Accidentally Yours (Merffy Kizzmet) novel Chapter 205

Chapter 205

Enzo

Gino’s “Where do we start?” hung over the table like a pulled pin.

Enzo let the question sit. He watched the room the way he watched a street before a deal–measure the angles, listen for what wasn’t being said. Dom’s fists were tight enough to dent bone. Gino’s eyes were furnace–hot under a lid. Jake had finally stopped typing, which told Enzo more than any report. Lola, she was the one he felt like weather, a pressure change against his skin. Not the bright chaos he knew. Something steadier. Meaner. Alive.

We move too fast, I bury more men.

He set his palms on the table. “We don’t start blind.”

Dom’s head snapped his way. Gino didn’t blink. Lola didn’t move at all.

Enzo kept his voice low, flat steel. “Dottie gave us shape, not names. Jake can’t pull a thread that isn’t there. We swing now, we hit smoke and get shot for the effort.”

Jake cleared his throat, grateful for the cover. “I can build nets, filters on trust papers, private endowments, quiet scholarships, to catch anything that smells like a finishing school hiding under philanthropy. But… yeah. I need a seed.”

“Good.” Enzo looked to him. “Build the nets. Cast them wide. Private academies, ‘leadership institutes,‘ fellowship pipelines. Cross anything that intersects with judgeships, procurement boards, corporate boards, and political staffers. Quiet donors, new trusts, dead foundations resurrected with fresh cash. If it hums like grooming, I want it on a wall.”

Jake nodded, already moving. “On it.”

Enzo turned to Dom and Gino. “Tighten the perimeter. No hero runs, no spooking birds. Rotate safe–houses. Fresh phones. Switchbacks on every route–if you can predict it, change it. Lola doesn’t touch a door without eyes on glass and hands on triggers. If you so much as think you’re being mirrored, you are.”

Dom grunted assent, the sound like gravel. Gino’s jaw ticked once.

He looked to Lola last. He didn’t need to say anything to her; she could feel the plan forming under his skin. Still, he made a point of meeting her eyes, letting her read what he wouldn’t voice in front of the crew.

I won’t lose you. Not to a ghost. Not to a myth. Not to men who thinks he runs the world.

“We fill gaps with ghosts,” Enzo said. “Shells and stooges. Let the city think we’re dumb with victory while we get smart in the dark. They want noise? Feed them decoys. Let Dmitri’s leftovers choke on the scraps:”

Gino’s mouth twitched, the closest he got to a smile. “I’ll pick the stooges.”

“Pick men who like money more than glory,” Enzo said. “They live longer.”

Dottie’s cane tapped once against the tile, the sound like a sentence ending. “About time someone in this room remembered patience is a weapon.”

He didn’t rise to it. She wasn’t wrong.

He straightened, letting the chair legs scrape, a deliberate sound. “We break for now. Jake, I want your nets live by morning. Dom, Gino double the detail on Lola for the ride up and down the tower. No one crowds her, no one hovers. Patterns, not faces. If she feels stared at, we’re doing it wrong.”