Kneel, Mr. Caster. I Don't Forgive

Josie's POV

Three years ago, on a night when it wouldn't stop raining, I carried Victor Caster out of a pile of bodies.

He'd taken two bullets. He grabbed my ankle and said: when I get back, I'll give you the world.

But when he came back, it was my sister Sabrina on his arm.

After that she was the woman who ran the Caster house, and I was the crazy one they locked away upstate.

Three years later, at the engagement party, Sabrina opened up her own wrist and screamed that I did it.

I tried to explain.

But the man I'd given half my life to save wouldn't even look at me. He just flicked his hand.

"Her hands don't know their place. Take them. And I don't want that face in front of me."

He never once looked up.

So why is it that the next time he sees me, the moment he really looks at my face, he goes down on his knees?

Today the Merritts marry into the Casters, one of the Five Families that own the East Coast.

And I, Josie Merritt, am pinned facedown on the floor by Caster's men.

Ten minutes ago my sister smashed a champagne flute, cut her own wrist with the glass, then screamed until the whole room came running, and told them I pushed her.

Victor Caster, the boss of the Caster family, stands there in a black suit with my half sister Sabrina pressed up against him.

"Victor, it hurts so bad." Sabrina holds up her wrist and that thin red line on it, her voice so thin it might give out. "She didn't mean it. She's just jealous that you picked me. Don't hold it against her. She grew up in the projects, she doesn't know how any of this works."

Jealous? Doesn't know any better?

She saw me walk in and panicked, so she made up this garbage to bury me.

I bite down on my lip and lift my head. "I didn't push her. Mr. Caster, pull the security footage. I never got near her."

"Shut your mouth." My own father slaps me hard enough that the room goes black and my ears start ringing. "You shameless little bastard. Sabrina saved Mr. Caster's life. She's going to be the woman of this family. What are you? You don't even carry the name, and you've got the nerve to stand here and talk back?"

Saved his life.

Something closes around my heart at those two words, squeezing until I can barely breathe.

Fate has a sick sense of humor. Three years ago, in that alley behind the Red Hook docks, in the pouring rain, I'm the one who took the bullet meant for Victor. I'm the one who carried him out of that pile of bodies. I traded half my life for his.

Then I woke up from the fever and everything had changed.

Sabrina picked up the bloody cross necklace I'd dropped and stepped into my place. And me, the bastard daughter my own father wouldn't claim, became the lunatic who tried to take credit for what her sister did.

Victor hasn't looked at me once. His eyes stay on Sabrina's wrist like that scratch is a fatal wound.

"Pull the footage?" Victor laughs under his breath. "My Sabrina says you pushed her. Then you pushed her."

He turns to the man beside him. "You know the rule. Somebody puts their hands on my woman, what does it cost them?"

"Your hands, boss."

My eyes go wide and everything in me turns to ice.

"No. Victor, you can't do this to me." I fight against them, trying to make him look at me, trying to tell him I'm the one who was in that alley telling him to hang on.

He doesn't give me the chance.

He frowns, waves me off, and heads for the stairs with Sabrina against him.

"Her hands don't know their place. Take them. Don't get anything on Sabrina's dress. Take her outside. And I don't want that face in front of me. Take care of it."

"Victor! You're going to regret this! You're going to regret this!" I'm still screaming when two of them grab my hair and haul me out.

Sabrina looks back at me and smiles.

The doors shut behind me and close off all that warmth and light.

Outside, the rain is coming down hard. They press my hands flat on the stone steps and lift an iron bar.

There's a wet crack, and the pain tears through every nerve I have. I can't even scream. I just convulse on the ground.

A second later something cold pours over the right side of my face. The burning takes over everything.

I don't have the strength left to fight. The last thing I catch before I go under is the music drifting out of the ballroom, soft and slow.

"Is it done?"

"They're done. Throw her back in the Merritt basement. Boss says let her live. Let her spend the rest of her life watching her sister have everything."