Marquis de Gramont walked slowly back to the reinforced floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out at the expansive New York City skyline.
The vibrant neon lights of Manhattan blurred softly through the heavy, freezing rain, looking like wet, melting paint smeared across black canvas.
"Maintain your localized investigation," Gramont said, his voice dropping into a frigid, indifferent register. "We must definitively unmask this operator. He must be subjected to the absolute highest tier of High Table reprisal."
Gramont swirled his whiskey. "What is the current operational status of John Wick?"
"Wick has successfully infiltrated Casablanca," Zero replied smoothly. "Sofia Al-Azwar officially received his Blood Oath Marker."
"However," Zero paused slightly, "the global assassin network has already aggressively pivoted its focus toward Morocco. Wick is currently isolated inside the Casablanca Continental. If he physically steps outside the sanctuary... the entire continent will descend upon him."
"Instruct your localized network to actively permit him to leave," Gramont smiled. It was a strange, highly calculated expression. "There are specific geopolitical actions John Wick must execute."
Gramont fully understood the geopolitical reality. He knew exactly why John had desperately marched into Morocco to locate Sofia. He explicitly needed the Manager to physically connect him with Berrada.
Berrada wasn't simply a localized black-market mint-master. He was the sovereign controller of the entire North African underground transit network. He possessed the sole, highly classified geographical knowledge required to physically locate the Elder.
Only through Berrada's direct introduction could John Wick survive the agonizing trek into the deep Sahara Desert to secure an audience with the man who sat physically above the Table.
As the mythic architect of the High Table's foundational laws, the Elder possessed the absolute, unilateral authority to execute decisions that vastly superseded standard bureaucratic norms.
Gramont didn't need to guess why John was actively hunting the Elder.
He is going to grovel on his hands and knees to beg for a pardon.
Zero was mildly taken aback by the order. "Marquis. Are you formally proposing we temporarily suspend the fourteen-million-dollar global bounty?"
"The bounty absolutely cannot be officially suspended," Gramont corrected, glancing at him. "But I demand that your localized network ensure nobody on the African continent successfully manages to kill him."
"Marquis... considering the Adjudicator's active presence..."
"The Adjudicator?" Gramont turned completely around, a deeply condescending sneer warping his bruised face.
"She is entirely consumed with aggressively maintaining the rigidity of her precious laws. She possesses zero temporal bandwidth to actively monitor our localized maneuvering. Provided we do not blatantly cross the foundational line... she will not actively interfere with our hunt."
Zero offered a shallow bow, turned, and silently evaporated into the shadows, leaving Gramont entirely alone in the massive penthouse.
Gramont walked slowly into the opulent marble bathroom and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He aggressively evaluated the violent, purplish-blue bruising covering his aristocratic face, gently pressing his fingertips against his swollen, fractured cheekbones.
"Anthony Tarasov..." Gramont murmured the name, his dark eyes growing incredibly cold.
"I am going to personally demonstrate to you that you are fundamentally playing a game vastly beyond your bloodline."
"I may not currently possess the localized authority to execute you directly... but the sovereign rules of the High Table will not be violently shaken by a pathetic, localized Russian street thug."
The Tarasov Estate, New York
When Anthony finally pulled the heavy armored SUV into the fortified compound, Mike was already frantically pacing the driveway, his face tight with absolute anxiety.
Tom and his specialized Vanguard security element were on maximum tactical alert. Anthony immediately spotted the distinct silhouettes of at least two heavy sniper teams actively scanning the perimeter from the estate's rooftop.
The security detail had absolutely no intelligence regarding their Boss's sudden disappearance, but they collectively understood it was directly correlated to the horrific butchering of Mason in Queens.
"Boss. Are you functionally operational?" Mike asked, rushing forward and aggressively throwing the driver's side door open.
Anthony stepped smoothly out of the vehicle, forcefully projecting a relaxed, confident smile. "I am perfectly operational, Mike. I simply required a solitary drive to clear my thoughts."
Mike lowered his voice, stepping closer. "Boss, Nick and the Vanguard element aggressively requested authorization to deploy. They are completely feral. They want to systematically burn Queens to the ground to avenge Mason."
"This is fundamentally none of their business," Anthony said, his tone instantly hardening into absolute authority. "They are tactically unequipped to engage this specific threat vector. Ensure they stand down immediately."
Anthony walked past Mike and headed directly for his private quarters. Mike followed closely behind.
Once the heavy oak doors were sealed and the electronic sweep confirmed the room was clean, Anthony stripped off his ruined tactical jacket, slowly peeling away the heavy, blood-soaked undershirt.
He revealed the localized carbon-fiber bracer strapped to his left forearm. The incredibly dense armor plating had been catastrophically shattered by Zero's strikes. The heavy steel retention rings had physically buckled under the sheer kinetic force, driving jagged splinters of metal and composite fiber directly into Anthony's raw muscle tissue.
Seeing the gruesome severity of the localized trauma, Mike's eyes widened in genuine terror, but his elite training kept him completely silent. He didn't ask a single question.
Mike rapidly retrieved a heavy pair of industrial hydraulic shears from his tactical kit. Working with meticulous, agonizing care, he slowly snipped through the buckled steel rings, finally pulling the ruined armor entirely away from Anthony's forearm.
The exposed flesh was a catastrophic mess of deep, purplish-black bruising, massive localized swelling, and lacerated muscle.
Anthony forcefully ground his teeth together. The agonizing pain in his left arm radiated directly up into his shoulder joint. His entire limb felt entirely dead, as heavy as solid lead.
Mike rapidly tore open a specialized field trauma kit. He retrieved a heavy syringe of military-grade painkillers and a secondary cocktail of localized anti-inflammatories.
He flawlessly drove the needle directly into Anthony's left deltoid muscle. The heavy narcotics instantly violently flooded Anthony's nervous system, actively taking the agonizing edge off the pain within seconds.
Anthony sat heavily on the edge of his bed, allowing Mike to systematically execute a full biological triage.
The left arm had sustained the most catastrophic trauma. Mike clinically diagnosed severe deep-tissue contusions and a high probability of a hairline micro-fracture along the ulna bone.
The localized slash Zero had successfully delivered beneath Anthony's ribs wasn't critically deep, but it was actively weeping heavy amounts of blood.
The horizontal razor-burn across Anthony's neck was undeniably the most terrifying. If Zero's blade had physically traveled even half a millimeter deeper, it would have violently severed the carotid artery, resulting in catastrophic exsanguination within seconds.
Mike retrieved a bottle of harsh industrial disinfectant and poured it directly over the open wounds.
The atomic, burning agony caused Anthony's entire body to tense, his brow furrowing deeply, but he didn't make a single sound.
Mike's hands moved with absolute, mechanical precision. The wound debridement, localized suturing, and heavy tactical bandaging were flawlessly executed in under five minutes.
Once the trauma triage was officially concluded, Anthony ordered Mike to leave the room.
Anthony leaned his head heavily back against the leather sofa, closing his eyes.
The terrifying, hyper-violent memory of his melee engagement against Zero played out across his consciousness in microscopic slow motion.
The exact biomechanical angle, kinetic force, and supersonic velocity of every single strike the Shinobi master had delivered.
The absolute physical cost of every single microscopic evasion Anthony had been forced to execute.
Zero's blade was horrifyingly fast. But the speed wasn't the variable that terrified Anthony. It was the sheer, overwhelming, atomic power.
Every single slash had possessed the localized kinetic weight of a sledgehammer. Zero struck with enough focused violence to actively shatter military-grade carbon fiber.
Anthony suddenly vividly recalled an exact conversation he had shared with John Wick months ago.
"Your theoretical killing geometry is flawless," John had noted casually. "But your raw biological strength is critically lacking. If you ever find yourself locked in a localized melee engagement against a genuine tier-one apex predator... your absolute best option is to aggressively manufacture an evasion window and run."
Anthony had scoffed at the advice, arrogant in his cybernetic advantage. "I possess cognitive supremacy. I don't require brute biological force to win a gunfight."
He finally fully understood exactly what John meant.
Zero possessed the blinding speed required to physically parry supersonic ballistics. He possessed the sheer kinetic power required to cleave through heavy armor.
But even more horrifying than his physical attributes were his dead, lifeless eyes.
Every single time Anthony actively fired a shot, Zero's deeply ingrained, biological muscle memory achieved the exact same predictive evasion result as Anthony's Compensatory Perception.
It absolutely wasn't a localized superpower. It was pure, terrifying killing instinct—forged over decades of risking his life in localized deathmatches.
Anthony brutally acknowledged that his current physical limitations were a catastrophic weakness against a monster like Zero.
By the seventh minute of the engagement, Anthony's lungs were actively whistling for oxygen. When he raised his Glock, his left arm was trembling so violently it looked like he possessed advanced Parkinson's disease.
And Zero?
The Shinobi master's breathing had remained as flawlessly steady as a man taking a casual evening stroll. The razor tip of his blade didn't tremble a microscopic fraction of a millimeter.
If the engagement had lasted an additional two minutes, Anthony mathematically realized he would have entirely lacked the biological energy required to execute his final escape.
Rapid Calculation provided him with the localized foresight to anticipate an opponent's exact tactical vector. Compensatory Perception allowed his mind to perfectly capture every microscopic environmental variable.
But both of those cybernetic systems fundamentally required massive biological energy to function. They required extreme muscular strength, cardiovascular endurance, and explosive reaction speed to physically execute the commands the brain issued.
And those physical metrics were precisely where Anthony failed.
After only a few agonizing minutes locked in the kill box with Zero, he had entirely depleted his localized energy reserves.
If it hadn't been for the heavy tactical armor absorbing the lethal strikes, combined with his flawless operational cunning, he absolutely would have bled to death on the floor of that abandoned textile factory.
"It is not enough..." Anthony muttered into the silence of the room.
His encrypted phone violently vibrated against the bedside table.
It was Abram.
"Anthony. What is your current geographical location?" His uncle's voice bled through the speaker, laced with absolute, suffocating panic.
"I am currently secured at the estate."
Abram's voice suddenly spiked into a furious yell. "Did you actively deploy to hunt down that High Table freak?!"
Anthony didn't offer a single syllable in response.
He could clearly hear the heavy, metallic squeak of Abram's wheelchair aggressively turning on the other end of the line, followed by a dark, terrifyingly low growl.
"Anthony. I entirely comprehend your localized necessity to violently avenge Mason. But you absolutely cannot operate with this level of suicidal impulsivity! Do you comprehend who Zero is? He is fundamentally the sharpest, most violently lethal blade operating under the High Table! He is a localized monster who has slaughtered countless master operators!"
"Engaging him alone is absolute, mathematical suicide!"
"I am currently breathing," Anthony stated flatly.
"You managed to survive this specific encounter! What about the next one?!" Abram's voice cracked, suddenly softening into desperate concern.
"Anthony... you are currently the absolute sovereign head of the Tarasov syndicate. You fundamentally cannot be compromised. If you are killed in action... the entire family ceases to exist."
"I acknowledge the reality. The operational error will absolutely not be repeated," Anthony paused for three seconds. "What is the current medical status of Viktor and Pavel?"
"They have been successfully exfiltrated and triaged," Abram sighed. "Pavel sustained severe tissue damage to his arm, but it isn't functionally lethal. Viktor's patella is entirely shattered. He requires immediate surgical intervention and significant recovery time."
Abram paused heavily.
"Anthony. Zero failed to execute his primary objective tonight. But he will inevitably return to finish the equation. We must prepare a massive localized defense."
"Zero will absolutely not initiate another aggressive maneuver in the immediate future," Anthony replied with absolute, mathematical confidence. "Inform the syndicate that the Queens Nightclub will open for standard business tomorrow evening."
Three of Zero's four elite disciples had been slaughtered tonight.
Even his absolute strongest asset—the wiry male Shinobi—had been severely crippled.
Furthermore, John Wick would inevitably be returning to New York City within the week. Zero would absolutely prioritize reserving his operational strength to deal with the Baba Yaga.
Anthony killed the connection and leaned his head back against the sofa, closing his eyes to rest.
The horrific image of Mason's dismembered, bleeding torso violently swaying beneath the neon sign of the Nightclub burned into his retinas.
The terrifying reality of Viktor and Pavel mere seconds away from being systematically butchered by the Shinobi.
And the hollow, dead, entirely mechanical eyes of Zero's disciples staring at him before they died.
Anthony aggressively clenched his right fist. The phantom pain in his destroyed left arm violently spiked.
He took a slow, deep breath, actively forcing his boiling heart rate to stabilize.
Revenge fundamentally required patience.
Flawless hunting required absolute, perfect timing.
Right now, he aggressively needed John Wick to awaken to the reality of his situation.
The Baba Yaga was currently operating under the deeply naive assumption that wandering into the desert and severing his own ring finger would magically grant him localized salvation.
Naturally, if John Wick genuinely capitulated to the Elder's absolute authority and successfully traveled back to New York to murder Winston, the geopolitical equation would drastically alter.
But Anthony knew that was functionally impossible.
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