🩸 Red on the Carpet — The First Sign Something’s Wrong (Chapter 9 Free)

 It begins with a towel wrapped too tight and a joke meant to cut the tension. In Chapter 9, Olivia finds her father bleeding—and the scene plays like a warning you don’t recognize until it’s too late.

It’s intimate, human, and unsettling. Because the worst nights often start with something small.

👇 Read Chapter 9

NINE

Streeter Residence, Traverse City, Michigan

            The garage door groaned to a close behind Liv as she exited the BMW, her arms laden with grocery bags. A fresh layer of snow had settled on the driveway, barely concealing the tire tracks that hinted at earlier activity. The car's headlights flickered off, plunging the garage into semi-darkness.

As she stepped into the kitchen from the garage, a pervasive silence welcomed her. The only sound breaking it was the distant hum of the central heating, ticking like a quiet metronome as it fought off the winter chill.

"Dad? Anyone?" she called, a touch of concern coloring her voice.

She waited for a beat, half-expecting to hear her dad's voice or even Bianka's bustling somewhere in the background. Nothing. A silence so thick she could almost feel it hanging in the air.

Liv carefully set down the bags on the kitchen counter and tucked the newly bought coffee into the pantry. She scanned the first floor, eyes darting into the corners of rooms as if she expected to find someone hiding.

For the second time, she called out, "Dad?"

The living room, too, was empty. An uneasy feeling crawled up Liv's spine. It wasn't like her dad to leave the house like this—especially not without a note or a text.

As she climbed the stairs, her boots leaving faint imprints on the plush carpet, Liv's eyes landed on something unusual: spots of crimson on the beige walkway that overlooked the living area below. Her heart tightened. For a fleeting second, images from a tactical first-aid course she'd taken flashed through her mind.

Following the droplets, her eyes scanned for their point of origin. It wasn’t until her dad’s voice rang out that her breathing normalized.

"I'm in here, had a bit of an accident," he called, his voice strained but tinged with relief.

Pushing open the bathroom door that was ajar, Liv’s eyes met a distressing sight. Her father, Blake Streeter, had a towel tightly wrapped around his arm, the fabric quickly turning a darker shade of red as it soaked up the bleeding.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice tinged with concern and disbelief.

"I don't know, exactly. Feels like I snagged it on a loose nail in one of the door frames. One minute I was walking, the next minute, I felt the pull, then the tear and the blood," Blake tried to explain, wincing at his own words.

Liv sighed, "I can't leave you home for ten minutes, Dad. I knew I should've called a sitter."

Blake chuckled, "Where have I heard that before?"

The humor was brief but welcome, a minor distraction from the immediate problem. Yet, as Blake unwrapped the towel to inspect the wound, the levity vanished.

"Can you grab another towel?" he asked, attempting to maintain his composure.

Liv complied but when she saw the wound, she muttered a single word that cut through the jovial atmosphere like a knife through butter: "Stitches."

You feel it, don’t you? The air is getting thinner.
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