Playboy billionaire Aiden Grayson is being blackmailed and when he meets his handsome new bodyguard, Julian, he's slowly overcome by feelings he can't deny.
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Aiden Grayson is a child of privi...
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43. DEADORALIVE
When Aiden and Greg's men pulled into Julian's driveway, they were greeted with a very grim scene.
All lights were off inside the house. All four doors on Julian's car had been left wide open, some of its contents thrown out onto the ground as if it'd been searched by someone.
The front door to Julian's house was open and lying across the threshold was the dead body of a dirty looking man dressed in all black.
To make matters worse, there was a messy blood trail in crazy patterns on the concrete, showing off some kind of a struggle that perhaps had been between two people.
Whether the blood belonged to the dead man or someone else, no one knew; what Aiden and Greg's men did know, however, was that they were dealing with two deceased people rather than just one.
"Mr. Grayson, I'm urging you to stay behind to let Frank and I go inside to do our job," Kenneth Banks – a forty-year-old father of three that has twenty plus years of policing under his belt, said to Aiden in an uncompromising tone as he eyed him through the rearview mirror.
"I'm going inside with you guys – end of discussion," Aiden fought back. "I'm not sitting out here in this car to lose what little sanity I have left!" Aiden sighed, shaking his head, feeling like all this was his fault. "I have to go in. I don't know what I'll be able to do, but I just can't have anyone else die today because of me. So I'm going with you guys."
"By taking you with us, we'll be putting you in the line of danger and that'd be doing the opposite of our job - protecting you," Frank Latham, a thirty-five-year-old transferee from another department downtown, replied in a less stern tone than his partner's. "We serve and protect those in need. Your friends in that house are in need right now. Ken and I must go inside to protect them, but you also need protection, which is why it's best if you stay in the car out harm's way, at least until we capture the gun-toting suspect that's already shot and killed one of our people."
"His name was Joshua Hall," Aiden informed him, and then he proceeded to do what he does best – let his anger take control. "I'm not going to continue going in circles with you guys. We're all going to go inside and face the crazy bitch together. Besides, I have to get her to confess on tape, so if you all want to get technical, I need to go inside. She's doing all this because of me, and I refuse to let anyone else get hurt or killed on my behalf. If she wants to hurt me so damn bad, she can have me, but not Julian or Cassie. And if I can somehow convince her to let them go then you two had better step up and get them the hell out of there, no questions asked."
"We can't agree to any of that, Mr. Grayson. I'm sorry," Kenneth said. "It's way too risky."
"Well, I can't agree to sit out here in this damned car and do nothing while two innocent people face off against a psychopath that's really only after me!" Aiden tried to open the door, but it could only be opened from the outside. "One of you had better get me the fuck out of this stupid backseat right now."
