Secrets We Hunt (One Night #2)(20)

It won’t be too hard to track him down, not when his entire life is written down on the internet. I’ll have to get Owen’s help with this one though. I need it covered up by professionals with all the connections he holds.

“You’re thinking very loudly,” she says, reaching behind her to play with my hair.

“I didn’t mean to be.” I kiss her neck. “Want to get cleaned up?”

“Please,” she says, and I slowly slip out of her so that she can go to the bathroom. I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, thinking about all of the different ways I can make my uncle bleed for what he did to her.

My skin feels too tight, and I know I can’t wait forever. Maybe I’ll go pay him a visit while she visits her family in Morocco, and then I can meet up with her after.

I roll over and grab my phone out of my jeans pocket on the floor and shoot off a quick text to Owen, letting him know I’m going to need his help soon. I won’t tell them why; I won’t betray Zo?’s confidence like that. Not that the guys would push the issue. We trust each other. If something like this needs to happen, we trust there’s a reason.

Hitting Send, I toss it back onto the floor as Zo? walks out of the bathroom and yawns as she crawls back into bed.

“I’m not going to wake up to an empty bed again, am I?” I ask her as she curls herself into my body.

“That depends,” she says. “What was in that sneaky little text you just sent off?”

“Oh, you saw that, did you?” I laugh. “I’m enlisting Owen’s help for when I go beat the ever-loving shit out of my uncle,” I tell her bluntly.

She tenses, but other than that doesn’t give anything away. I let her think about it for a moment. Zo? doesn’t really know who I am anymore, but she has to know what he did can’t go unpunished. He touched her, he violated her, he took her from me. I won’t stand by with that information and do nothing.

“Okay,” she finally says, her voice small and quiet. “What’re you going to do to him?”

“I haven’t decided that yet,” I tell her. “There are so many ways to hurt someone without killing them, and I want to be smart about it.” I take a deep breath, trying to keep my anger under control. “Owen will help in that department though. I don’t know what the fuck his family gets up to behind the scenes, but he’s always there when shit goes down and something needs to be swept under the rug.”

“Quite the group of upstanding citizens you’ve got there.” She smiles up at me. “So, we’re doing this?” she asks.

“We’re doing this.”

“You have a lot of sucking up to do to my family, you know,” she says, wrapping herself more tightly around my body. “I may have told them all you were the one who abandoned me, not the other way around,” she says with nervous laughter.

“That’s okay, Zo-Zo. I’m great with moms,” I say in a teasing tone.

“Hands to yourself, Wesley,” she says, squeezing my sides exactly where I’m fucking ticklish. I laugh and roll over on top of her, pinning her hands above her head. I kiss her nose and then her mouth.

“Knock it off before I put you over my knee, Zo?.”

“Promises, promises.” She smiles and kisses me.





EPILOGUE





“So where’s Zo??” Greg asks me as we sit in the car, waiting for my uncle to get home.

“Still in Morocco with her parents. Figured I’d let them have some time together since it’s proving to be a little harder than I thought to win their trust back,” I tell him.

“And Owen? Anyone heard from him?” Greg turns around in his seat, eyeing Pyro in the back. “What about you, sneaky link?”

“Once again,” he groans, “it was just for fun. You guys take things too seriously.”

I laugh and turn my attention back to the big-ass house my uncle now lives in. Owen is off getting married in Italy, and Jack is backpacking his way through Europe, so today’s little excursion rests solely on the three of us.

“He’s busy getting married, but he’s still going to make sure this is swept under the rug for us once we’re finished,” I tell them.

“Fucking wild that his family is just marrying him off like that,” Greg murmurs to my right.

“Right?” I muse.

“Car,” Pyro says, and I feel the atmosphere between us all shift.

I get a brief glimpse of my uncle as he drives past us and pulls into his driveway, waiting for the garage door to open, and then I watch as it closes behind him. My entire body is taut with anticipation and raw fucking rage at the sight of him. Now that I know what he did, how he touched her… I shake my head to clear it.

“I’m going in.” My voice holds steadier than I feel.

“We’re right behind you,” Greg says as they both get out of the car and follow me up to the front door. It’s a stupidly normal-looking house with stucco walls and a clay tile roof. I roll my neck as I lift my hand to knock. It only takes a moment before he’s answering.

“Wesley,” he says, the shock clear in his eyes. He’s not aged well since I saw him last. His hair is almost completely grey, and his beard is peppered with silver as well. He’s no longer bigger than me, and it pleases me to see he seems nervous.