Sins of a Bad Boy (The Original Bad Boys Book 1) (11 page)

CHAPTER 12

One hour passed until William was sure Ivy was sleeping deeply, lying on her side, her back to him. Naked, in his bed. Never in his entire life had William slept in the same bed with someone. It was wholly uncomfortable. 

He scrubbed his stubble to dispel that distressing feeling he’d had since he fucked her and decided to leave the bed. 

After getting up and slipping into his boxers, he grabbed a pair of metal handcuffs, similar to the ones he had in his underground room, and walked around to Ivy’s side of the bed on the left.

Her eyelids were red, but she was sleeping peacefully with her arm tucked under the pillow, extended toward the bedpost. It seemed as if she were offering him her wrist to cuff. Fate was hilarious sometimes. Slowly, he clicked one end around her wrist and the other around the bedpost. Luckily, she didn’t notice or stir at all.

Instead of leaving right away, he stood there, studying her sleeping form for a long time, and then he left, aggravated. Why, he didn’t want to examine and, instead, tamped it down by going into the next room, which was his workout sanctuary.

Just as William was finished with his sets of eight reps of bicep curls, he heard a soft rap on the elevator door. Something William and Charles did late at night when they needed to talk to one another but didn’t want to invade the other’s home without any warning.

Dropping the halters, he made his way to the door.

As suspected, Charles was standing on the other side.

“Can you talk?” Charles whispered.

William held out his arm toward the living room, inviting him in. “Yes, but talk softly. She’s sleeping in the bedroom.”

Charles nodded and perched against the armrest of the sofa. “And did our plan work?”

William stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, a hand rubbing his jawline. “Yes. She sees me as her hero now.”

Charles angled his head and cast a questioning look upon William. “You seem bothered. What’s wrong?”

“I’m just tired,” he lied, not revealing his rioting emotions of lust for Ivy. 

“Hmmm…okay… Why did you rough up Markson that badly?” Charles asked and added, “Didn’t he do as planned and ordered?”

“He did, somewhat. I told him that I would make his fantasy come true: have an employee in a red dress waiting for him at the bar and that she’d argue and fight when he played with her. I also instructed him to wait until I was present to touch or whip her because I supposedly wanted us to do it together. She was not supposed to be touched! When I saw her there, looking so fragile, I lost it. We had a score to settle with Markson anyway, so I’m not sorry about what I did. What did
you
do with him?”

“I told him that we only give out two warnings. And to consider this his second. Next time he wants to trick us, he’ll pay with his life. Silk delivered him on the curb outside of Hookers.”

William rolled his neck, which didn’t dissipate the tension whatsoever. “I doubt she stole our money…” he mentioned suddenly.

Charles stood ramrod straight at his admission. “What do you mean you doubt she stole it? You were certain it was the Ravensdales.” 

“Because if she stole my money and understands why I kidnapped her, why is she so easily falling for me? Why is this upper class lady accepting her fate? Her actions don’t make sense to me.”

Charles seemed to consider his answer. “Perhaps you were right that she’s being led by her desires? She’s obviously captivated by ‘our’ world. Don’t forget that these ‘ladies’ normally live a quite boring and sheltered life.”

William blew out a sigh. “Let me tell you, for a sheltered lady, she’s a vixen in the bedroom.” And he didn’t want to elaborate any further. 

But Charles got the point. “So? Many women are passionate. That means nothing. Don’t forget that you’re not treating her like a true captive. I think she’s very much drawn to you so that she’s forgetting how it all started. Granted,
you
have ulterior motives, but
she
isn’t aware of that. I still believe she’s our perpetrator. You need to be careful that
she
isn’t screwing with
your
head either.”

William didn’t deny nor confirm, and Charles didn’t press the matter.

“Well, she’s becoming enamored with me, so our plan worked. Now, we just need to wait until Alfred contacts us.” William urgently wanted to end this discussion, so he redirected the conversation. “I need to get some sleep because I have to work out first thing tomorrow morning for my fight.”

“Fine, go to bed. And don’t forget the rules of tomorrow’s fight. I’m worried about your being this on edge. Maybe I should rethink my policy and have a female employee of Sins work her magic on you,” Charles said, departing with a wink.

William let out a weak laugh as Charles’s offer didn’t incite anything within him. No, his body was thoroughly satiated by Ivy, and his mind thought of her incessantly. “Just make sure someone’s watching Ivy when I fight tomorrow. I’m taking her with me.”

“Will do,” Charles answered as he disappeared. 

William wanted to sleep on his couch; however, he found himself traipsing to his bedroom.

“Fuck!” he mumbled, feeling frustrated because he was on the verge of losing control.

Exactly what kind of control he was losing, he couldn’t pinpoint. But he knew he should’ve slept on the couch. Yet he didn’t. In fact, he curled up in his bed, feeling cold, and drifted off to sleep while keeping a safe distance between him and Ivy.

Nevertheless, during the night, he was somehow drawn to the comfort of her warm body. His figure curled toward hers on its own volition, and he spooned her while he dreamed of how his life started out and why he’d become so driven to acquire wealth and power. Why he’d become detached from the emotions of others, especially those of the upper class.

***

William Kade was born and raised in the Loop in an orphanage in the poorest part of town. It was an old brown-brick building that was too small to house its sixty-five residents: sixty kids (and counting) and five caretakers, and all of its walls were covered in yellowed paper that had white patches where pieces of artwork used to hang. He shared a tiny bedroom full of steel beds with thin mattresses and nothing else with two boys of different ages. At fifteen, fourteen and thirteen, they were the three eldest in the orphanage.

William was always a quiet little boy, wondering why he felt lonely, a sense of isolation surrounding him constantly. He didn’t remember his biological parents.

From his earliest memories, everything William knew was violence, and the orphanage was what he thought Hell must be like. It was where the unwanted poor children ended up. A home where no one wanted to look after them and they were punished for ever being born.

William could never comprehend the ferocity of the punishments that took place in the orphanage. The children were beaten into subordination without any explanation. A subordination no one understood, because the caretakers just did what they wanted. If a child would so much as look at a caretaker the wrong way, he would be beaten with a hot iron first, and then the next time he was punished, he would be left in the garden to sleep outside in the cold night’s air, forced to soil himself. Sometimes William thought they wanted all the children dead so they wouldn’t have the burden of taking care of them.

There were times when William tried to stand up to the caretakers, but it only angered them further. Once, after they marred his side with the hot iron, they threw a barrel of feces over him and left him outside for days.

The caretakers were upper class citizens and felt entitled to do whatever they wished to the children that no one in society cared about. Something William knew all too well, for he realized early on the difference between lower and upper class. The upper class always felt they were better than everyone else. As if they ruled the world, and in essence, they did. They ruled his world that consisted of only the orphanage since the children were rarely allowed outside the gates of the perimeter.

As the kids grew up, they lived in a mindless state of fear and violence. Therefore, William was always angry and couldn’t abide by the rules that were irrational to him, which caused trouble for everyone, because everyone was punished when one child disobeyed. However, the children never turned on each other. No, even their young minds understood that they were stronger together as a team.

William, Jake, and Ben, the eldest three boys, tried their best to shield and protect the younger ones. Unfortunately, they failed often, leaving deep emotional scars on their young hearts.

As time went by, all these children started to believe that violence was indeed the answer to everything. They started to believe that the entire world was cruel, because to them, the orphanage was the entire world, and the only way to survive was to be vicious and ruthless.

Then, when William was fifteen, one night changed everything for him, Jake, and Ben. One night they would never forget. One night that set all of their lives into a direction of constant mistrust.

It was already after midnight, and the room was cloaked in darkness when William woke up as his face was being smothered into his pillow. He was sleeping on his stomach and was suddenly wide awake, gasping for air as a hand on the back of his head prevented him from pulling air into his lungs. He felt coldness surrounding him when his cotton pajama pants were pulled down, and he knew instantly what this man’s intentions were. William screamed furtively and cried in pain when a knee hit his lower back, keeping him from rolling over.

“You scumbag, you always taunt me, and it’s time you learn your place, little boy,” was spat maliciously into his ear.

William’s legs were held in place by a second attacker, who shoved his underwear down.

Instead of simply accepting his fate, he fought back with all he had. Years of anger, years of fear compelled him to make a choice he never thought he’d make, so he grasped the weapon he had hidden underneath his pillow because he always dreaded this would happen. He always knew that he needed some kind of protection. With all his strength, he grabbed the knife he had carved from wood and kicked his legs relentlessly until he could move. He managed to roll over and plunged the sharp end of the knife into a neck, causing blood to spray out onto William’s face and the cotton sheets.

The body of his attacker, one of the male caretakers of the orphanage, fell onto William, knocking the breath out of him.

A piercing yell ensued from the second attacker, who was a female.

Everything after that happened too fast, and he could scarcely see anything in the dark room.

William pushed the man off him while kicking his second attacker, who had been standing at the end of the bed, in the stomach when she charged at him. Swiftly, he lunged up and pulled up his pants.

By now, the other two boys in the room had woken up, and Jake put his arm around the woman’s throat and a hand over her mouth as Ben sank William’s makeshift wooden knife into the male attacker’s stomach, over and over.

“Stop it, Ben!” William whisper-shouted, knowing full well they’d just killed a man and there was a living witness still in the room.

Jake nodded toward Ben’s hand that was still holding the wooden weapon. “We have to end her too, William; it’s the only choice we have.”

And young boys that they were, they made a reckless decision that would affect their entire future.

William took his knife from Ben and, without thinking, plunged it into her heart. He thought it was the only option in containing the repercussions this mess would hold for them. Yet, he didn’t feel regret. In fact, he felt satisfaction, finally gaining the revenge that he’d longed for since he was a small boy against the caretakers.

Jake dropped her lifeless body onto William’s bed, and none of the boys spoke for what felt like hours yet was only a couple of minutes.

Abruptly, William rushed them into action. “There’s so much blood everywhere. We need to leave this place immediately before anyone else wakes up, because there’s no way in hell that we can cover this up.”

Six frantic eyes clashed, and the other two boys nodded their agreement.

“What are we going to do?” Ben asked.

“First, clean the blood off your hands and then grab some of your clothes and get dressed. NOW!” William ordered and added, “Then, we’re leaving and splitting up as soon as we get outside.”

Within a minute, the three boys were cleaned up and dressed. Only, William had so much blood on his face and neck and in his hair that he was sure there were still streaks of red on his skin.

Dawn was breaking, so William took the keys to the front door and the gate from the male lying on the floor, and they ran out of the still-quiet house and onto the streets.

The wooden wheels of a few carriages rode over the concrete ground as William, Jake, and Ben crossed the street to flee the area as fast as possible. Since they’d never ventured outside much, all three boys were fascinated by some of the richly decorated carriages that were taking wealthy people to their destinations.

“Watch out!” a rider yelled angrily and pulled his horse to a stop.