Betrayed by My Bodyguard, I Replaced Him with a Loyal Hound

My name is Cassandra Moretti. I trained my own chief bodyguard for 12 years. Then he turned a gun on me over the housekeeper's daughter. In three minutes, I ruined his gun hand and drove him out of Grayhaven. The alarm at the Moretti estate went off for seven seconds before dawn that day. Seven seconds was enough for a trained thief to photograph the ledger in the vault. It was also enough for the three rival families in the North District to learn where every one of our hidden warehouses sat. But the one who'd broken into the vault wasn't a professional. It was the housekeeper's daughter, Erin Bennett. My men had her pinned to the marble floor. Her phone still held the photos she hadn't managed to send. Under family rules, anyone who stole the ledger lost a hand. Before the sentence could be carried out, Adrian Cole crashed through the door. He put down two guards, grabbed a gun, chambered a round, and pressed the muzzle to my heart. My eyes went to a thin silver scratch along the grip. I'd given him that gun for his 21st birthday. The day he tested it, he'd taken a ricochet meant for me—that was where the mark came from. He'd promised the weapon would never be aimed at me. "Cassandra, she was only looking for her mother's medical records. She didn't know what that ledger meant." 12 years ago, he'd been a half-dead boy his gambling-addict father had beaten within an inch of his life. I paid his debts and sent him to the best tactical academy there was, turning an unwanted stray into the most important operative the Moretti family had. He'd sworn his gun would only ever stand between me and danger. Now it was leveled dead at my heart. Erin hid behind him, sobbing. "Don't cross Miss Moretti for my sake. I'll take the punishment. Someone like me never belonged here anyway." Adrian's jaw tightened. "No one's going to touch you," he promised her, gentle. When he looked back at me, his eyes held nothing but reproach. "You own this whole city. Why do you have to go after a girl who has nothing?" I glanced down at the muzzle against my chest. "You think I'm punishing her out of jealousy?" His silence was answer enough. How funny. I'd let him move Erin into better and better positions. I'd let him use my car to drive her to dates. I'd even let him hand her invitations to events reserved for the family's inner circle. He'd come to believe my patience would never run out. "Adrian, do you remember the code you memorized your first day?" "I know what I'm doing." He pulled Erin closer behind him. "Let her go. After that, my life is yours." "Fine." I pressed the button hidden inside my ring. A concealed door slid open behind the wall, and 12 of my personal guards raised their weapons at once. Adrian's face finally changed. He'd trained them—but he'd never known I don't show every card in my hand to any one person. "Disarm him," I said. The second he hesitated, the deputy captain kicked his wrist. The gun hit the floor, and three men forced him to his knees at my feet. Erin shrieked and lunged toward us. Someone caught her by the hair and hauled her back into the corner. I picked up the gun and dropped the magazine. Empty. He'd been sure I'd soften the moment I saw that. But betrayal was never a question of whether the gun was loaded. I tossed the empty weapon down in front of him. "Your life isn't what you owe me. You owe me everything the Moretti family ever gave you." A shot cracked through the room. The round tore through his right palm. Adrian went down with a muffled sound. I turned the barrel next on the left knee that had won him all that glory in taekwondo, and pulled the trigger without a second's pause. "As of now, you are no longer my bodyguard."