Stepbrother Soldier's Baby: The Hero (The Complete Series) by Lila Moore Read Free Book Online Page A

ever.”
    “Bullshit. She had Nathan arrested.”
    “To punish him- not because she wanted him to go away forever. You on the other hand… she couldn’t care less if you disappeared from her life.”
    The SUV jerked hard to the right. A horn honked behind us. We’d narrowly avoided hitting a car. Jackson took an exit and turned back towards the city.
    “Where are we going?” I asked.
    “Shut her up,” Jackson said to the man beside me.
    He handed his weapon to the man sitting in the front seat who turned it on Nathan. Then the man beside me took a black scarf out of his bag. He folded it over into a gag then wrapped it around my head. I turned away from him.
    “Don’t fight me,” he warned coolly.
    To hell with that. I twisted away from him, kicking and punching.
    “Give me the gun,” the man said to his partner.
    “Olivia,” Nate said.
    The calm in his voice startled me. I stopped fighting. It was the first Nate had spoken since our abduction. All eyes were on him.
    “Do as he says.”
    He looked defeated. The heaviness in his eyes broke my heart. It was like he was giving up.
    “Listen to your boyfriend,” Jackson said.
    I turned to face the soldier beside me. He wrapped the gag around my head tightly. The scarf was dry and tasted of sweat in my mouth. I was already nauseous from morning sickness. The taste of the gag made me want to vomit.
    The man pulled a rope out of his bag and took my hands. I watched as he tied them together.
    Great, I thought, there goes my advantage. If only I’d kept my mouth shut and let them go on thinking I was a harmless little girl, I might have stood a chance of escaping. Now, I’d annoyed them with my loud mouth.
    I balled my hands into fists and tensed the muscles in my arms as the soldier bound my wrists. Once he’d finished, I let my hands fall slack. I once saw a show on television about magician tricks. The way Houdini was able to escape ropes was by tensing his muscles when being tied up. After being bound, he would completely relax his body. The lack of tension created just enough space to wiggle out of his ropes.
    While the soldier was looking away I tested the ropes. They slid slightly down my wrists. If I had enough time, I thought I could free myself. Or so I hoped. The ropes were tight. It would take a lot of effort.
    I looked over at Nathan. He was watching me quietly. He shook his head as if trying to warn me off of whatever I was planning. He knew I was going to try and escape and yet, he wanted me to stay submissive.
    The man in the front handed the soldier beside me his gun; he stuck it in his side holster. Nate wasn’t bound or gagged and now they weren’t even bothering to point a gun at him. They weren’t threatened by him at all anymore.
    It was strange.
    Suddenly, I understood why: I was the leverage. As long as they had control over me, they controlled Nate. He wouldn’t do anything that would put my life in danger.
    I watched as the skyscrapers grew taller in my window. We were moving closer to the city. The storm still loomed dark over the suburbs. Was it headed our way? What about my mother? What would she think when she came home to find the house in shambles and us missing? She would be beside herself.
    I rested my head against the cool glass of the window and closed my eyes. Finding out I was pregnant was a terrifying moment. The future had opened up in front of me as uncertain and unknowable.
    In spite of my fear, I never regretted sleeping with Nathan, but now I was starting to have my doubts. The consequences of that act had echoed through my life in ways I never could have imagined.
    Fretting about it was pointless; I couldn’t change the past, but I still had control over the future. Was Nate the kind of man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with? I looked over at him. Blood still ran wetly down the side of his face. A gash on the top of his head was raw and ugly. His jaw was tense; his gaze never wavered as he stared ahead.
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