Semua Bab Touch Me,Daddies : Bab 81 - Bab 90

IVY’S POVThe phone stayed in my hand long after the call ended.The screen went dark but my fingers did not move. My ears were ringing like the words were still being said over and over again. We caught the bastard. Come to the dock now.My chest felt hollow. Not tight. Not heavy. Just empty. Like something had been scooped out of me and left space behind.Damien.The name floated in my head without meaning at first. Like a word spoken in a language I did not understand. I tried to connect it to fear. To anger. To relief. Nothing came immediately.My knees felt weak.I sat down slowly on the couch, careful like sudden movement might shatter something fragile inside me. The room looked the same. My walls. My curtains. My little living room that had survived everything even when I did not feel like I had.I stared at the door.Kai’s footsteps sounded from outside. Heavy. Careful. The scrape of boxes against the floor. Keys jingling. The door opened.He stepped in carrying bags and a bo

IVY’S POVThe beeping did not stop.It stayed steady. Calm. Unbothered. Like the sound itself did not care that every breath in the room depended on it.Beep.Beep.Beep.Each sound landed inside my chest, sharp and exact, like a finger tapping against my ribs from the inside.Police sirens wailed outside now. Loud. Close. Too close. Red and blue lights flashed through the cracks in the warehouse walls, painting everything in broken colors that slid over faces and metal and concrete. Shadows jumped and shifted like they were alive.Someone shouted orders outside. Boots moved fast across gravel. Radios crackled with clipped voices and half sentences. Metal doors slammed somewhere down the dock.We had to go.I knew that with a certainty that did not need thought. My body knew it too. My legs trembled like they were begging to move. My hands shook at my sides, fingers curling and uncurling as if testing whether they still worked.My lungs burned even though I was breathing.But no one m

IVY’S POVSleep crept up on me without asking.It didn’t arrive gently or with permission. It slid in through the cracks between thoughts, heavy and warm, dragging my eyelids down while my mind still wandered restlessly. I could feel myself slipping, sinking, but I was too tired to fight it. The steady beeping of the monitor faded into something distant, rhythmic, almost soothing, like a metronome counting me down into darkness.I let it take me.The road came first.Dark. Wet. Shining under streetlights that stretched too long, too thin, like they’d been pulled apart. The asphalt glistened as if it were holding its breath. I knew it instantly—the curve near Asher’s house. The place where the trees leaned inward like they were listening, their branches clawing at the night sky.My chest tightened painfully.I wasn’t in a car.I was standing in the middle of the road.No.Running.My feet hit the asphalt hard, the sound echoing too loudly in the empty street. My breath tore out of my l

IVY’S POVPeople say returning to normal is a victory.They say showing up again means you are winning.I was not sure what it meant when I unlocked the door to the flower shop the next morning and my hands shook so badly I had to try twice.The bell chimed softly when I stepped inside. The sound was gentle. Familiar. It still made my shoulders tense.The shop smelled like damp earth and sweetness. Roses. Lilies. Green stems freshly cut. It should have comforted me. It used to. Today it felt like too much all at once, like my senses had forgotten how to filter things gently.Sunlight poured in through the front window, catching on glass vases and ribbons, scattering color across the walls. Everything looked exactly the same.I was the thing that had changed.“Morning, Ivy,” my boss said from behind the counter. Her voice was warm but careful, like she was approaching a skittish animal. “You did not have to come in if you were not ready.”“I wanted to,” I said. The words came out stead

IVY’S POVI lingered at the door for longer than I should have. My hand rested on the handle, fingers curled so tightly it was almost painful, as if holding on could keep me from falling apart again. I could feel Jamal on the other side, waiting patiently, the kind of quiet presence that somehow made my chest tighten even more. He had always been like that. Patient, careful, calculating. Waiting for permission even when he did not deserve it.I opened the door.He stepped in slowly, almost reverently, stopping just inside like he was unsure of the boundaries he could cross. His eyes scanned the room without lingering too long, yet nothing escaped him—the couch neatly arranged, the bookshelf slightly crowded, the photo on the wall that I had refused to take down even when everything else in my life felt unsettled.“Sit,” I said, gesturing toward the couch.He did so immediately, lowering himself onto the edge with careful precision, as if he feared fully settling into the space.“Your