Accidentally Yours (Merffy Kizzmet) novel Chapter 96

Sprinkles gagged again, bent forward, and puked violently onto the floor.

She didn’t even blink.

Just stood there, slowly sucking on her strawberry–lime sucker like it was intermission and she’d been waiting for this moment.

And then-

She giggled.

Not cruel. Not loud. Just this bright, delighted sound that felt completely out of place. Like she’d just watched a cat fall off a counter and was too charmed to feel bad.

This is so wild. Who even am I?

“Oh my God,” she said between breathless laughs. “I told you the boots would come in handy. And that’s before we even got started.”

She held one foot out and turned it side to side like she was doing a fashion show. “Rubber’s vomit resistant. Honestly, I should get a brand deal. Prada x Psychological Warfare.”

Dom made a strangled sound that might’ve been a laugh or a gasp. Gino leaned against the wall, shaking his head. Nico muttered, “People say fashion can’t be functional,” under his breath.

Then she walked toward him.

Sprinkles flinched.

She bent down–right in front of him. Not just too close. Dangerously close. Her knees tucked together, sucker propped in the corner of her mouth like a lollipop–flavored dagger.

Her voice was soft. Almost sweet.

“When they trained you to be part of this life, I guarantee they didn’t prepare you for the nightmare that is me.”

He stared at her. Wide–eyed. Shaking.

“You’re not gonna make it out of here. And neither are your little friends.”

She tilted her head, watching him like a cat toying with a mouse. “But if you had? You’d never be rid of me.”

She smiled, slow and syrupy. Like it wasn’t a threat–just a fact.

“You’d think about me every time you closed your eyes. Dream about all the things I might’ve done to you.”

Then, softer still–like she was confessing a secret:

“And you’d never get that tick…tick…ticking out of your head. Like a bomb in your brain. You’d probably blow your own damn brains out just to make it stop.”

She stood smoothly, the rubber soles of her boots squeaking just enough to make him twitch again.

Then–grinning–she wandered over to the metal table, hopped up, and sat like a toddler in time–out. One leg swinging, sucker back in her mouth, eyes

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shining with dangerous delight

“Bot hucky for you,” she added lightly, “you’re not gonna live long enough to find out.”

He screamed.

Enzo stepped forward. Nico cracked his knuckles.

And just like that, it was showtime.

Dom

Dom wasn’t easily rattled.

He’d been shot at, stabbed, nearly blown up–twice–and once had to fish a kilo of coke out of a port–a–potty with a goddamn soup ladle. He’d seen things. Done worse. Nothing much fazed him.

But watching Lola make a grown man throw up just by existing?

Yeah. That one was new.

He leaned back against the wall, arms crossed tight over his chest, trying to pretend he wasn’t impressed. Or slightly terrified. Or both.

He glanced at Matthew–Sir Sprinkles, apparently–who was sweating so hard he looked waterboarded. The guy was practically vibrating, held together by fear and regret and the threadbare hope that maybe Lola wouldn’t eat him alive.

Spoiler: she wouldn’t. She didn’t have to.

She’d already cracked him open like a goddamn glow stick, and now they were all just waiting to see what secrets spilled out.

She doesn’t belong in this world, he thought, but damn if she doesn’t wear it like it was stitched for her anyway.

Dom swallowed down the weird ache crawling up his throat. Pride, maybe. Or protectiveness. Or just a quiet reverence for the way she’d carved a place in their world like she was born for it.

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Gino

Gino groaned, dragging a hand down his face like this was the world’s most annoying group project.

“Matty, my guy,” he said, stepping forward, “I really wanted today to be a no–vomit kind of day.”

Sprinkles whimpered, curled halfway over the mess on the floor like his organs might eject next.

Gino knelt slowly, boots squeaking just enough to make the guy flinch. The zip–ties had started to cut into his wrists. His pulse was jumping so hard in his throat it looked like it might sprain something.

“I’m gonna be honest with you,” Gino murmured, voice conversational, like they were on a smoke break together instead of in a concrete tomb. “I don’t like this part. The begging. The shaking. The smell.”

He scrunched his nose dramatically and looked back at Lola. “Definitely the smell.”

She gave him a look that said focus, even while swinging her legs off the edge of the table like an overgrown toddler of doom.

He turned back to Matty with a sigh. “See, my job tonight was gonna be sitting in the back, maybe tossing in a sarcastic line or two. I was really hoping Dom would get in there first. He’s like… the artisan of pain. You’d appreciate the craftsmanship. But me? I’m the sledgehammer. Nobody likes a sledgehammer.”

He leaned in, smile gone.

“You helped take her.”

Not a girl, not our friend–her.

“She could’ve died. She could have been sold to the rings, or worse.”

His tone dropped low, steady. The kind of quiet that told you there was violence waiting in the silence.

“Now you’re here. And whether or not I like this part? I’ll do it. You understand me?”

Matty’s head bobbed in a shaky nod.

Gino stood, cracking his knuckles. “Then let’s make this quick, Sprinkles. Before my patience expires and my shoe ends up somewhere unpleasant.”

He looked to Nico and Dom, nodding once. Time to begin.