relax,” I replied as I gripped her hands to ameliorate her. “I know you can do this. Yes, this is a very risky move, but no one will be anticipating it. We’ve rehearsed the steps so many times, you can do it in your sleep. You will be able to rescue me. And after that, all we have left is our escape to make.”

              She still looked nervous. I understood that we were plotting something dangerous, and that I was putting my life on the line. However, big risks tended to yield big results. I was still going to stick with the plan. It was something only the two of us were privy to. The rest of the world could burn for all I cared.

              I glanced at and felt my bare left wrist, irritated and puzzled. All day, I couldn’t find the silver wristwatch I regularly wore. It was where I stored my data, plans, and viruses. No one ever suspected that such a minute object carried so much importance.

              But I hadn’t seen it since I placed it on my desk in the morning. That bugged me.

Chapter 5 – Sabina

              I was sitting next to Ada on the couch of a reading room. We were the only ones present. It was deathly quiet, and we were stuck with our own conflicting desires and ideas.

              I was lucky enough that Jake left his watch on the desk in the bedroom. As soon as I made sure he was gone, I grabbed it and punched in the password that I always saw him type. I opened it and made copies of the files inside, and sent them back to Washington. My heart almost burst open during the whole time I was working on the watch. The intensity and my out-of-control nerves were almost too much to bear.

              “Tell me the truth,” I asked Ada, “what would you really do right now? Would you defect? Or are you going to stay?”

              Ada didn’t respond for a while. She was thinking. I didn’t know how to respond either.

              “I have to say, I love Jake,” I said to myself. “I’ve never had sex this awesome. I love his sexiness, his charm, his power. I love living this rich life, getting to relax every day, never worrying about money or anything regular people are concerned with.”

              “But I know the truth,” I continued. “I’m not naïve. I know Jake kills people and commits crime. But I could just join him, leave behind everything bad in my past, and have a happy life.” I sighed and put my head in my hands. “I just don’t know.”

              Ada hugged me. “I know. I want to join him too. I understand everything you’re saying. I love being here too. But think about it. There’s a good chance we’ll end up dead soon if we stay with Jake. We’ve hurt people, killed people, and done god knows what. If you’re going to defect, I really hope you’ve thought it through.”

              For hours, we continued thinking. We were scared of how much responsibility we were dealing with.

              I spoke again. “I don’t think I can go through with it. At least for now. I have a feeling that in five minutes, I’ll change my mind again. I’ve been going back and forth for ages.”

              “Me too,” nodded Ada. “But I can’t leave behind my parents, my home, my country. I know this life right now is cool, but it’s going to get us killed someday.”

              I knew she was right, but I still relished what I had been through during the last few months. This was the toughest decision of my life, and I was still far from sure what my choice was.

              “We might as well keep going on with our plan,” commented Ada. “Since you’re spending more time with Jake, you got into his watch, right?”

              “Yeah, I broke into it. I saw when he leaves it, and that he’s storing data in it. I managed to access it. Are you working on McKenna’s necklace?”

              “Leave it to me,” replied Ada with confidence I hadn’t heard in a long time that night.

Chapter 6 – Ada

              I’d been trying for multiple times that night. A few days later, I was alone with McKenna again, and we were drinking together at one of the bars on the ship. I knew that she had a great ability to drink and not feel anything, but I never thought that anyone could be this capable of staying sober.

              My plan was to get her drunk enough so that I could remove her necklace temporarily and see what was inside. It was by far the best plan I had. Getting the choker away from her was risky in any way. She never took it off; it was one of her most treasured possessions. I was losing control of myself, and I really needed to come up with something clever to retrieve the necklace. I had heard McKenna mentioning that it was loaded with secret data, and that she and Jake depended on it.

              When McKenna walked away for a moment to check her makeup, I decided to take another step. I withdrew some sleep medication and poured the powder into her cocktail. I waited and hoped that she would take the bait.

              To my delight, McKenna took one sip. At least, it worked for a few seconds. She scrunched up her face and frowned after tasting it once.

              “What happened to the flavor?” she demanded. “Something is definitely wrong.” She turned to me. “Did you tamper with this?”

              I was starting to sweat, but I played it cool. “No. Maybe something was wrong with one of the ingredients.”

              “Don’t be stupid,” she snorted. “I mixed this drink myself and I know what I used was good. This drink is probably spiked.” She sprinkled a powder into it, and the amber liquid turned green.

              “I knew it,” she muttered. “It has something in it, all right. The powder brings about a color change, indicating the presence of a foreign substance. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m not having any more of this drink.” She poured it down a drain and prepared herself something new.

              The damage, however, was done. After about twenty minutes, McKenna was swaying and falling asleep. Her speech became slurred and slow. She laid her head down and began sleeping. I wasted no time in opening the clasp and taking the choker off her neck. I clicked in the combination I saw her press in, and opened it. Inside on both sides were photos of her and Jake, happy and smiling like a normal couple and nothing like the two most powerful criminals in the world.

              I knew, though, that there was more to it. I took one of McKenna’s fingers and pressed it onto the surface of the photos. Immediately, a whirring sound came out, and out slipped a chip from the locket. That must have been the files I was looking for.

              I took the chip and copied the data into my computer. I saw that it contained viruses, secret communications, and other plans that only Jake and McKenna knew of. I had hit a jackpot. If anyone found out that I did this, though, I would be dead. I slipped the chip back into the locket and fitted it back onto McKenna’s neck, trying to achieve the original look. I left the bar right away, falling over a few times from how much I drank.

Chapter 7 – McKenna

              Someone drugged me. When I came to, my head pounded and the pain was agonizing. The humiliation of being drugged, however, felt worse. I checked my body to make sure nothing had happened to me. Surely no one had violated me. It was just me and Ada a while back, and Jake of course wasn’t at fault. But there was someone else. Sabina.

              I never liked that redheaded bitch. Maybe Ada had done this to me. But I wanted to hurt Sabina and take out my anger on her. I grabbed at my locket to make sure it was still there and intact. Everything looked to be in order. Now I had to find Sabina and shake some answers out of her.

              I stomped over to her room, and I nearly punched the door down. “Talk!” I screamed when I saw her sitting on a sofa. “What did you make me drink? And why did you drug me?”

              Sabina was scared stiff. “What are you talking about? I never did anything to you. I would never hurt you!” She scrambled to shrink away from me, but I grabbed her hair and pulled her into a wooden chair. I took some clothes and tied her limbs tightly, making sure to give her no space to wiggle. Once I was ready, I began my beating. I punched her in the face, slammed my stilettos into her chest, and put all my strength into breaking her.

              Sabina was screaming and letting the whole ship hear, but that mattered nothing to me. After a few minutes of this, I breathed a bit to relax, but I was far from finished. The bathroom door then opened, and in came Ada.

              “What the hell? Why are you hurting Sabina?” she rushed over and tried to untie her, but I pushed her back.

              “Someone drugged me and tried to do something to me! I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m going to find out! And Sabina is the prime suspect right now!” I snarled.

              Ada’s eyes widened and her face lost its color. “But I’m sure Sabina couldn’t have done it. She was with Jake for pretty much the whole day. So she was never near you! And why would she do that in the first place?”