Hold Safe (Biker Daddy Bodyguards #3) - Sue Brown Page 0,1
to be so open about his boy. “If you ever need time away, the cabin at the back is yours. That goes for both of you.”
“We might take you up on that,” Quinn said with a smile. “If I can drag my boy away from the studio.”
“Likewise,” Craig agreed. “Louis needs time away from the city.”
Mo waited until they sat around the kitchen table, a massive chunk of scrubbed pine he’d cut down and made himself. He placed large cups of coffee in front of them all, before he said, “I know why you’re here and it won’t work. I’m not coming back to CDR.”
“We need you,” Quinn said.
Mo shook his head. “No, you don’t. They may have dragged you both in with the daddy/biker bullshit, but that’s all it is, bullshit.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been listening to the chatter about us?”
“Griff drove up here last week to bitch about you both.”
Quinn’s lips twitched. “Good, then I don’t need to explain.”
Mo took a long chug of coffee before he spoke. “I said no to Dominic already. I’m out of the security game for good. Why won’t you leave me alone?”
“He didn’t listen to us saying no,” Craig said dryly. “Why should you be special?”
“You’re young guys. I’m an old man. Security is a young man’s game. I’m too old—”
“Now who’s talking bullshit? You’re only a few years older than me,” Quinn said bluntly. “We’re asking you to guard someone’s back. Not take out a foreign dictator.”
Mo stared at him bleakly. “No one wants a bodyguard who screwed up.”
Craig leaned forward and placed his hand over Mo’s. “You can make as many excuses as you want, Mo, but we’ve all screwed up at one point or another. I fucked my client and then walked out on him.”
“Louis doesn’t count, you were in love. I got my client killed,” Mo snapped, snatching his hand away. He didn’t need their pity.
Quinn shook his head. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I should have taken the bullet.”
“You did take a bullet, Mo,” Craig pointed out. “You were shot too, trying to save your client, but he didn’t listen. We were there, remember? If he’d listened to you, he wouldn’t have died. No one blames you, except you.”
And there was the crux of the matter. Mo had never gotten over losing his client. He’d been exonerated by police reports and CDR, the security firm he worked for at the time. There were too many witnesses who said the client ignored Mo’s advice to keep his mouth shut and his head down. But Mo couldn’t get past it. He’d had a long, almost charmed life as a bodyguard and then it had come to a screeching halt with one bullet. Mo had retreated to his home in the mountains and refused all further assignments. He knew he was lucky. He had worked away most of the time, saving all his wages, and his needs now were minimal. He lived off his savings, taking occasional handyman work to help his neighbors, just for something to do.
“Have you heard from Davey?” Quinn asked, his tone unusually gentle.
Mo pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Not since he walked out.”
He couldn’t miss the pity in Craig’s eyes. Once upon a time they had mourned the loss of their boys over too many bottles of bourbon. Now Craig had his boy back in his arms. That would never happen to Mo.
“Davey got married last year. He sent me an invite to the wedding. A final fuck you.”
Mo hadn’t only lost his job to the bullet. He’d lost his lover and his boy too.
“I need something stronger,” he muttered and stood, but Quinn shook his head.
“We need to talk before we get drunk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Mo said, but he sat back down.
“We have a client.”
“Good for you. Find someone else.”
“No,” Quinn said flatly. “It has to be you.”
“Fuck off.”
Craig scowled at him. “We. Need. You.”
Mo was shocked by Craig’s sudden anger. “There are others.”
“But not for this client.”
“Who is he?”
“A twenty-five-year-old pain-in-the-ass CEO.” Craig grimaced. “He thinks he’s a Daddy. He’s also all over me. You can imagine how that goes down with Louis.”
“So spank him to show him he’s a boy, and send him on his way.”
“Louis would kill me.”
“And so would Cade,” Quinn added. “Joseph Holden has tried his luck with all the boys in the area. They turned him down flat. None of them want a wannabe.”
Mo furrowed his brow; something was familiar. “Holden? Why do I