All Chapters of Touch Me,Daddies : Chapter 41 - Chapter 49

IVY’S POV The study smelled of coffee and paper. Ivy sat hunched at the long oak table, her fingers tracing the rim of her mug in small motions. Across from her, Kai leaned forward with both elbows on the table, studying a map covered with red-ink notes. Asher was beside the window, the soft glow of the desk lamp drawing hard lines across his face as he scrolled through data on his laptop."Damien's people have been moving through the docks," Asher said finally, without looking up. "We think he's using the shipping routes to smuggle weapons. But there's no proof yet."Kai's eyes stayed on the map. "We can't move on a hunch. We need solid intel. If we strike too soon we'll be walking into his trap."Ivy looked from one man to the other. Their calm, clipped words carried an undercurrent of tension that made her chest tighten. "What if we're already in it?" she asked quietly.Neither of them answered right away.From the corner of her eye she saw the door open. The house manager, steppe

IVY'S POV The room still felt like it was holding its breath after the conversation that had just ended. Kai was still watching me from the far end of the table, his brows drawn slightly together. "What is it, Ivy?" he asked. "You went pale all of a sudden." I shook my head quickly, forcing a small smile that didn't reach my eyes. "It's nothing. I just... zoned out." It wasn't entirely a lie. I had zoned out staring at the map on the table without really seeing it. My mind kept drifting to the risk we were taking, to Damien's shadow reaching further than any of us wanted to admit. Kai studied me a moment longer, then looked back down at the map. "Alright. We need to finalize the decoy placement. Levi?" Levi leaned forward, tracing a finger over the riverfront road on the map. "The first truck stays here. Obvious enough to look rushed. The second goes by the warehouse. We let Damien think he's outsmarted us." Asher, sitting near the head of the table, nodded slightly. "Th

DAMIEN'S POV The hotel suite on the forty-second floor was silent except for the faint hum of the city below. I didn't bother turning on the lights. The glass wall in front of me reflected my own outline a still figure in a black shirt, shoulders stiff. Behind the glass, the city glowed in scattered patches, like a battlefield after the fires had gone out.I didn't come up here for the view. I came because I needed to think without anyone's voice in my ear.I had lost more men tonight than I'd expected. A whole squad, gone. The safehouse at the dock burned, the hostage pulled out under my nose. I'd planned for a trap and walked into one instead. That should have made me furious. It didn't. Not yet. What sat in my chest was something colder. The kind of anger that waits.Jace would have been disgusted. My brother never forgave mistakes not his, not anyone else's. I used to curse him for it. Now I missed it. He would have stood here beside me and said what I already knew: I had underes

IVY’S POVI woke to the soft rhythm of Asher’s breathing beside me. The morning light slipped through the blinds in faint lines that reached across his face. For a moment, I just watched him sleep. His expression, usually drawn tight from the weight of too many plans, was calm. Almost boyish. He looked like someone who had finally stopped running.I brushed a strand of hair off his forehead and smiled to myself. He’d stayed the night without meaning to. He never did that before. I liked the quiet of it. No guards outside the door. No urgent calls. Just the two of us in a silence that didn’t demand anything.When the clock struck seven, I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake him. My feet barely touched the floor as I reached for my robe. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and paused. The reflection looked rested for the first time in weeks.I dressed quietly in jeans and a plain white shirt, something simple enough for what I planned to do today. A small sense of purpose had

IVY’S POVI woke to light at the windows. It moved across the room in a straight quiet way, making the white curtains look almost clean enough to breathe through. The bed smelled faintly of lemon and the linen had the neat, faintly used softness of a place someone had taken care of. For a moment I simply lay there and let the light run over the room like an inspection. The ceiling, the picture above the dresser, the pale rug by the bed. The room looked like a sentence rewritten to make sense.There was a knock on the door. One knock, polite.“Come in,” I called, still half under the weight of sleep.The door opened and Levi stepped in. He was less prim than the room. He had on a shirt that had seen other mornings and a pair of trousers that sagged at the hips as if they had been measured by time. He moved like someone who could be quiet even when he was thinking loud.“Asher and Kai left for supplies,” he said. “If you need anything, come find me.”He said it without pressure. He stoo