Accidentally Yours Chapter 62

**Lola**

“Been there since we got you back,” Gino said, too casual for someone admitting there was a human being marinating a few feet away.

She was already unbuckling before the words even finished leaving his mouth. “Pull. Over.”

“Lo—”

“Dom, I swear to God, pull this car over so I can put my fist through his teeth!”

Gino lunged, wrapping his arms around her from behind, while Dom reached over the seat to grab her waist. She kicked and twisted like a cat who’d seen the vet’s office, cussing in three different languages and inventing new ones as she went.

“You’re not climbing over the seats in the middle of traffic to attack someone we have bound and gagged,” Gino grunted, holding her inches off the seat as she kept trying to crawl toward the back.

“I’m just gonna talk to him!” she snapped, swinging an elbow. “With my hands! To his face!”

Dom bit back a laugh. “You’re not ‘talking’ to anybody. Sit down before you end up in your own wrists and ankles bound with a gag.”

“Sounds kinky and like something I would be into,” Lola replied in a huff while buckling in, angled her voice at the trunk, and let it go calm.

“Listen to me, Sir Sprinkles. I’m not yelling. I’m not repeating myself. I’m going to tell you how your life continues when we get home.”

She thumbed a timer. A soft metronome began to tick.

Tick…

tick…

tick.

Just like Captain Hook, she’d make him dread every single click.

“First thing you’ll feel is the cold,” she said. “Metal under your wrists. Air on your skin. You’ll think darkness is mercy. It isn’t. It just means I want you to hear more than you see.”

A muffled thump from behind her. Good.

“You’ll answer when I ask: yes, no, please, sorry. Anything else buys you more time. Time is the currency tonight. You’re going to leave broke.”

She went quiet.

The ticking kept going. A hitch of breath from the backseat told her he’d started counting, clinging to the numbers like they could save him.

“You like counting?” she asked, mild as tea. “Good. Here’s your objective, Sir Sprinkles. Start at one thousand. Subtract seven. Keep subtracting until I say stop.”

She let the silence drag, her voice almost pleasant. “Sounds easy, right? It’s not. You’ll lose track. You’ll think you remember where you were, but you won’t. And every time you mess up, I’ll tell you exactly what I’m taking from you when we get home. We’ll play this game again then, but I won’t be talking. I’ll be working. And I’ll start with the smallest pieces.”

A pause, long enough for him to swallow.

“What’s a thousand minus seven?”

“Nine hundred ninety-three.”

“Again.”

“Nine hundred eighty-six.”

“Again. Don’t stop.”

The seconds dragged, the ticking stretching between each answer.

He hesitated.

“Nine hundred seventy…?”

“Ninety-three,” she corrected sweetly. “Toenails. One at a time. Heat the blade so the keratin smokes before it lifts. You’ll smell it before you feel it.”

Another beat.

“Eighty-six?”

“Fingers,” she said lightly. “Not all at once — joint by joint, knuckle by knuckle. I’ll give you time to think about the next one.”

He lost his place. She smiled. “Back to a thousand.” 

Dom stared straight ahead. Gino’s hands tightened on the wheel.

***This is going to be a long car ride for everyone.***

“Nine hundred ninety-three,” she prompted. “Toes, this time. Not nails — toes. You’d be surprised how clean they pop when you get the angle right. You’ll hear it.”

Dom swallowed. “I hate this.”

“Nine hundred eighty-six,” Lola said for him. “You’re going to put your tongue to the roof of your mouth and breathe quiet. When I say swallow, you swallow. When I don’t, you don’t. It’s amazing how fast gratitude shows up when someone else owns your throat.”

The trunk went very still.

Miles slid under them. Freeway signs ticked by. She didn’t fill the silence—she measured it, letting the metronome breathe in the gaps.

“Let’s try again. A thousand.”

He groaned.

“Ninety-three,” she said, “and now I’m thinking about feet. The whole thing. Ankles next. Slow enough you’ll feel the tendons wind apart before the bone goes.”

Gino exhaled through his nose.

“Nine hundred eighty-six. And a glass of water you’ll smell but not reach. I’ll promise you can drink, then add—after you thank me like you mean it.”

They drove. The Welcome to Nevada sign flashed like a verdict. He made the small sounds people make when they’re trying not to exist.

“Pit stop. Now.”

Dom glanced at the mirror. “For what?”

“Air freshener,” Lola said, crisp. “Sir Sprinkles just lost a battle with his bladder and the car smells like truck stop urinal and regret. Also, I want a snack.”

Gino blinked. “Sir… Sprinkles.”

“Respect his title,” she deadpanned, already digging for her wallet. “We’re getting six pine trees, something salty, something sweet, and if they have it—silence that lasts four hours.”

At the gas station, she returned with an armful of pine-tree fresheners, jerky, sour gummies, and a lemon-lime soda the size of her forearm. She clipped five trees to the center vent, three to the back vents, and—out of pure spite—one to the trunk latch.

Dom coughed. “It smells like a forest committed tax fraud.”

“Good. Nine hundred seventy-nine. Let him contemplate his choices under the Northern Pine Act.”

Back on the highway, she settled in and started the metronome again.

Round two.

“Nine hundred seventy-two. Here’s what happens when we get home, Sir Sprinkles. I’ll ask what you put in my drink. Who handed it to you. Where you stood while my legs went soft.”

She let the tick run for a count of twenty that wasn’t twenty.

“Nine hundred sixty-five. If you lie, I’ll lie back. I’ll say we’re almost done. We won’t be. I’ll say you’re doing great. You won’t be. I’ll say ‘maybe’ when you ask what’s next.” She smiled at the dark rear glass. “You won’t like maybe.”

Dom muttered, “We need to start screening the people Enzo brings home.”

Lola ignored him, kept her tone pleasant. “Posture earns mercy. Sighing burns it. Nine hundred fifty-eight. You’ll learn quickly.”

She crinkled the gummy bag on purpose. “This is called a reward. You won’t get one. Not tonight. But you’ll hear the sound anyway. That’s half the lesson.”

Gino’s knuckles went white on the wheel.

***Drag it. Make every mile feel like a mile.***

“Nine hundred fifty-one,” she said, naming bones—not anatomically precise, just slow and deliberate, like a bedtime story: the long ones that break loud, the small ones that don’t, the joints that talk when you twist them wrong. She never said she’d do any of it. She just let him imagine which words would belong to him.

“Nine hundred forty-four,” she said, “hands. Not fingers this time — whole hands. Wrapped and sealed in ice so you can feel them go cold before they’re gone.”

Another exit slid by. The metronome kept time. The trunk was quiet except for a wet, controlled breathing that said at least one pine tree had done nothing for his dignity.

“Let’s go again,” she said finally, knocking twice, soft. “From a thousand. When we get home, I stop talking and someone else starts. He’s a man of fewer words. That’s the good news.”

A strangled sound answered her—half sob, half prayer. Dom stared harder at the road like eye contact might summon demons. Gino didn’t speak at all.

Lola took a long pull of soda, let the fizz burn.

***I’m fine. I’m furious. And when we get home, he learns the difference.***

The Vegas skyline rose out of the dark like a mouth full of diamonds, and Lola was mid–slow, surgical promise to Sir Tinkles when Dom finally broke the silence that wasn’t silence.

“ETA ten,” he said to Gino, checking the mirror. “Text Nico we’re rolling in. Enzo’s already at the penthouse.”

Lola’s words clipped off like a record scratch. “I’m sorry—Enzo’s what?”

Gino didn’t look back. “Waiting.”

She blinked at the back of his head. “Waiting… as in… now waiting? Right this second waiting? And nobody thought to share that tiny, microscopic detail while I smell like expo sweat, car wreck, hospital soup, and the Northern Pine Act?” 

Dom winced. “We didn’t want you stressing.”

“Newsflash,” she said, deadpan. “I’m stressed. I smell like a crime. He’s going to hug me and get high on ‘eau de trauma.’”

From the trunk came a small, broken noise at the name Enzo. Lola flicked a glance at the rear panel and smiled like a knife.

***Good. Be scared of the right things.***

Gino kept his tone even. “He won’t care how you smell, Red.”

“I care,” she snapped, throwing her hands up. “Do you know what my hair is doing right now? It’s a cautionary tale. I needed—bare minimum—a shower and a minor exorcism.”

Dom tried, “He just wants to see you breathing.”

“Great,” she said, “he can see me breathing after I don’t smell like I was slow-cooked in a hospital Crock-Pot.”

The Strip signage flashed past, neon washing the SUV in carnival colors. Her stomach flipped—equal parts fury and something softer she refused to name.

***He’s here. He got on a plane and came home. Okay. Breathe.***

“Can we at least stop for five minutes?” she tried. “Gas-station sink bath? Fire hose? Baptism?”

“No stops,” Gino said. “He asked us to bring you straight in.”

Lola sagged back, glaring at the ceiling. “Fine. But if he says anything about the smell, I’m blaming Sir Tinkles and the two of you for letting me marinate.”

“Deal,” Dom said too fast.

Another small whimper shivered out of the trunk at Enzo. Lola leaned forward between the seats and knocked twice—soft, polite.

“Change of plans, Sprinkles,” she murmured. “We’re skipping to the part where I stop talking and someone else starts.”

Gino took the exit for their tower. The city opened around them like a dare.

***Blood, burnt rubber, Betadine.***

***He’ll lock me in like a vow.***

***And I’ll collect for nondisclosure of fiancé arrival.***