Accidentally Yours (Merffy Kizzmet) novel Chapter 189

Chapter 189

Rafael

She showed up on time.

That alone amused Rafael. Yesterday she’d strolled in late, coffee in hand, smirk like she owned the place. He’d let it slide–barely–by grinding her into the mat until her muscles shook and her pride burned hotter than her lungs.

Now she was punctual down to the second.

“Punctuality,” Rafael drawled from the doorway, voice warm as smoke. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”

Lola didn’t pause her stretch. “Don’t flatter yourself. I just didn’t feel like hearing you whine about it again.”

He chuckled, stepping onto the mat. “So it was the suicides, then.”

Her brows pinched. “The what?”

“The suicides. Up and down the mat until you nearly painted it avold a repeat performance.”

It with yo

your breakfast.” His grin cut sly. “I assumed you’d be motivated to

Lola rolled her

er eyes, spine folding deeper, hamstrings taut. “Maybe I just wanted to see if you could come up with new torture.”

“You’ll find I’m inventive,” he said, circling her like a predator testing the pen. “But I’m also consistent. Punishment fits the crime. Reward fits the effort.”

Her mouth curled. “You’re not exactly a motivational poster, Hallandi.”

“No,” he said, amused. “I’m much worse.”

He put her through the warmup hard and fast, not bothering to count reps. She kept up–barely–but there was grit this time. Stiff shoulders, tight thighs, soreness riding her every movement. She wasn’t used to working like this, not recently, but she refused to falter.

That refusal, more than her form, fascinated him

“Again,” Rafael ordered.

She glared. “You didn’t count ”

“I don’t need to,” he said lightly. “Your body tells me everything.”

Her glare sharpened, but she repeated the set anyway.

When he called her over to the bag, she dragged her feet just enough to be insolent. He let her. Insolence always revealed more than obedience ever did.

She hit the bag–sloppy, untrained, but fast. Improvised power. He watched the angles of her arms, the twist of her hips. Watched her eyes when she flicked them to him between strikes.

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Chapter 199

Defiance, always.

But beneath it, a ghost.

He waited until her rhythm faltered, then slipped the

“You hide well, Lola Marlowe. But every disguise has a seam. Why so brief?”

Cinnamon, for instance. She vanished the second the Russians fell apart.

Her fists stilled. Her laugh come sharp. “Because Chinamon was a mask, not a life, Sequins itch. And I don’t wear them unless I have to.”

Rafael’s smile tugged. Clever little fox,

d the other name. The one no one seems to know. I dig. He stopped closer, lowering his voice. “And should be roots. Why bury her so deep?”

g, and there’s nothing. Silence where there

Her jaw flexed. Hands tightened on the bag.

He savored the pause.

“Why bury her at all?”

Finally she turned, eyes locked to his. Her voice was flat steel, “Hard to tail a ghost. Because that’s all she is now.”

She snatched her bug and slammed the door behind her.

Rafael stood in the ringing

ing silence, smile curling slow.

Every denial was confirmation. Every ghost she buried was another bone for him to dig up

e would. He always did.

And he

Interlude: 7777

The feed glowed in the dark. A thread unraveling,

She.

At first, nothing but static snapshots. Then Rafael’s folders spilled open–orderly, meticulous, not nearly enough. But enough to reawaken what had been denied.

He leaned closer, hands steepled beneath his chin, eyes narrowing at the first still.

painted into a smile that never reached her eyes. She played the part well–too well. That Sequins. A tray balanced on her palm, lips wasn’t joy. That was survival worn like silk.

The next file caught her bent forward, hair falling to one side, tattoo gun steady in her grip. Her expression had shifted. Here there was no mask. No pretending. Just discipline. Precision. The weight of creation in her hands.

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Chapter 189

A

He studied the line of her back, the way she bent over her work as if the rest of the world had no claim on her. Untouchable. For the

moment

He clicked. Another image.

Her head thrown back, mouth open in

laughter.

Not practiced. Not careful. Not the shield she wore in sequins or ink. This was something raw. Wild. Dangerous.

He looped it, letting the motion flicker across the screen again and again,

That laugh.

It didn’t belong to o someone who feared the world. It belonged to someone who thought she had outrun it. Who thought herself free.

His jaw tightened. She was not free. She had only been misplaced.

Another folder. Language proficiencies. Four confirmed. Two suspected. Records of examinations–bar exams, passed, but no practice. Aptitude spread wide, wasted in half–built guises. Layers shed, discarded, abandoned. Every persona a disguise.

And still, the trail stayed clean. Nothing that should have led back to her ever did. No whispers. No accidents. No one bold enough to pin her down.

A ghost. A defiant little ghost.

His hand tightened against the desk, the polished wood groaning under his knuckles.

She had slipped through once.

Dissmissed everything they had built.

That dismissal had festered.

And now, years later, the same eyes stared back at him through Rafael’s stills. Hardened. Sharpened. Wild.

He moved to the next image.

She was not alone.

A man this time. Dark hair, strong build, the kind who carried violence in his posture even when seated. His hand rested on her knee with quiet possession, her body tilted subtly toward him. Not performance. Not calculated. Natural,

Anchor.

The word scraped through his mind like rust.

Something in her face softened against him slightly in way she hadn’t anywhere else in the files. He slowed the feed, frame by frame. The angle of her shoulders, the way her mouth curved faint when he leaned close. A tell

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Chapter 189

Anchors dragged, Anchors weighed. Anchors showed the freaking of wild things,

Anchors could be cut.

His lips curved faint. Not

warmth. Not humor. Something hungrier.

He clicked back to her laughter, then forward to her hent in lacus with the tattoo gun, then again to the sequined disguise. Three versions of the same subject. Three masks. None of them the truth.

Rafael hadn’t found her. Not really. He’d only gathered fragments. Still, even fragments confirmed what he had always known: she was extraordinary. Untamed. A prize worth more than anything his father’s trophies had ever been.

The gap in his cabinet gleamed behind him. The space left empty all those years ago, waiting-

n, finger pressing the button, his voice low and calm. Velvet wrapping a blade.

He reached for the intercom.

lling the thread on the man at her side. Full file.”

“Start pulling

A crackle of acknowledgment. Nothing more.

He released the button and sat back, gaze locked on the frozen image of her laughter.

The girl who had once dismissed him was no longer lost to the wind. No longer phantom

She was flesh. She was breath. She was within reach.

And this time, she

he would not slip away.

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