He rang. He knocked.

She didn’t answer.

He turned and looked to Jed who was now leaning against the door outside his car.

Jed pointed at her house with a sharp upward jerk of his chin.

She was in there.

Why didn’t she open the goddamned door?

He called her and got voicemail again.

“I’m out front, Liv. Open the fuckin’ door,” he growled into the phone.

He disconnected and then he texted that same message to her.

He hit the doorbell.

He knocked.

No answer.

Fuck!

He moved around the side of the house, found a foothold in order to jump the five foot tall fence and prowled to a set of French doors that led to the pool. He tried his key.

His temper cooled considerably when it worked.

He opened the door and moved into her space.

Then he moved through her space, going where he thought she’d likely be, the front great room.

She wasn’t there.

He called her name.

No answer.

He went back on the move.

She wasn’t in her bedroom. She wasn’t in any bathrooms.

His temper spiked along with his concern as he instigated a room by room search of the house, repeatedly calling her name.

He found her in her informal family room where she watched television. He’d not seen her in there because the room was dark, the curtains drawn, and she was at the far end of the room.

Having pulled a curtain back, she was standing in it, her back to the door of the room. He almost didn’t see her even stepping into the room to look for her.

He felt no relief due to the fact she didn’t even twitch when he joined her in the room and she had to have heard him moving around and shouting her fucking name.

“Jesus, Liv, what the fuck?” he bit out as he moved to a lamp on a table by the couch and switched it on to light the dim room. “Tweaked as all fuck, been callin’ you—”

She turned.

He stopped dead as rage seared through him.

“Jesus, fuck,” he whispered and took the last distance to her in two long strides.

In that time, she slid out from the curtain, away from the window and away from him.

Nick stopped moving toward her, instead he turned with her movements.

First things first.

“Who did that to your face?” he growled.

“Dad,” she answered emotionlessly.

He ignored the smoldering burn of fury.

Again, first things first, take care of his girl.

“You should have somethin’ on it. You got frozen peas?” he asked.

“It’s perfectly fine.”

He stared at her.

It was not fine. The corner of her left eye was blood red with burst blood vessels, her temple purpled angrily, the cheekbone under swelling and shoving up the bottom of her eye.