Accidentally Yours (Merffy Kizzmet) novel Chapter 147

Chapter 147

Dom let out another cracked laugh, shaking his head. “Haven’t exactly had time for a shower, Lo.”

Her eyes slid closed, her voice drifting. “None of you have. Room smells like wolf den. Fix it before I wake up again.”

Her breathing evened, her hand slipping slack against the sheet.

A

Dom sat there in the dim, broken wide open and pieced back together all at once. He dragged a hand down his face, then leaned back in the chair. He wouldn’t sleep–not yet. Not while she was breathing just a few feet away.

But for the first time in two days, the weight on his chest eased. Just a little.

Gino

The machines hummed like lullabies. Soft beeps, low whooshes, steady rhythms marking proof of life in the dim hospital room. Too much life crammed into one too–small space.

Enzo out cold, finally. Nico, pale as chalk, hooked to fluids like his blood had been poured out. Lola stitched together like some goddamn patchwork doll. Dom slumped in the recliner, mouth open, exhaustion dragging him under after hours of refusing to blink.

And Gino–awake. Always awake when the quiet hit like this.

He leaned back in his own chair, one ankle propped over his knee, pretending he was comfortable on the godawful vinyl. His eyes roamed the room in loops, counting every IV line, every flicker of green on the monitors, every rise and fall of the three chests laid out like casualties of some private war.

Christ. They were all alive. He still couldn’t believe it.

Forty–eight hours ago, he’d been digging through rubble with Dom like maniacs, fingers shredded, lungs burning, rage pushing them deeper when common sense said there was nothing left to find. He’d told himself not to hope. That hoping would break him. And still, every time he clawed another splinter of wood or chunk of plaster free, he’d pictured Lola laughing, flipping him off, calling him a dumbass.

And then nothing.

Hours of nothing.

He’d watched Enzo lose his fucking mind. Watched his cousin unravel layer by layer, until there was nothing left of the cool, composed don but a man with blood on his knuckles and eyes gone black with grief.

Gino rubbed his own bruised hands together now, thumb dragging across the raw scabs. He didn’t want to remember the sound Enzo made when the line went dead that first time. Didn’t want to remember how Dom’s voice cracked when he muttered he couldn’t dig anymore because his hands wouldn’t close. Didn’t want to think about Nico, leaning against the hangar wall, staring at nothing like the blast had carved him hollow.

But it was all still there. Stuck under his skin like glass shards.

And Lola–goddamn Lola. That tiny tornado of a woman had survived a blast that should’ve turned her to ash. Survived being dragged through hell and dumped in Russian hands. Survived two days of silence, only to pick up a phone with her body broken and still manage to get Enzo’s name out.

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14:31 Wed, Oct 8

Chapter 147

He huffed, shaking his head. “Nobody walks out of that kind of blast. Nobody but you.” His voice was rough, threaded with reluctant

wonder.

78

The room smelled like antiseptic and metal, faintly sour under the recycled air. Gino shifted, reaching into his jacket pocket, fingers brushing against the fat envelope that lived there. The one that bought silence. Kept cameras off. Made sure nobody asked too many questions about why a don and his crew were camped out like squatters in a hospital ward. He hadn’t needed to flash it yet, not since the first nurse, but it was there all the same. Always there.

He blew out a breath and stretched, joints popping.

What the hell were they doing? Vegas was still a powder keg. Enzo had started a war with the Russians, was halfway through dismantling them brick by brick when the call came that Lola was alive. There were still bodies to bury, warehouses to torch, debts to settle. But none of it mattered right now.

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