Forbidden Desires

The Red Stain

~~ Dina’s Pov ~~

There was blood dripping down the stairs when I reached home.

"Dad, Mom! I'm home!" My voice seemed to echo, but I was met with silence from the whole house. I quickly took my shoes off and rushed upstairs. I checked every room, but it was empty! On my way back downstairs, something made my heart drop: a red stain on the stairs.

I picked at it and saw that it was blood. My heart skipped for a moment, then it stopped, rewound, and slapped me across the face as I had just woken up from a nightmare. I flew down the stairs at top speed and almost ate the tiles. My hands were shaking tremendously, but still, with great difficulty, I managed to grab my phone as it was the one thing standing between me and my death. I tried calling my mom, but her line was unavailable.

"God, what the hell is going on?" I thought I finally got hold of my Dad's number, but my hands were shaking as the fear ran all over my body.

I held my breath and murmured, "Pick up Dad.”

"Hi doll." I almost jumped out of my skin as I heard his voice.

"Dad, where the hell were you and what happened? I have been trying to reach you since."

"Oh, so sorry, sweetheart, I took your Mom to the airport; she is having a business trip, and I totally forgot to inform you," Dad replied coolly.

"What about the stain of blood on the stairs?" I ask breathlessly.

"Hahaha, that? It's the puppy's blood; he got injured, but he is doing fine now," he answers cheerfully.

Thank God, I exhaled so loudly that I nearly deflated. Was I being overly dramatic? Probably, but the sight of the blood stain made me compose horror movie scripts in my head that would beat Hollywood.

It's 8 PM, and my Dad still isn't home; I sit on the couch, my eyes glued to the door, then to the phone, waiting for a call or a knock. I'm still staring, my minutes are crawling, and I swear they have somewhere better to be.

The sharp BUZZZ of the doorbell made me jump out of my seat. I ran to the door. I didn't walk; I ran to him. Before my Dad had even set foot in the door, I threw my arms around his waist and hugged him. It's been a whole six months. Six months of video calls and six months of “I'll be back soon.” And now here he was; he's so well built, elegant, and smells of the same cologne I grew up with. My dad is forty-seven but looks like a twenty-year-old boy.

“How’s school, doll?” He asked.

“School was great,” I said. “I miss you so much, Daddy."

"I miss you too, Doll," he replied. Yes, I love it when he calls me Doll. We ate, we laughed, and talked about a lot of things for a few minutes. I felt warmth, safety, and normalcy, but then I nearly asked him about Mom, and just like that... The warmth disappears, for Mom is a different person; we are like Serpent and Mongoose.

~~ Fourteen Years Earlier ~~

I was only six years old when my biological father walked out of our lives without having the decency to ever look back. He discarded us for Helen, one of the wealthiest heiresses in California—a tall, curvaceous ex-supermodel who possessed the kind of breathtaking beauty that bought my father's absolute loyalty.

He threw his real family away like a piece of old, out-of-season clothing just to buy himself a glamorous new life.

And from the very day he left, I became my mother’s ultimate enemy.

In her eyes, I wasn't her daughter; I was the living, breathing anchor of her suffering. She told me once, with a coldness that permanently chipped a piece of my soul away, that if she had never given birth to me, her life would have been completely different. She wouldn't have been trapped. She wouldn't have been abandoned.

If it wasn't for Aunt Jane, my mother's younger sister, I don't think I would have survived. Aunt Jane shielded me, raising me alongside her own son, my cousin John.

But a few months later, the unbelievable happened. My mother crossed paths with Robert, a long-lost friend from her past. When they married, it felt like watching two halves of a shattered circle finally locking back together. I was standing there as a child, watching them exchange their vows, and an incredible wave of joy had washed over me. Finally, I had a father, Robert, who was officially my stepdad.

I genuinely believed that once my mother had her life back, once the crushing loneliness faded and she had the man she had secretly missed for decades by her side, she would turn around and love me again.

I was dead wrong.

Even with Robert in her life, her hatred for me remained as bitter as ever. It was a brutal pill to swallow, realizing her malice had nothing to do with my biological father leaving. It was just about me.

But Robert saw it all. He never looked the other way; he tried unequivocally to make her see me, to force her to love her own child, but her heart was permanently locked against my existence.

Yet, despite her freezing neglect, my life has drastically improved the moment Robert became the patriarch of our home. He became the exact blueprint of what an ideal husband and an even more perfect father should be. He stepped into every empty, bleeding space that my mother left behind, sponsoring my education and ensuring every single one of my needs was met with absolute luxury. He gave me a sense of security I never thought I would experience. He made me feel like I wasn't entirely alone in the world.

** Present Day **

"It's okay, honey," Robert whispered across the dinner table, his voice carrying that signature, deep calm that instantly leveled the usual tension of the house.

I offered a tiny smile of thanks, nodding as I did, for the peace he never failed to offer me here. Our dinner concluded peacefully; the only sound in the dining room was a dull ping of silver on porcelain at intervals, and in an hour we were both behind the sturdy oak doors of our respective bedrooms.

I slipped into bed, the exhaustion of the day finally catching up to me. But as I closed my eyes, a sudden chilling realization made my stomach drop.

The puppy.

We hadn't had a dog in over two years, and my mom hasn't allowed any puppies since then. So there was no puppy… then whose blood was that?

Just as the nightmare began to engulf me, I heard the slightest and most distinct floorboard creak, just outside my door in the hall.