Secrets We Hunt (One Night #2) Read online

  CONTENTS

  Content Warning

  Theme Song

  Arabic to English translations:

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Dana Isaly

  SECRETS WE HUNT

  Copyright © 2021 Dana Isaly

  All rights reserved.

  Published: Dana Isaly 2021

  No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form without written consent from the author. Except in the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a piece of fiction. Any names, characters, businesses, places or events are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and have not purchased it for your use only, then you should return it to your favorite book retailer and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Editing: Sandra at One Love Editing

  Cover Design: Pink Elephant Designs

  Formatting: Pink Elephant Designs

  CONTENT WARNING

  This book is only for those over the age of legal adulthood due to its graphic sexual content, violence, and mention of rape.

  THEME SONG

  Someone To You by BANNERS

  For Hadeel, because you needed a beefcake.

  ARABIC TO ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS:

  Habibi - My love

  Nari - Shit

  Rohi - My soul

  Rtah - Relax

  Tani - Again

  Wes skout ma bghitch nraf - (roughly) Wes, shut up, I don’t want to know this.

  PROLOGUE

  TEN YEARS AGO

  WES

  Zoë rushes in, her skin flushed from running. Her curls float around her head like a wild halo, and she pushes them out of her face as she looks around. She yells my name between taking huge gulps of air.

  “I’m right here, Zo,” I tell her, waving at her from where I’m sitting on the couch. “What’s wrong with you?” I ask her as I give her sweaty appearance a once-over.

  “Look,” she says, making her way over to where I sit, holding a finger up at my face. “I ran all the way here, okay? Because my parents aren’t home, and I’m like ninety-nine percent sure I have a fucking mouse in my car.” She stares at me, and I stare at her. I bite my lip but can’t hold back the burst of laughter that came out.

  “Wes,” she warns, trying to hold back her own laughter. “This isn’t funny. Get your butt up and come help me! Please!”

  “What do you want me to do about it?” I ask her, my voice going a bit higher in pitch than I wanted it to.

  “Set a trap or something! Just get it out!” She walks over to me and shakes me by my shoulders, causing the scent of whatever shampoo she used to invade my personal space. I swallow the urge to inhale and pull her closer. I shrug her off and stand up.

  “Alright, wimpy. I’m sure Uncle Andrew has some traps out in the garage. Let’s grab one, and I’ll go set it up in your car. Should catch it overnight.”

  “Is he home?” she asks, suddenly wrapping her arms around her chest. “He gives me the creeps.”

  “Uncle Andrew does?” I couldn’t contain the shock in my tone. Zoë and I have been friends since my parents died and I moved into the neighborhood with my uncle eight years ago. She’s always been around him when hanging out with me and has never mentioned anything about it.

  “Yeah,” she answers, looking around for him.

  “No, he’s out with some friends for the evening. Why does he creep you out?” I ask as we make our way into the garage. I search through the shelves as she explains

  “He’s always looking at me, and it’s not in a casual way. I always feel like he’s staring at me, leering at me or something, I don’t know. Have you never noticed?”

  “What?” I laugh, pulling a trap out. “What do you mean he’s always looking at you?”

  “Forget it,” she says, following me out of the garage. “So, we set that on the floor of the car and it’ll work?”

  “Should,” I answer her as I look over at her, trying to decide whether or not I should push the issue about my uncle. He’s never given me any indication that he isn’t a normal, good person, but if my best friend feels weird around him, I kind of want to know why. “Zo,” I start, but she cuts me off with the wave of her hand.

  “Forget it,” she says with a smile. “Seriously, it’s okay. Just me being dramatic.” She bats her eyelashes and bumps my shoulder as we make our way out of the house and down to hers. I snort.

  “So, what did you do to get a mouse in your car?” I ask, changing the subject for her. “Leaving Sour Patch Watermelons in it again?”

  “Ugh,” she groans. “Actually, yes. I went out before running over here because I wanted to get gas before school tomorrow. My watermelons were everywhere, Wes. Everywhere! And then I started looking around, and I saw little mouse poop and half-chewed-on watermelons. How do they even get in a damn car?”

  “Just your luck, Zo-Zo,” I tell her, throwing my arm around her shoulders. Any sign of discomfort about my uncle seems to have left her as we make our way down the street. “You’re just insanely lucky that you have such a beefy, strong man right down the road to help the damsel in distress.”

  She snorts, and I watch her cheeks blush a soft pink. It stirs something in my gut, but I push it away. I wasn’t about to ruin the only serious friendship I had by literally fucking it. I do love her in more ways than one, but I’m too much of a chickenshit to say something,

  Zoë shrugs me off and takes a few steps to create some distance between us.

  “You know this earns you lifelong friendship status, right?” she tells me as she gives me a corny smile.

  “Promises, promises.” I wink at her, and she just rolls her eyes and takes off down the road.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Present Day. Off the coast of Greece for the wedding of Quinlan and Jack

  WES

  “You have way too much fucking money,” I say to Jack as we all get dressed in the men’s rooms below deck. He laughs and looks over his shoulder at me.

  “Even this was a stretch for me,” he says, straightening his shirt. “Between this weekend on the yacht and backpacking our way through Europe for the next month, I told her we are surviving off of ramen for a year.”

  “I think we all know that isn’t true,” Greg scoffs. “You could travel around Europe in this damn yacht for a month and still be living just as high as you are now.”

  Jack flips him off and turns back to me.

  “I gotta ask. What’s up with the pants?” he asks.

  “Honestly, I was wondering the same thing,” Pyro says, laughing. “They look more like something I would wear.”

  “It’s fashion,” I tell them, doing a spin in my outfit and striking a stupid pose. I have fitted black-and-white striped pants on and a white short-sleeved button-up that shows off all my tattoos. “I’m here to woo one of Q’s bridesmaids, remember? I have to look the part.”

  “That part for what?” Owen asks. “The lead in Beetlejuice?”

  “Ho
w about we all just shut up and go get this asshole married?” I ask, clapping my hands on Jack’s shoulders. He looks at me in the mirror and nods with a smile.

  We make our way up to the very top deck, where there’s the best view of the sunset on one side and Santorini on the other. The ceremony is small, just their closest friends and family on either side of the aisle. And as we all stand at the front, waiting for Quin and her bridesmaids, my eyes catch on wild brown hair at the back. I do a double take and try to crane my neck around all the people.

  “What’re you doing?” Jack whispers as the music begins to play and the bridesmaids start down the aisle.

  “Nothing,” I tell him, ignoring the pull in my stomach telling me I know those curls. Flashbacks of Zoë flood my mind, the way her hair smelled and the way she laughed when she thought something I said was really funny. She would throw her head back, and the loudest cackle would burst from her throat. It was obnoxious and embarrassing and so fucking Zoë it hurt.

  But there’s no way she could be at my best friend’s wedding on his yacht in Greece. To my knowledge, they don’t even know each other.

  Could she know Quin?

  After the ceremony, everyone makes their way down to the deck below, where the food and drinks are being served, along with a makeshift dance floor. My eyes keep glancing around, trying to find the girl from earlier, with no luck. I probably look like a crazy person, not paying attention to anything going on around me other than trying to find out whether or not Zoë is here.

  “Who the fuck are you looking for?” Greg asks me, handing me a beer. I take it from him and try to pull my focus away from the people on the dance floor. There is probably a max of fifty people, but I still can’t seem to pick that hair out of the crowd. “You look like a stalker over here in the corner watching people.”

  “I thought I saw someone,” I tell him. “Do you know if a girl named Zoë is here?”

  “How do you know Zoë?” Jack asks, popping into our conversation. I feel my stomach somersault like a teenager. I knew it had been her.

  “So, she is here?” I ask him, feeling my entire body light on fire with electricity.

  “How do you know Zoë?” he asks me again, looking at me like I’m up to no good.

  “We used to be friends when we were younger,” I tell him, scanning around the crowd again before zeroing in on her being pulled to the dance floor by Quin.

  “She was Quin’s first friend out in California,” he says. “Quin answered Zoë’s ad for a roommate, and they’ve been inseparable ever since.”

  “So why haven’t we seen her around?” I ask, never taking my eyes off her. God, that smile makes my heart triple in speed.

  “She’s been off traveling for the past year or so. She’s a journalist that goes around writing blog posts for hotels and stuff like that. She’s been all over.” He pauses, and I feel his gaze swing over to me. “If you’re such good friends with her, why don’t you know all of this?”

  “I told you,” I sigh, looking over at him and Greg. “We used to be best friends. She fell off the face of the Earth without a word when we were eighteen.”

  “How’d you fuck that one up?” Greg asks with a laugh. “Literally fuck it?”

  I give him a look and then move my gaze back to the dance floor to watch her. Without listening to whatever the guys were saying, I circle it, watching as her cheeks blush a deep pink and her silky blue dress spins around her legs as she twirls for Q.

  Will she be happy to see me? Shocked, just like I am to see her? I can’t stop running back through all my old insecurities as to why she cut me out of her life without a second thought. I was worried about her, and then I was angry and hurt. She caused me to put up a lot of walls that weren’t there before her.

  “Wes!” Quin shouts and waves in my direction. I smile as I watch Zoë freeze with her back to me, her shoulders tense. Her hair is half up in a bun, and the rest cascades down her back in a flurry of spirals.

  “Hey there, blushing bride,” I say to Quin as I get close enough for her to hear me. I stay behind Zoë but get close enough she can feel me.

  “This is my friend Zoë!”

  Zoë turns around and looks up at me, an uneasy smile on her full lips as she takes me in. In her heels, she isn’t more than a few inches shorter than me, but her frame is so tiny I can’t help but feel a foot taller. I could easily swing her up and over my shoulder, taking her somewhere private to punish her for cutting me out of her life like she did. The idea sends the blood rushing to my dick, and I quickly shake the vision out of my brain.

  “Hey, Zo-Zo,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and smirking down at her big brown eyes. They’re wide in shock as her eyes graze down my body. Her eyes snag on the tattoos that color my arms. I notice she doesn’t have any that I can see, and there’s a lot of skin on display. Her navy blue dress is a slip of a thing with thin straps on her shoulders. It stops at midthigh, showing off her strong legs that I want wrapped around me.

  “Hi,” she breathes.

  “Do you guys know each other?” Quin all but shouts over the music, still half-heartedly dancing.

  “Barely,” I tell her, letting my eyes leave Zoë’s for a moment to look at Quin. She hesitates before someone else comes up and steals her away. She motions with two fingers from her eyes to mine, letting me know she’s watching me. I laugh and wave as she gets pulled through the crowd of people.

  “Barely?” Zoë asks, her face in a mask of smugness, but I know her well enough to know there’s some hurt under there at my brush-off.

  “It was an honest answer,” I tell her. “I haven’t spoken to you in, what? Eight years? I’d say I barely know you anymore.”

  “Fuck off, Wesley,” she says, using my full name like I’m a kid. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” She rolls her eyes and brushes past me, bumping into my arm with a pretty hard push for such a tiny thing. I smile and turn to follow her.

  There’s nowhere to go, Little Doe.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I watch her ass as she walks in front of me. That fabric clings to it perfectly as it moves and, God, I want to reach out and grab it. She isn’t the little girl I knew anymore. She grew up, got curves, and got an attitude.

  “Stop following me, Wesley!” she says over her shoulder, flipping me off.

  “It’s a small yacht,” I tell her, getting close enough to reach out and touch her. “Where do you want me to go? Especially when there’s no one else I’d rather be talking to.”

  She stomps down the stairs to the deck below with surprising agility.

  “You move pretty easily in those stripper heels, Zo-Zo,” I call after her as I follow her down. The music isn’t as loud down here, but I still say it loud enough for others to hear. “Something you want to tell me?” I smile as she turns on me, her entire neck and chest lit up with embarrassment. She looks at the people around us who glance in our direction before turning her narrowed gaze back to me.

  “When did you become such an ass?” she asks me.

  “When some girl broke my heart,” I say in an exaggerated tone, pouting and clasping my heart.

  “Sarcasm to cover your actual feelings?” she asks as she walks closer to me. Her scent invades my personal bubble, and I can’t help but inhale it into my lungs. She still has that same floral scent in her hair, and it drives me fucking insane. “How mature of you.”

  “Who said it was sarcasm?” I lean close to her, making her crane her head back to look at me. Her eyes glance down to my lips before she catches herself, and I smile. I’m giving myself a tally for that. Wes, one. Zoë, none. “Maybe you did break my heart, Zoë. You disappeared without a word.”

  “Like I said, Wes,” she says, closing her eyes and moving a bit further into my space. “Fuck off.” I can feel the heat coming off her body. I can’t stop myself from reaching out and wrapping my hand around the back of her neck, tangling those soft curls in my fingers. My thumb traces the line of her
jaw. When she opens her eyes again, they’ve softened a bit.

  “Tell me, Little Doe,” I whisper as I pull her as close as she possibly can be. Her body presses against mine, and her hands land on my hips. “What exactly is it I don’t understand?” She chews on her bottom lip, and her eyes flit back and forth between mine.

  “What don’t I understand about my best friend leaving me behind, not telling me goodbye, not giving me a reason, just fucking off without a word?” I continue. “Was I not good enough for you? Poor little Wes with his dead parents and no money to his name. You left me behind to go chase your dreams and better yourself. What about that am I not getting?”

  “Wes,” she says in a warning tone, her hands moving up my body to rest and push against my chest. But I just cling on harder, giving her head a gentle shake.

  “Zoë,” I mimic, brushing my lips across her jaw. She sucks in a deep breath, and I feel her relax against me. In that split second, I step away, leaving her swaying a little too far forward in those heels. She swings her arms out, trying to catch her balance.

  Once she does, she swings around on me and pushes me hard in the chest. As to not bruise her ego even further, I let her shove me a step back. I wag my eyebrows at her.

  “Get fucked, Wesley. You have absolutely no idea of what I went through and why I had to walk away. And let’s not forget that you could’ve chased me. But you didn’t.” She points her finger at my chest. “You sent me, what? Five texts? Maybe one phone call? And then nothing. You let me go, and you didn’t have to. So don’t put all the blame on me, asshole. If I was so important to you, you could’ve come after me.”