Accidentally Yours Chapter 100

**Dom**

The recliner groaned when he shifted, its springs protesting under his frame. Dom cracked one eye open into the dark hospital room, the faint blue glow of monitors pulsing steady like beacons in the quiet. For a beat he thought maybe he’d dreamed the whole nightmare—that she was never gone, never buried, never pulled bleeding from the fire.

But then he looked left.

Lola lay in the bed, pale but breathing, silver hair fanned across the pillow like smoke. Tubes and wires tethered her to machines, but her chest rose and fell. Steady. Alive.

Dom exhaled so hard his ribs ached. Alive.

He shifted again, careful not to wake Gino snoring low in the next chair, boots planted wide like he could fight the whole world from his sleep. Dom dragged a hand over his face, his knuckles stinging under the bandages. They still burned when he flexed them, raw reminders of clawing through debris with his bare hands, convinced he’d pull her body out or die trying.

And then movement.

Small, but real—the faintest tug of her fingers against the sheet. Dom froze, heart lurching. Her lashes fluttered. Her lips parted, a shaky breath slipping free.

“Hey,” he whispered, leaning forward, voice rougher than he meant it to be.

Her eyes cracked open, hazy and searching, until they found him. Somehow, even half-drugged and broken, she managed the ghost of a smile. “Hey yourself.”

The sound cut him open. He dropped his head, swallowed hard, then forced the words out. “I’m so fucking sorry, Lola.” His voice cracked, low and raw. “I was there. I saw it all come down. I dug until my hands bled and it still wasn’t enough. I should’ve—”

“Stop.”

Her voice was quiet but it carried. She lifted a trembling hand, pressed it against his cheek. Warm. Alive. It nearly undid him.

“Stop trying to rewrite the story,” she rasped, her eyes steady on his. “You didn’t leave me. I was taken, and you came for me. Now here we are, back together.”

Dom’s throat locked. A tear slid hot down his face before he could stop it. He bowed his head into her palm, shaking once, hard.

“Thought I lost you,” he admitted, voice breaking in a way it never had on any battlefield, any street. “For hours, I thought—you were gone. And it fucking hollowed me out. I can’t—” His breath stuttered. “I can’t do that again.”

“You won’t,” she murmured, thumb brushing clumsily across his skin. “Because I’m still here. And I don’t plan on going anywhere without raising more hell first.”

That was so her—fire, even singed and stitched. It pulled a broken laugh out of him, half-choked, half-shaky. He caught her hand, holding it against his cheek like a lifeline.

“You mean too much to us,” Dom said hoarsely. “To me. You changed everything when you walked in, you know that? Made the crew laugh again. Made Enzo… lighter. Gino less of a hardass. Even Nico—Christ, you cracked that stubborn bastard open.” His jaw flexed, his shoulders heavy. “I’m not letting anything happen to you again. Ever.”

Her lips curved, faint but certain. “That’s stupid.”

Dom blinked at her. “What?”

“You can’t live like that,” she whispered. “You can’t stop bad shit from happening, Dom. Not in this life. You’d break yourself trying. What you can do is be here when the dust settles. And you are. So let yourself off the hook.”

The words sank like stone in water, rippling through him until something uncoiled in his chest. His shoulders slumped. His grip eased.

She gave him a softer smile then, fragile but fierce. “Besides… if you tried to bubble-wrap me, I’d just chew my way out.”

Dom huffed a laugh, wet and wrecked, pressing a kiss to her knuckles before laying her hand gently back against the blanket. “Yeah. You would.”

She blinked slowly, exhaustion tugging at her. But not before her nose wrinkled faintly. “Also, you stink.”

Dom let out another cracked laugh, shaking his head. “Haven’t exactly had time for a shower, Lo.”

Her eyes slid closed, her voice drifting. “None of you have. Room smells like wolf den. Fix it before I wake up again.”

Her breathing evened, her hand slipping slack against the sheet.

Dom sat there in the dim, broken wide open and pieced back together all at once. He dragged a hand down his face, then leaned back in the chair. He wouldn’t sleep—not yet. Not while she was breathing just a few feet away.

But for the first time in two days, the weight on his chest eased. Just a little.

**Gino**

The machines hummed like lullabies. Soft beeps, low whooshes, steady rhythms marking proof of life in the dim hospital room. Too much life crammed into one too-small space.

Enzo out cold, finally. Nico, pale as chalk, hooked to fluids like his blood had been poured out. Lola stitched together like some goddamn patchwork doll. Dom slumped in the recliner, mouth open, exhaustion dragging him under after hours of refusing to blink.

And Gino—awake. Always awake when the quiet hit like this.

He leaned back in his own chair, one ankle propped over his knee, pretending he was comfortable on the godawful vinyl. His eyes roamed the room in loops, counting every IV line, every flicker of green on the monitors, every rise and fall of the three chests laid out like casualties of some private war.

Christ. They were all alive. He still couldn’t believe it.

Forty-eight hours ago, he’d been digging through rubble with Dom like maniacs, fingers shredded, lungs burning, rage pushing them deeper when common sense said there was nothing left to find. He’d told himself not to hope. That hoping would break him. And still, every time he clawed another splinter of wood or chunk of plaster free, he’d pictured Lola laughing, flipping him off, calling him a dumbass.

And then nothing.

Hours of nothing.

He’d watched Enzo lose his fucking mind. Watched his cousin unravel layer by layer, until there was nothing left of the cool, composed don but a man with blood on his knuckles and eyes gone black with grief.

Gino rubbed his own bruised hands together now, thumb dragging across the raw scabs. He didn’t want to remember the sound Enzo made when the line went dead that first time. Didn’t want to remember how Dom’s voice cracked when he muttered he couldn’t dig anymore because his hands wouldn’t close. Didn’t want to think about Nico, leaning against the hangar wall, staring at nothing like the blast had carved him hollow.

But it was all still there. Stuck under his skin like glass shards.

And Lola—goddamn Lola. That tiny tornado of a woman had survived a blast that should’ve turned her to ash. Survived being dragged through hell and dumped in Russian hands. Survived two days of silence, only to pick up a phone with her body broken and still manage to get Enzo’s name out.

He huffed, shaking his head. “Nobody walks out of that kind of blast. Nobody but you.” His voice was rough, threaded with reluctant wonder.

The room smelled like antiseptic and metal, faintly sour under the recycled air. Gino shifted, reaching into his jacket pocket, fingers brushing against the fat envelope that lived there. The one that bought silence. Kept cameras off. Made sure nobody asked too many questions about why a don and his crew were camped out like squatters in a hospital ward. He hadn’t needed to flash it yet, not since the first nurse, but it was there all the same. Always there.

He blew out a breath and stretched, joints popping.

What the hell were they doing? Vegas was still a powder keg. Enzo had started a war with the Russians, was halfway through dismantling them brick by brick when the call came that Lola was alive. There were still bodies to bury, warehouses to torch, debts to settle. But none of it mattered right now.

Because they were all here. Bruised. Burned. Breathing.

And maybe—for the first time in years—Gino let himself think about after.

Not just the next hit. Not just the next move on the board. After.

His gaze flicked to Enzo. The bastard looked ten years older even unconscious. Shadows cut under his eyes, jaw slack, the lines of command worn thin. Gino had never seen him like this—stripped, wrecked, human. It scared him more than anything.

Nico twitched in his sleep, fingers flexing like he was dreaming of a fight. Poor bastard had been holding himself together with duct tape and spite since the blast. Mutant instincts, sure, but he was still flesh and blood. And blood only went so far.

Dom shifted, groaned low, head rolling on the back of the chair. That one carried guilt like a religion. He’d keep digging with his bare hands forever if Lola let him. And she wouldn’t. She’d slap him upside the head, tell him he smelled like shit, and remind him she chose this life same as they did.

Gino smirked faintly. Yeah, that sounded about right.

He looked at her then. Really looked.

Lola lay between them all, the axis their world tilted on, and he couldn’t remember what it felt like before she crashed into them. She was chaos and charm and sharp edges, the kind of woman who could set a room on fire just by walking into it. Enzo’s fiancée, sure, but she belonged to all of them now. Not in the way tabloids would twist it, but in the marrow-deep way family happened when blood was spilled together.

And Gino wasn’t sentimental—not really. But fuck if it didn’t hit him square in the chest.

He rubbed a hand down his face, exhaled through his nose, and whispered, “We all need a goddamn vacation.”

The words hung in the quiet, absurd and true all at once.

Yeah. After this shitstorm. After the Russians were ashes and the Bellandis pushed back. After Enzo stopped looking like a ghost and Dom stopped bleeding through his bandages and Nico stopped trying to be invincible. After Lola healed enough to throw herself into trouble again, because she would, because she always would.

After.

He pictured it—Italy. Not the business trips, not the blood-stained side of the old country. Something quieter. A villa with sun-baked walls and olive groves stretching wide. Enzo could breathe there, shoulders dropping for once. Nico could drink too much wine and argue about philosophy with locals until dawn. Dom could sleep without waking in a cold sweat. Lola could laugh in the open air, barefoot, spinning in the grass with her hair catching the light.

And him? Hell, he’d find some local girl with curves and a wicked smile, charm her into his bed, and forget about guns and blood for five damn minutes.

The thought almost made him laugh.

Almost.

He leaned his head back, eyes half-closing, but his mind wouldn’t shut off. Images flipped behind his eyelids—rubble, blood, fire, the way Enzo screamed her name like it was the only word he knew. He scrubbed at his chest, trying to push it down, but it clung.

Christ. He needed that vacation. They all did.

The first hint of dawn lightened the blinds, pale gray seeping into the room. Machines kept humming, steady, proof they were still here. Gino let his eyes close for real this time, muscles sagging, body giving in.

Tomorrow—or later today—there’d be more to do. Russians still to burn, calls to make, enemies to put in the ground. But right now?

Right now they were all alive.

And that was enough.