Page 5 of Breathe
“I can get a look at the computer in Savage’s office,” Beck offered.
Azrael shook his head. “I’m better off looking into the Genesis database. They keep an extensive list of guns for hire who takes jobs via the dark net.”
“No shit?” Boston said, eyebrows raised.
“How the hell are you going to access Genesis?” Beck asked with a frown.
It wasn’t the first time Azrael had accessed a forbidden database, and it wouldn’t be the last. The only drawback was the fact that Azrael had moved out of Dave’s place. Getting a look at the former SecDef’s systems had been easy because he had lived there and had overheard things like passwords and procedures.
Now, though, he needed to have another reason to be there.
“There’s a guy I met at Dave’s place who seems…interesting. I’ll meet him for drinks on Friday,” Azrael said, pulling his black long-sleeved t-shirt off over his head on his way to the shower.
The place wasn’t all that big, but it did have two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a bathroom.
“You talking about Real?” Boston called after him.
Azrael turned into the hallway.
“No.”
The word was spoken quietly, but they all heard him.
He reached the bathroom and closed the door on any further questions.
He and Real were done.
Not that they had even started. Real was a master at dodging anything that might resemble a relationship, and right now, Azrael was glad for it, he reminded himself.
Which was saying something. At first, he had been pissed to all hell, but after realizing that Real wanted nothing to do with him in that way, Azrael had seen the light.
He needed to get his own shit together in order to figure out how to achieve the success he wanted—versus chasing after a hardened former SEAL who was too jaded to take a chance on them.
Azrael realized that his insecurities were holding him back, and after months of taking a hard look at himself, he finally understood he was his own worst enemy.
Living with a past filled with horrific acts of violence came with a heavy price. Some of those acts he had committed himself, but it was the brutality that had been done to him that he constantly warred with.
And those memories of cruelty were something nobody should have to live with.
The only thing he could think of was to let time work its magic.
He wasn’t looking for a miracle.
He was looking for redemption.
All he wanted was a chance to breathe.
Maybe, just maybe, YA could give him that.
“Have you seen enough?”
Real tore his gaze away from Azrael and Winter and frowned at Stone.
“No, why?” Real asked.
“Because we really shouldn’t be here.” Stone swallowed down the rest of the soda water in his glass and placed it on the table.
They were sitting in a noisy nightclub in downtown Santa Barbara on a Friday night and the place was fucking packed. So much so, Real had a gut feeling of impending doom. And it had nothing to do with the dateAzrael was on with Winter.
