Accidentally Yours Chapter 97

**Nico**

The hangar buzzed with noise—keyboards clacking, phones ringing, men gearing up—but all of it blurred around the edges. Nico sat at the long steel table, a laptop open in front of him, though the words on the screen kept doubling until he blinked them back into one. His head still ached where it had cracked glass and cement, ribs burning every time he twisted. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to bed. He wasn’t leaving this room until Lola was back.

Sleep had been rationed out of existence. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping him moving. That and the memory he couldn’t shake—Lola leaning forward between the seats of the SUV, pressing a kiss to his cheek, another to Dom’s, before sliding out into the night.

“Behave,” she’d said, green eyes sparkling with mischief.

He clenched his jaw, fingers digging into the edge of the table. If she could see them now—Enzo tearing through warehouses like a storm, Dom hollow-eyed and wrecked, Nico himself bleeding and half-dizzy—she’d laugh her ass off and call them liars. This wasn’t “behaving.” Not even close.

Every breath he took came with that same split down the middle: no body means she might still be alive. But no one survives a blast like that. His chest tightened, the contradiction tearing him in two. He’d seen the fire, the collapse, the smoke choking out the stars. He’d seen her get swallowed whole.

And yet—no body.

That fact burned hotter than the pain in his skull. No body meant a sliver of hope. And hope, twisted sharp as it was, kept him upright.

Across the room, Enzo paced, blood on his knuckles, his face carved into something feral. He barked orders in Italian, voice edged with steel, while Jake’s crew hammered away at their computers. Every so often, Enzo would lean over the maps spread across the table, stabbing a finger down like he could puncture the city itself.

Dom wasn’t much better. He’d come back from the wreckage with soot still ground into his skin, eyes ringed dark, body running on fumes. Every movement of his hands was tight, deliberate, as though if he let go for even a second, he’d shatter.

And Nico—Nico sat between them, trying to hold steady when everything in him wanted to crumble. He couldn’t. Not while Enzo was unraveling. Not while Dom looked like he’d already buried her in his head.

The taste of ash from that night still lingered in his mouth. He’d clawed at the ground, glass slicing his hands, lungs on fire, trying to reach her. He’d thought he’d seen her—smoke, silver hair, a body being dragged—but his brain had been too scrambled to trust it. He hated himself for not knowing. For not being sure.

His eyes dragged to the corner of the room where their weapons were stacked, gleaming under the fluorescents. Every piece loaded. Every piece ready. If they didn’t find her soon, blood would flood the streets. Enzo had promised it.

Nico dropped his head into his hands, palms pressing hard against his temples. Her voice still echoed there, maddeningly soft, like the ghost of a smile pressed against his cheek.

“Behave.”

Christ, Lo. If only you could see us now.

**Rafael**

The room hummed with low, mechanical rhythm—the slow rise and fall of a machine breathing for her, the steady beep of monitors marking time like a metronome. Rafael stood in the corner, arms folded, watching Lola sleep.

Forty-eight hours since he’d carried her bleeding out of the Russians’ chaos. Twenty since he’d last checked in. Still alive. Still here.

The doctors had done their work—stitches, blood transfusions, scans that showed no permanent damage but plenty of trauma. Bruises painted her ribs and arms in mottled purples and blacks, burns licked up one side of her body, and her head bore the angry swell of concussion. Not fading. Not softening. Just proof she’d been through fire and somehow crawled out.

She should’ve been ash. But she wasn’t.

Rafael had seen plenty of people cling to life out of fear. Lola wasn’t fear. She was defiance in flesh, even unconscious. The faint crease between her brows, the restless twitch of her fingers—she fought even here.

He moved closer, setting a small black phone on the bedside table. A burner. One call, one number. He wasn’t going to keep her caged. Not yet. No—this game needed patience. Curiosity outweighed leverage. He wanted to see what she would do when given the choice.

His gaze drifted over her face, pale against the pillow. A puzzle he couldn’t put down. Enzo’s fiancée, yes. Cinnamon at the Russians’ club. The tattooist in Los Angeles who’d pricked his skin and made him laugh despite himself. Too many masks, too many lives. And yet the bruised woman in front of him was undeniably real.

He hated not knowing which version was truth. He hated even more how badly he wanted to find out.

Her hand twitched against the sheet. The finger where the ring had been—bare now, bandaged, bruised. He felt the weight of it still in his pocket. Not leverage. Not a trophy. A reminder. A debt.

He leaned in, close enough to catch the slow, steady pull of her breath. Close enough that if she woke, his face would be the first she saw.

“Sleep, volpacchiotta \[clever fox\],” he murmured, voice pitched low. “When you wake, you’ll show me what you really are.”

He straightened, turned, and walked out, his coat cutting through the sterile light. Behind him, the machines kept time, steady and relentless. Ahead, the city waited—bloody, burning, and about to get worse.

**Lola**

Consciousness clawed its way back in stages.

First—the sound. Beep. Beep. Beep. Too steady, too clinical. Wrong.

Second—the smell. Sharp antiseptic, bleach heavy enough to burn.

Her eyelids peeled open, fighting light that stabbed into her skull. White ceiling tiles swam above her. A hospital.

Panic jolted through her chest. She tried to move, but agony ripped across her ribs, jagged and merciless. A strangled cry broke free. Her arms flinched up, snagging on tubes and wires tethered to her skin.

***No. No no no.***

The blast came back in shards—heat, smoke, glass carving air, her ears ringing until there was nothing but white noise. Arms dragging her. A face not Enzo’s. Dark eyes, a mouth cut sharp like it was built for smirking. She remembered rasping words at him. Knew you were trouble.

But it wasn’t Enzo.

Her chest squeezed tight. Where was he? Did he even know?

She turned her head, slow, deliberate. The room was empty. Machines blinked. An IV dripped. On the tray by her bed sat a phone. Small. Black. No hospital logo.

Her heart stopped. Someone had left it. For her.

Her hand trembled violently as she reached, every movement screaming through her ribs. The phone slid clumsy into her palm. She collapsed back into the pillow with it clutched to her chest, dizzy and shaking.

*Enzo*. She needed Enzo.

Her throat scraped raw when she whispered, “Call…” The phone screen lit. No lock. Just a single number saved. Her thumb hit it.

The ring barely buzzed once before a voice answered, ragged and lethal. “Hello?”

Her eyes flooded hot. Relief cracked through her chest so sharp it almost hurt worse than the pain. “Enzo—” Her voice shredded, no louder than a breath.

A chair scraped. The clatter of movement. His voice surged like a blade unsheathed. “Lola?! Where are you? Talk to me!”

She tried. God, she tried. Her lips moved, throat fought, but the black tide was already rising, pulling her under. The phone slid against her chest, Enzo’s voice roaring through the speaker, furious, frantic—

“Stay with me, diavoletta \[little devil\]! Lola! Lola!”

Darkness swallowed her whole.