Top Assassins Call Me The Lady Boss-Chapter 113: A signal to Cole

Chapter Hundred and Thirteen

Asli finally pulled into the Villa’s private lot, cutting the engine with a heavy sigh.

The silence of the night pressed around her, thick and almost suffocating. She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel for a second, closing her eyes.

The information burned at the edges of her mind.

Markus had every right to seek revenge on Ahmet.

If it had been her... if someone she trusted stood by while her family was killed, she wouldn’t hesitate either. She would have made them bleed.

Slowly. Painfully.

In fact, that had been her whole life’s mission... until recently.

Until this same bastard with wicked eyes and a crooked smile tangled himself into her sheets and into the parts of her heart she did not even know were still alive.

Now, she was hesitating. Pausing. And delaying the inevitable.

Because of him.

And knowing that made her furious... at him, at herself, at the impossible knot they had tied without realizing it.

She leaned back against the seat, staring up at the car ceiling as if it held answers.

Now she understood why her father had agreed to help Markus. It was not a coincidence that he chose to seek help from her father. It was not a mistake either. Markus had a reason to seek alliance and her father, ever the tactician, probably saw Markus’ thirst for vengeance as a tool.

But... how did Markus even know to come to them?

Had he known her story too?

Had he known they shared a taste for revenge against the same family?

His family?

The thought made her shiver.

There were too many questions now.

Too many hands playing too many games.

And underneath it all, she couldn’t help but ask herself if Ahmet and his father were even humans.

His father had butchered her family without blinking.

And Ahmet, he had watched another child die. Markus’ sister. His own cousin.

Or maybe... maybe he had not just been witnessing. Maybe it had been his father’s orders. Maybe Ahmet had done it himself.

What did she think? That Ahmet was a saint just because she allowed him to get close to her?

Did she think she was a saint just because she didn’t kill children and people outside her world?

Well, yes. In this case, she was better than Ahmet and his family. They had killed her family and if she wasn’t mistaken, Ahmet could have been there too when they did the killing.

After all, she had started killing before she turned ten. Maybe her father was his first kill. Probably her mother was...

She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the old anger that threatened to tear her apart.

The same anger she had spent years sharpening into a blade.

Even if she was delaying killing him, she knew Markus and her adoptive father were planning to.

Even if she should warn him, It wouldn’t be the smart thing to do.

It would at least be... fair.

But she snorted under her breath, the sound bitter and cold.

Right. What would she even say?

’Hey, Ahmet. I just remembered how I planned to kill your family and you because of what your father did to mine. Well, I just had this crazy thought about you being there and even killing my father. Crazy, right? Yeah, and also there has been a small change of plans. Someone else might beat me to it. Thought you should know. So you would survive that someone. I want to be the one to kill you.’

That would go down great.

First of all, he found out that the someone she mentioned was Markus, he wouldn’t believe her.

Why would he?

She was still the enemy, no matter how many nights they tangled their bodies together, no matter how his hands memorized her skin like it was holy.

That was all it was.

A dangerous, stupid, fragile arrangement.

Nothing more.

Though he had entered the room grinning like a fool, and claiming he was just happy to see her. She knew he was lying. In fact, she had believed him until Markus’ story cleared her head.

The smart move was to let Markus do what he needed to do.

Let him carve the path first.

It would make her revenge easier in the end.

And yet...

And yet.

She thought about the way Ahmet had held her earlier.

The way his voice softened when he thought she was hurt.

The stupid jokes. The heated stares. The rare smiles that cracked through the ice he wore like armor.

’You’re slipping,’ A voice in her head whispered.

’You’re forgetting the plan.’

Her hands curled into fists against her thighs.

No. She wasn’t forgetting anything.

But maybe...

Maybe she was starting to realize that revenge didn’t look the way she thought it would.

Maybe, when she finally plunged the knife in, it would not taste like victory.

It would taste like ash.

She exhaled sharply, forcing herself to move.

She had four hours before Cole needed to be back.

She had four hours to figure out what the hell she was going to do with all this information.

Or...

Should she ask Cole to agree to whatever Ahmet had kidnapped him for so he’d pretend to no longer be her family? Probably make him a spy and report back to her?

She doubted after her last encounter with him, he’d want to take orders from her.

Did she still think that lowly of him? He’d be disappointed but how would she get to tell him that when she has told Ahmet to release him? If Cole left Ahmet’s Villa and suddenly wanted to return, the man would suspect them.

How could she play her cards right?

She grabbed her phone again, opened a new message, and without giving herself time to second-guess, she typed,

"Forget it. Keep him if you want. I don’t care what you do with that traitor. But let me warn you, if you get any information out of him and you try to double cross me, I will retaliate."

She hovered a second while rereading it.

Exactly the kind of anger he’d believe after their argument.

She hit send.

The message was delivered instantly, and with it, a hollow weight settled inside her chest.

It was funny how she trusted Cole to fool them when earlier she had believed he was a traitor. She could only hope Cole would forgive her.

However, until then, she couldn’t let anyone know that Cole mattered enough to her to move pieces around the board.

Setting the phone down again, she let out a slow, steadying breath.

Now to the real plan.

She couldn’t just storm Ahmet’s Villa. After the previous break in, she now knew every layout of the Villa.

She could reach him.

Quietly.

First, she’d have to intercept one of the small supply runs going to Ahmet’s estate. She could use the cleaners, or gardeners... people whose faces blurred into the background because no one ever bothered to look too closely at the help.

Nothing fancy. Just enough to pass a message to Cole when no one was looking.

"Stay and Spy." She whispered to herself as she thought of how to let Cole know her plan.

He needed to become exactly what Ahmet needed him to be. A disloyal dog. A servant. Or perhaps her shadow.

And in doing so, feed her the cracks from the inside out.

If Cole was smart and she was betting he was, he’d know exactly how dangerous that position could be.

If he was stupid...

Well, then he’d made his choice the moment he threw in with her enemies.

Which she knew he wouldn’t be the second.

She pushed her hand away from her forehead.

Her mouth twisted in a grim line as an idea struck her.

This was a good plan.

Instead of breaking into the Villa, she could send an encrypted message. She was going to make Markus deliver that message without him even knowing it.

But it couldn’t be anything clumsy, nothing Markus could feel, nothing he could even suspect.

It had to be something only Cole would recognize at a glance.

Her fingers tapped against her forehead again as she thought. And then, the answer came.

She moved quickly into her bedroom and to her drawer, pulling out a small roll of green thread.

If she could slip a single, barely visible thread around the button of his jacket, it would be enough.

The green thread would stand out against his usual black jackets. To anyone else including Markus himself, it would look like a stray piece of thread.

But to Cole, trained by her, and taught by her, it would scream louder than any message.

Green thread meant she was giving him the green light. He would know she wanted him to blend in and wait for orders.

"Now, how do I put the thread on him without it falling off?" She asked herself quietly.

Then the name crossed her mind.

Matilda.