Accidentally Yours (Merffy Kizzmet) novel Chapter 200

Chapter 200

Lola

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Steam curled around them like smoke from a pyre, rising thick and endless, wrapping them in something that felt less like steam and more like the ashes of everything they’d lost. Enzo’s palms braced against the tile, boxing her in.

His mouth pressed to her temple, her jaw, her throat not kisses, but vows. Oaths burned straight into her skin.

—

When he pulled back, his eyes were savage–dark. “They think they can break us. That grief will hollow us out.” His voice shook, low and jagged. “But what we are doesn’t die. Not with bullets. Not with time. We burn. We rebuild. We rise again.”

His thumb traced the line of her cheekbone, smearing water and salt. “If I go down, I’ll come back to you in the smoke, in the tide, in the first light off the pier. You’ll find me in every shadow that refuses to let you walk alone.”

Her throat closed, tears threatening, but she still dragged his mouth to hers, fierce. “Then make me like that too,” she breathed against him. “So I can’t break. So I come back to you, no matter what.”

“Done,” he rasped, forehead pressed to hers. “You and me. Bound through fire. Through ruin. Through every life that was, and every life that’s still coming.”

The water roared on, washing the blood, the grief, the ash from their skin. Something in her chest flickered–not whole, not healed, but burning enough to feel alive again.

Forever.

The kitchen smelled like espresso and garlic, sharp and grounding. Dottie was already there, perched at the head of the table like a general holding court, rhinestoned Crocs kicked out under her chair, scarf slipping crooked over steel–gray hair. An ashtray sat beside her espresso cup, smoke curling toward the ceiling in a way that made Lola wrinkle her nose.

“Smoking inside?” she muttered, dropping into the chair opposite her. “Gross.”

Dottie dragged slow, then exhaled like a dragon. “I’m old. Old people get to be disgusting. It’s the trade–off for surviving this long.”

“You don’t even like the smell,” Lola accused.

“Exactly.” Dottie tapped ash into the saucer, eyes glittering. “Keeps idiots from trying to sit too close. Except you, bug. But you don’t visit.”

That one hit like a pebble to the ribs. Lola shifted, her hoodie sleeve dragging across the table as she fidgeted with the seam. “It’s been… complicated lately.”

“Life is always complicated.” Dottie’s tone cut, rough and fond at once. “Complicated doesn’t mean you disappear. You don’t just send me dumb raccoon memes and call it love.”

Lola’s mouth twitched. “The raccoons were funny.”

“They were trash, bug. Just like the raccoons.” Dottie stabbed out the cigarette with finality, leaning forward now, her sharp gaze pinning Lola where she sat. “You don’t hide from the people who love you. You bring them your complicated. You bring them your ugly. Otherwise what’s the damn point of having them?”

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11:27 Thu, Oct 9

Chapter 200

Enzo’s hand settled over Lola’s under the table, warm, heavy, steady. She breathed, but her throat still felt tight.

“You’re really mean, you know that?” she muttered.

“Mean keeps you alive.” Dottie smirked, lifting her cup in a mock toast. “Now eat something before I get crankier and smoke another one just to spite you.”

Enzo huffed a laugh beside her, low and cracked, but real. And for the first time in days, Lola felt a flicker of something that wasn’t grief.

Not whole. Not healed. But forward.

The kitchen smelled like espresso, garlic, and cigarette smoke–because of course Dottie had lit up right there at the table. She’d wedged an ashtray between the sugar jar and her cup like it belonged, Crocs braced wide as she leaned back with a queen’s ease.

Lola wrinkled her nose. “Gross. You can’t smoke in here.”

“Sweetheart,” Dottie said, exhaling a ribbon of smoke, “I’ve smoked in Kremlin bunkers and priest confessionals. Your little penthouse table isn’t going to kill me.”

Enzo didn’t bother to correct her. He just sipped his espresso, jaw tight, eyes sharp in that way that meant he was listening harder than he looked.

Lola picked at her eggs, appetite still wrecked. “Sorry I haven’t… been by. It’s been complicated lately.”

Dottie gave a sharp snort. “Complicated. You think not visiting your old grandmother because you’re busy playing mob Barbie is complicated? Bug, you don’t know complicated yet.”

Lola winced, shoulders curling. “I sent you stuff-”

“Cat memes,” Dottie cut in, stabbing the air with her cigarette. “Little kittens in sweaters with captions like hang in there. I nearly threw my phone in the sink. You think that counts as visiting?”

Enzo coughed into his espresso, not quite hiding the twitch of his mouth.

Lola scowled, cheeks blotched. “They were funny.”

Dottie leaned forward, eyes glittering. “Bug, I didn’t raise you to dodge your family with jokes. You’ve got grief dripping off you like wet laundry and you think you can just send me cartoon cats? Saints save me.”

The bite in her words sank deep, but there was love under it. The kind that was rough so you didn’t forget it was real.

Lola dropped her fork with a clatter. “And you do know complicated, huh? Like you’re the only one who’s ever-”

Dottie cut her off by leaning in, elbows heavy on the table, smoke curling from her lips like a dragon catching breath. “I know men who kill because it’s Tuesday. I know men who sell families like cattle. And I know men who wear suits and smile while they sell children- little girls like you were–to the highest bidder. This? What you’ve seen so far? It’s a pebble in the avalanche. Bigger than Dmitri. Bigger than Vegas.”

The words hit the air heavy. Lola’s stomach turned. Her gaze snapped to Enzo, but he stayed unreadable–though she saw the flicker in his eyes. Recognition. Warning. Something.

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11:27 Thu, Oct 9

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