Accidentally Yours (Merffy Kizzmet) novel Chapter 228

Chapter 228

Lola

The hotel smelled like lemon soap and recycled air, the kind of clean that money buys when it wants to hide fingerprints. Lola crossed the lobby like she belonged there, gym bag on one shoulder, heartbeat steady enough to lie.

She’d texted Jake on the way up, a single line: Need a favor. Quiet.

He’d replied with an access code to the sublevel he used as his cave.

Jake’s tech den was cold and humming. Screens washed the walls in blue light, lines of code scrolling like rainfall. He didn’t look surprised when she slipped inside, just gestured with his coffee mug like that counted as hello.

“I need you to look into a name,” she said, voice low. “Lucian Rinaldi. Don’t flag it. Don’t mention it. Especially not to Enzo.”

Jake’s brow furrowed. “You don’t usually come to me for ghosts.”

“I don’t usually have one,” she said. “I just want to know if it’s real before I decide how to feel about it.”

Because if I’m wrong, I’m paranoid. If I’m right, I’m hunted.

He set his mug down. “How deep?”

“Quiet deep,” she said. “If someone’s scrubbed it, I don’t want to be the reason it gets noticed again.”

Jake started typing, eyes flicking between screens. “All right. You’ll owe me something.”

“Put it on my tab.”

The keys clacked for a while. Data flickered, ran, erased itself. His face shifted from bored to intent, and then to something she didn’t like -focus sharpened by caution.

“You remember this name from where?” he asked, not looking up.

“When I was nine,” she said. “Before I ran. It’s the one piece of that day I can’t see clearly, Everything else plays like film–every voice, every smell. But not that one. It’s like someone fogged the reel.”

He nodded slowly. “Trauma does that.”

“Yeah,” she said, jaw tight. “So does being rewritten.”

Jake didn’t comment. His fingers kept moving. The room filled with quiet, the kind that builds when a secret gets too close to being born.

Wear something comfortable. I’ll be late. Don’t forget I love you.

Comfortable. Sure. That means no cloths.

The elevator doors slid open with a pleasant chime. She stepped inside, hit the penthouse floor, and leaned back against the mirrored wall. The car began its smooth climb.

Halfway up, it jolted.

Not the kind of shake you get from weight or misalignment, this was a pulse. A manufactured stutter. The panel lights flickered. A hiss filled the small box something releasing. Her stomach went still.

No way this is maintenance.

The elevator shuddered to a stop. The doors didn’t open. A heartbeat later, something on the outside did a click, then a punch of sound so low she felt it in her ribs. The metal screamed as the emergency lock was forced.

She shifted weight, ready stance, hand finding the small utility blade she kept clipped inside her gym bag. The doors parted an inch–then three–then someone’s gloved fingers wrenched them wide.

No sound, no words just the rush of bodies in black.

Breathe. Count backward from trouble. Keep what’s yours.

The van exhaled and went still. Hood on, zip ties biting, Lola felt bodies settle around her, boots widening, a strap snugged, a radio clicked to whisper. No pep talk. Real men save air for work.

Light knifed in as the rear doors cracked. Warm warehouse air slid over her: rubber, dust, cleaner trying to make danger smell polite. A glove found her elbow; another thumbed the hood up just to her mouth for a mercy breath. In that sliver she clocked a square jaw, a gold watch, posture that said I am practiced at being obeyed.