Accidentally Yours (Merffy Kizzmet) novel Chapter 203

Chapter 203

Lola

Dottic didn’t need to clear her throat, didn’t need to gather their attention. She had it. The whole room leaned toward her without meaning to, like gravity had shifted around her cane.

She took her time lighting another cigarette, dragging the match until smoke curled between her fingers. Then she started.

“I’ll tell you a story,” she said at last. Her voice wasn’t kind–it never was–but careful, like broken glass wrapped in cloth. “A boy once sat at my table. Nice suit, clean hands. Looked like anyone’s accountant. Said his father sent him west to learn discipline. Spent three years locked in a wing with twenty others. Only five walked out. And they didn’t walk–they smiled like corpses learning to mimic life. He told me he earned his freedom when he slit a girl’s throat to prove loyalty. His prize? A judgeship waiting for him back east.”

Silence collapsed over the room like stone.

Dom’s fist flexed against the table. Gino’s eyes went flat, predator–still. Even Jake, who usually vanished into his screens, froze, pale in the glow.

Dottie leaned forward, elbows heavy, gaze sharp enough to pin them all. “That boy is a man now. A name you’d know if I said it. Every ruling he makes, every life he bends, drips from the blood of a child he killed before his balls even dropped. That’s what the Academy creates. That’s what it sells.”

The words seared hot in Lola’s ears, but the chill in her chest was worse.

God. They’re everywhere. Wearing robes, wearing crowns, signing papers with ink mixed with marrow.

Dottie sat back again, smirk edged with smoke. “You thought Dmitri was a problem,” she said, eyes cold. “He was a nuisance to be dealt with. The real thing waiting in the dark is something built to last.”

The chair creaked under Lola as she leaned forward, pulse hammering.

They killed Nico to hollow me out. To make me one of their perfect ghosts. But Lolana Witmore’s already dead. I buried her with my own hands, left her to rot so I could live free. They don’t get to resurrect her. They don’t get to shape me.

Her grip tightened under Enzo’s hand until her knuckles ached. She let it. Pain made it real.

They’ll regret coming back for me. They’ll regret thinking I could be emptied. Because I am not hollow. I am a grave, and I am already full.

Dottie’s eyes lingered on her, sharp and knowing, as if she’d read every thought straight off Lola’s skin. Then, softer than the room deserved, she said, “That’s my girl.”

Her gaze shifted back to the men. “You boys treat Dmitri like he was a mountain,” she said, voice low and rough. “He was a pothole. The real weight sits higher, older. You want to know what I’ve heard?”

No one spoke. Even Jake’s keyboard stilled.

“I heard it in the back rooms of clubs where money washed itself clean. From men with hands too soft for the blood they ordered spilled. From priests who confessed more than they absolved. From bankers who thought their sins vanished if they were counted in billions.” She leaned back, smoke rolling from her lips. “They’d whisper about a place where power doesn’t just collect–it’s made. Groomed. Packaged.

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11:28 Thu, Oct 9

Chapter 203

Sold.”

The word hit like a lash.

口

849

Sold. That could’ve been me. Should’ve been me, if I hadn’t run. If that old witch hadn’t taken.me in.

Dottie’s eyes gleamed, sharp as razors. “The Academy. They don’t call it that, of course. Too simple. Too soft. But that’s the shape of it. A finishing school for monsters. A catalog for anyone rich enough to want a custom–built asset. An assassin fluent in four languages. A judge who’ll rule the way you paid for. A girl with a memory too sharp to ever forget what you put in front of her.”

Her gaze cut straight to Lola, pinning her through the chair.

Lola swallowed hard.

She knows. She’s always known. She knew what I was before I knew it myself.

Dottie flicked ash into the tray like punctuation. “You think your Russian was bad? The men I’ve heard whisper about this place… they weren’t bragging about turf or shipments. They were bragging about the people they’d bought. About futures they owned because they’d paid for them. Dmitri was scraps. The real players don’t shout–they don’t have to.”

Dom shifted, restless. Gino’s jaw ticked.

Enzo sat motionless beside her, but Lola could feel the live current running through him, coiled and sparking.

Dottie smiled thinly. “That’s what you’re up against. Not soldiers. Not bosses. Architects. The men who built the game board while the rest of you argued over scraps on the corners.”

The silence that followed was heavier than gun smoke.

Lola’s throat felt raw, but she pushed words past it. “And you heard this from-”

“From everyone,” Dottie cut in. “From the kinds of men who think their money makes them untouchable. From women in furs who thought telling me their secrets was foreplay. From senators who wanted someone to hear them say it out loud so they could believe it was real.” She leaned forward, cane tapping once against tile. “You don’t live as long as I have, bug, without learning how to collect ghost stories.”

And this isn’t a ghost story. This is the monster in the room finally stepping into the light.

The words about obedience and investment rattled around Lola’s skull like stray bullets. They hadn’t killed Nico just to hurt her. They’d done it to hollow her, to pry her open like a box they thought they owned the key to.

Her nails dug crescents into her palms.

They think I’m inventory. A line in a ledger. Something they can shelve, strip, and sell. They don’t understand I buried the girl they wanted years ago. I killed Lolana Witmore myself. They can’t break what’s already dead.

Her throat burned, but she didn’t cry. Not this time. Tears were for Enzo’s shirt, for the bed where grief broke her bones. This–this was something else.

She straightened in her chair. The scrape of wood against tile drew every eye, but she didn’t care.

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11:28 Thu, Oct 9

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