Top Assassins Call Me The Lady Boss-Chapter 187: "I fcking love you"

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty- Seven

Asli glanced over her shoulder.

Her men were closing in fast now, boots pounding, guns raised, eyes sharp and waiting for her signal. The space between them and Ahmet was shrinking by the second. One wrong move and it would all collapse into blood.

Her chest tightened.

She shut her eyes briefly, just a blink, but it felt like a betrayal of everything she was.

"Hold me," she whispered.

Ahmet stared at her like he hadn’t heard right. Smoke curled between them, gunfire cracking somewhere to the side, but his focus locked on her face.

"What?" he breathed.

She didn’t wait for him to decide.

Asli dragged herself toward him deliberately, stumbling just enough to sell it, her shoulder brushing his chest as if he had yanked her in. Her voice was barely audible now, and sharp with urgency.

"Hold me," she repeated. "As leverage."

Understanding hit him like a punch.

For half a second, he hesitated. Then his arm came up around her, firm and unmistakable, his gun lifting to her temple. His body turned just enough to shield her without making it obvious.

The field froze.

"Guns down!" Asli shouted.

Her men faltered.

Confusion rippled through them, hands tightening, eyes darting between her and Ahmet. Slowly... too slowly, some of the guns lowered.

A voice cut through the pause, sharp and furious.

"Don’t be stupid!" Demir barked from behind the line. "You’re on a battlefield! Your queen is being held hostage and you are lowering your guns?"

Shame flickered across a few faces. Then discipline snapped back in place.

Weapons rose again.

All of them aimed at Ahmet.

Asli swallowed hard, her throat tight as panic clawed at her ribs. She forced herself to think. Forced herself to breathe.

"Guns down!" she yelled again, louder now. Commanding. Desperate.

This was madness.

She knew it.

Being taken as leverage was already unforgivable. Ordering her men to disarm in the middle of an assault? Her father would call it incompetence. Weakness. A failure unfit for leadership.

But she couldn’t let them shoot him. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

She just couldn’t.

Of all the things ripped from her life: family, childhood, and even choices, there was one man standing here, though her enemy, he had sworn to love her in his own twisted way.

The realization burned.

Her vision blurred, and she hated that too. Hated the pressure behind her eyes, and the ache in her chest. This wasn’t her. She didn’t act on emotion.

Fck! She didn’t have emotions.

"Shoot him!" Demir roared.

The men wavered, torn between orders.

Before the balance could tip, movement surged around them.

Ahmet’s men poured in, fast and coordinated, their weapons raised, bodies forming a tight ring around Ahmet and Asli. The space narrowed, control shifting inch by inch.

Asli knew it then.

This mission was meant to fail. She had made sure of it.

Cole wasn’t there and that was intentional. This had only been the first set. Demir had forced himself into this operation, and against her better judgment, wanted to be in the same car as her.

Daniel or whatever his name was, was with Cole, exactly where he was supposed to be.

She kept her face steady, even as her heart raced.

If not, more of her men would’ve arrived by now and they hadn’t.

A grim sense of relief settled in her chest.

Cole had control.

That second unit would be intercepted by the Police. Delays engineered down to the minute.

She stayed still in Ahmet’s hold, staring straight ahead, as the battlefield around them stalled.

She had already lost it on purpose.

But did it mean this was useless? No it wasn’t because his father was dying this morning. But what next?

Ahmet’s grip didn’t loosen.

If anything, it became more exact and measured, deliberate, like he was holding something volatile and knew it.

"You planned this," he murmured, so low only she could hear. He wasn’t accusing her. It was a realization settling into place.

Asli kept her gaze forward, spine straight, breath controlled by sheer will.

"No," she said quietly. "I adapted."

His thumb shifted against her arm. It was barely a movement, but it burned all the same.

"You don’t adapt like this unless you were ready to lose," he said.

Her throat tightened. She hated that he knew that.

Around them, the gunfire softened. Men on both sides held position, weapons raised, waiting. No one moved. No one dared.

The world narrowed until it was just the two of them.

"If you wanted me dead," Ahmet continued, voice low and steady, "you would have let them fire."

Her jaw set.

"If I wanted you alive," she replied, "I wouldn’t be standing like this."

That made him turn her.

Not roughly, just enough that her back brushed his chest and her face angled toward his shoulder, close enough that he could see her profile, the tension in her jaw, and the discipline holding her together.

Not the queen. Not the enemy.

Just the woman breathing against him. Just Asli, beautiful in the way she’d always been, and devastating in the way she was now. Smoke clung to her hair, tension sharpened her features, and still... yet still, his body betrayed him. Desire coiled low and sudden, inappropriate and furious. He found himself wishing, absurdly, that this would end quickly, that the noise and guns and eyes would disappear so he could peel her clothes off piece by piece and remind each other she belonged to him and he to her.

"You know what this looks like," he said quietly trying to take his mind off the dangerous thoughts.

"Yes."

"To both sides?"

"Yes."

"And you still did it."

She closed her eyes for half a second. That was all she allowed herself.

"I told them to lower their guns," she said. "Not to think."

A breath left him, almost a laugh, if circumstances had been kinder.

"You’ve always been terrifying like that."

Her eyes lifted then, meeting his for the briefest moment.

"Let me go," she whispered.

"Not yet."

His forehead dipped closer, nearly touching her temple, his voice rough now. "If I let you go, someone might panic. If someone decides they don’t care what you ordered, both of us could die here."

She hated that he was right.

"I won’t repeat the command," she said. "They’ll see it as a weakness."

"Then let me be the reason they don’t move."

Her breath caught.

"That makes it worse."

"For you," he said. "Not for me."

Something shifted between them.

Choice.

"This will cost you," he murmured.

"I know."

"And you still..."

"Ahmet."

She said his name like it was a warning. Like a plea she would never own.

He stilled.

His grip tightened, not in a possessive, or cruel way. Just human.

"Fck," he breathed.

She felt it against her ear.

"I fcking love you."

The words slipped out raw and unarmored, dragged loose by chaos and the fact that she was standing there, choosing ruin with open eyes.

Asli froze. She was not startled.

Nor shocked.

She was stunned.

He exhaled sharply, almost angry with himself. "Don’t look at me like that. I know how insane it sounds."

Her throat worked. Nothing came out.

"You walked into gunfire and bent it around you," he went on, fierce and quiet. "You made killers hesitate. And... you chose me when every rule said you shouldn’t."

His knuckles brushed her wrist once. It was gone before anyone could notice.

"How am I supposed not to admire that?"

"You shouldn’t say things like that... Especially not here, not right now.," she managed.

"I shouldn’t do a lot of things," he replied. "Yet here we are."