Accidentally Yours (Merffy Kizzmet) novel Chapter 208

Chapter 208

Enzo stared up at the celling, his arm around her waist, her heartbeat pressed against his ribs.

We fly, we say goodbye, we come back.

Then we start pulling at every thread we can find until we find something.

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Sleep came slow, but when it did, it found them tangled together, two survivors with fire in their bones, resting before the next storm.

Lola

The jet hummed low and steady beneath them, a sound that might have been comforting if it didn’t sit over the hollow in her chest.

Everyone looked carved from something expensive and sharp–black suits that could cut a man, pressed collars, gold cufflinks glinting like quiet threats. Enzo in black on black, Dom with his tie loosened but shoes shined to a mirror, Gino’s sleeves rolled just enough to show ink, and her–Lola–in a long–sleeved black dress that felt like armor stitched in silk.

Dottie had said it once: You can dress grief up, but it’s still grief.

Enzo poured the first round of whiskey mid–flight. No one needed to say what for. They just passed the glasses, the clink soft but solid.

“To Nico,” Gino said, voice rough.

“To the idiot who thought he could drive faster than God,” Dom muttered.

That got them all to breathe. Almost laugh.

Lola lifted her glass last, the amber liquid catching the cabin lights like fire trapped in glass. “To the man who somehow made all of us a little less unbearable.”

Even Enzo cracked a grin at that, quiet but real. They all drank. The whiskey burned the whole way down hot, bitter, clean.

Outside the windows, Utah stretched wide and endless, all bone–colored mountains and gold light bleeding through the clouds. The Marchesi estate sat like a fortress carved into the world’s jawline: stone, glass, and money. Too still. Too perfect.

When the helicopter touched down on the private pad beside the main house, Lola’s stomach went cold. The weight of air changed here. It smelled like marble and legacy and the kind of silence only money could buy.

Enzo offered his hand as she stepped down. She took it, even though she didn’t need to.

Inside, the memorial was a cathedral made of glass and grief. White lilies spilled from polished vases, and in the center–like a goddamn centerpiece at a banquet–sat a marble urn, clean, cold, gleaming under the lights.

Nico.

Her chest clenched so hard she almost laughed.

You hated attention. You’d be losing your mind right now, being the main event.

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11:29 Thu, Oct 9

Chapter 208

She could almost hear his voice in her head; something smug, something kind.

Look at you, showing up on time for once. I knew you loved me.

Shut up, she thought, and the smile ghosted across her mouth anyway.

4

Enzo’s hand found her lower back, guiding her forward through the crowd. His mother–elegant, grave–faced, smelling faintly of gardenias -kissed Lola’s cheek. “Thank you for coming, cara mia [my dear].”

His sister followed, a fragile smile and trembling hands. Nico’s parents were next, and that was worse. His mother’s eyes were swollen, his father stone–faced in that way Italian men mourned–silently, violently, inward. Lola murmured something polite but could say what it was because it was like she wasn’t really there.

Then came a blur of handshakes and condolences, faces she didn’t recognize, names she didn’t care to. Men in dark suits murmuring words about “legacy” and “brotherhood.” Women with pearls and perfect lipstick saying how “Nico was so kind.”

She heard none of it.

Her focus never left the urn.

It was too white. Too polished. Too final.

Enzo drifted off with Gino and Dom, shaking hands, doing the polite mafia dance of mourning, keeping the business wolves at bay even here. Lola stayed behind.

She stepped closer to the urn. Close enough that her reflection ghosted faintly across the marble.

“Hey, Nic.”

She ran a thumb over the cool marble. “You’d tell me to stop looking at you like that. Say something dumb to make me laugh.”

She exhaled, long and quiet. It almost steadied her. Almost.

Her voice broke just once. “Could’ve waited to see how it all turned out, you impatient bastard.”

And then she saw them.

A bouquet–black roses, velvety and obscene in their perfection–laid neatly at the base of the urn. No card on top. No one around who looked like they’d just placed them there.

Her stomach didn’t drop. It coiled.

She bent slightly, fingers brushing one of the petals. The black was so deep it almost shimmered blue under the lights.

Then she saw it; a sliver of paper, tucked between the stems. Small, folded, deliberate.

She glanced around. Enzo was still talking to Nico’s father. Gino and Dom were flanking a senator who’d probably come to sniff blood in the water. No one looking her way.

Lola slipped the note free and opened it.

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11:29 Thu, Oct 9

Chapter 208

Black suits you, Pet.

The words were thin and elegant, the ink dark enough to feel personal.

Her pulse didn’t spike. It sank low, heavy, cold.

Of course. Even here. Even now.

She folded the paper once, neat and slow, tucking it into her clutch like a secret she planned to feed to fire later.

You really thought you could slither into this moment? Into his goodbye?

Her jaw locked. A quiet fury uncoiled in her chest, clean and focused.

Fine. You want to play? I’ll show you what happens when the wrong girl remembers she was built for survival.

She looked back at the urn–Nico’s name carved sharp into marble, surrounded by too much softness. The corner of her mouth twitched.

“Looks like I dragged you into one more mess,” she whispered, eyes on the marble urn. “Sorry, Nic. Guess I don’t know how to quit while I’m ahead.”

Her fingers brushed the cool stone once, a ghost of touch. “Hope you’re watching, though. Because I’m not done yet–and it’s about to get really fucking interesting.”

A small, crooked smile tugged at her mouth. “You’d like that part.”

She could almost hear him sigh, that familiar mock frustration laced with affection. “You’re impossible, Lo.”

“I love you Nic,” She pressed her fingers once to the cold marble, a silent goodbye, then turned on her heel.

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