Chapter 2

Josie's POV

The basement stank of mold and blood.

I didn't know how long I'd been lying there. It was pitch dark, except for a thin line of light leaking in through the vent in the corner.

Nobody had touched my wounds. They'd already started to fester. Every breath dragged against torn nerves.

The fever kept pulling me under and dropping me back. In those broken half-dreams, I kept going back to that rainy night three years ago.

Back then I was just a girl picking up cash jobs on the black market to cover my mother's medical bills.

I'd stayed late that night and walked straight into the tail end of a gang shootout.

I saw Victor lying in the middle of it.

He wasn't the boss yet, just some kid his own family had marked for dead. Two bullets in his stomach, bleeding out fast.

"Help me." He grabbed my ankle, his eyes vicious and scared at the same time.

I should have run. I didn't.

I hauled him up, dodged the gunfire, and dragged him into the boiler room of a condemned building. I didn't know what I was doing, but I dug the bullets out and wrapped the wounds anyway.

That night he burned with fever and held onto me like I was the only thing keeping him alive.

His fingers found the cross necklace around my neck, the only thing my mother ever left me.

He pulled it off and closed his fist around it. "When I get back, I'm coming for you. I'll give you the world."

Fate had other plans.

I passed out from exhaustion, and that's when Sabrina showed up with the rest of the Merritts.

She took the necklace and walked off with my name and everything I'd done. And me, they locked up in a psychiatric facility upstate for two years. A bastard daughter was bad for the family name.

By the time I got out, Victor already ran the Caster family, and Sabrina was the one he couldn't stop looking at.

The heavy basement door swung open, and a flashlight beam cut straight into my face.

"Still breathing?" The Merritt housekeeper pinched his nose shut, disgusted, and kicked my leg. "Boss says come morning, you're going out to a place that'll pay for a body, even a broken one."

A brothel.

Those words hit like ice water. My eyes snapped open.

I wasn't dying here. I was not ending like this.

"Water," I managed, my voice tearing out of my throat like a rusted hinge.

The housekeeper sneered. "Water? Save your spit for the men paying for it tomorrow."

The door slammed shut and locked again.

I made myself stay conscious, dragging myself across the cold, wet floor toward the vent.

There was a loose piece of sheet metal there with a sharp edge.

I bit down on what was left of my sleeve and slammed my shoulder into the metal with everything I had.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Blood ran down my shoulder, but I didn't feel any of it. There was only one thought left in my head: stay alive. I had to stay alive.

The metal finally gave, just enough to open a gap.

I pressed my face against the cold dirt and pulled in what little fresh air made it through.

That's when I heard it: footsteps pounding closer from outside, an engine roaring behind them.

A gunshot tore through the night, followed by a guard screaming.

"It's the Casters! It's Leon!"

I froze.

Leon Caster? Victor's brother, always off fighting somewhere, the one they called a mad dog?

Outside was chaos. Fire lit up the sky.

"Search everywhere! Tear this place apart if you have to!" a voice roared through the night, wild and sure of itself.

I didn't know who he was looking for. But I knew this was my only shot.

I dragged myself to the vent with everything I had left and screamed. "Help!"