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

Chapter 2

Adrian lay in a spreading pool of blood, staring at me like he couldn't believe it. "You're really going to destroy me over something this small?"

"Small?"

At my signal, the lawyer switched on the projector. The ledger page Erin had photographed held the real names, home addresses, and family details of 12 undercover agents. If that image had gone out, not one of them would have seen morning.

"The woman you're protecting isn't some girl who wandered into the wrong room. She's a thief who nearly got 12 of our brothers killed. You never even asked why she'd shut the alarm off ahead of time."

Adrian's lips moved. Still, he held on. "She'd never hurt anyone on purpose."

Some people see the truth perfectly well. They just refuse to admit they chose wrong.

I was done explaining. The lawyer set Adrian's lifetime security contract on the table. In front of him, I lifted the document and fed it to the fire. As the flames ate his name, the butler had three cases brought in—the suits I'd had tailored for him, his medals, his watch, and the black-and-gold insignia that marked the chief bodyguard's authority. I took out the insignia and snapped it in two.

"Repossess his car, his accounts, his apartment. Throw them both out of Ashland before sunrise."

Erin threw herself down beside Adrian, sobbing, demanding to know how I could be so cruel. I wiped a fleck of blood off my fingertip and looked at her, calm.

"If he hadn't traded 12 years of service for your life, you'd already be at the bottom of Lake Blackwater."

The estate's iron gates shut behind them.

Everyone assumed losing Adrian would wound me. But no matter how good a blade is, once it turns on the hand that holds it, it deserves to be broken.

"What are you doing about the chief bodyguard slot?" my uncle asked over the phone. "Promoting one of the deputy captains?"

"No." I picked up my coat. "I'm going to the South District."

There were underground fights every Friday in an abandoned slaughterhouse down there. Not respectable boxing. No referees, no rounds. The cage opened only when one man stopped moving.

The owner stacked the files of ex-soldiers and mercenaries in front of me. Impressive résumés, all of them—but I could see a price tag in every pair of eyes. I wasn't shopping for goods that went to the highest bidder.

I was about to leave when the room downstairs went dead quiet.

Inside the steel cage, a man in a muzzle was boxed in by four opponents. Several ribs down his left side were clearly broken, his brow was split, blood covered half his face. When the biggest of them swung a chain, he stepped into it instead of away. He took the hit on his shoulder, spun, and shattered the man's knee. A textbook spinning back kick—beautiful, and almost cruel. The other three tried to run, but the cage was still locked. In under two minutes, all three were down.

The man tore off the muzzle and looked up at the second floor. His eyes were an odd pale gray, like a wolf's against snow. Black thorn tattoos climbed from his chest up the side of his neck, running wild between old scars.

The owner dropped his voice. "Leon Vale. Used to run with a cleanup squad in Bellano. His outfit sold him here after he refused to kill a kid. He's bitten through three buyers' throats. Nobody's ever managed to tame him."

Leon stared at me through the crowd. Then he dropped to one knee in the blood.