Accidentally Yours (Merffy Kizzmet) novel Chapter 202

Dottie settled back in the chair, cane leaning against her shoulder, eyes glittering like she’d been waiting years for this room. Smoke still clung to her scarf, a sharp reminder she’d been living long enough not to care about what killed her.

She let the silence drag just long enough for Dom’s scowl to deepen and Jake’s fingers to stutter once on the keys. Then she spoke.

“You boys think Dmitri was your storm. Think Russians and turf lines and smuggling routes were the mountain to climb.” Her gaze cut across the table, pinning each of them in turn before it landed on Lola. “That was a hill. Pebble on the road. What’s ahead of you? That’s avalanche.”

Lola shifted beside him, her hands knotted tight in her hoodie sleeves. He felt the heat rising under her skin, anger bubbling where the grief had been.

Enzo stayed still, his jaw tight. “Say it plain, Dottie.”

Her smirk didn’t reach her eyes. “Plain is this: you already know the name, or you wouldn’t be sniffing at the edges. Academy.” She spat the word like it burned her tongue. “You think it’s rumor. A story gangsters tell each other to make themselves feel small. But I’ve seen the shadows it leaves. Men and women walking out of nowhere into power, polished like glass, soulless like statues. Children funneled through like cattle, turned into assets. Sold.”

The word cracked sharp. Lola flinched.

Her voice was quieter now, but every syllable rang like iron. “Not just mob hands. Not just cartels. Senators. Bankers. Judges. Anyone with the right wallet and the right filth in their bloodline. Dmitri? He was nothing. He bought scraps. You want to know why Nico’s gone?”

“Don’t.” Lola’s voice split, raw.

Dottie leaned forward, elbows heavy on the table. “Then don’t ask me to sugarcoat, bug. Your boy wasn’t killed by some bratva rat with a twitchy–trigger. He was taken because someone out there wants you hollow. Wants you obedient.” Her cane tapped once against the floor, sharp as a gavel. “Because they know what you are, and they don’t like their investments running loose.”

He didn’t answer with words. He locked his fingers over hers beneath the table, a hard anchor. The squeeze said what the room didn’t need spoken: I’m with you. I go where you go. Always.

Dottie clicked her tongue, pleased and dangerous. “Bout damn time,” she murmured, ash falling into the saucer like punctuation. “Talk is for the weak. We’ll make plans. Then we’ll make ruins.”

Around the war table, the others shifted–Dom’s hand went to the map, Gino’s jaw set. Grief steeled into purpose; their sorrow hardened into an appetite for dismantling. Lola’s eyes burned brighter. Her vow hung in the air, a promise and a verdict both.

They had just given themselves a mission that would not end until the names that tried to break her were nothing but dust.