Some things might simply be a matter of fate.
Night had fallen. John Wick, Caine, and Duggan rode the elevator down, through the hotel kitchen and past the alley, pushed open the service door to the club, and walked toward the floor where the new venue had opened. Beneath their feet, Viggo and his son's bodies were being wheeled down the corridor, past the armory and into the crematorium.
Upstairs, the three joined Marcus. After quick introductions they took a secluded booth. Below them, a team of killers had just finished burning the previous load of corpses. They unzipped body bags, glanced at the dozens of stab wounds peppering Viggo and his son, and hauled the two men from the bags.
In the booth, two bottles of whiskey, a fruit platter, and several chilled malt beers were set on the table. Glasses were filled, toasts exchanged, and talk turned to planning: arranging a time to hunt together, compare marksmanship over drinks. Down below, the killers shoved Viggo and his son into the furnace, closed the hatch, and began to chat about hauling the ashes down to the same beach as last time—scatter them to sea.
Perhaps this was the essence of the world: all the filth, blood, and brutality are buried under the laughter and clinking glasses of the victors.
At the Lighthouse Club's second floor, Dwight sat in the innermost office, cigar between his fingers, staring out the panoramic glass at the bodies and dancers moving below. A satisfied smile tugged at his lips. Stacks of cash—twenty crates or more—were piled in the room behind him.
Outside the office, the small private rooms—those "boudoir" suites—had been kept. Morning's trembling gang leaders now held court in them: each with a few trusted men, a half-dressed woman in their arms, indulging in the club's luxuries. They'd come both to pay and to support the opening.
Irene was different. The arms-dealer-turned-Dwight-right-hand had opened a private parlor too, but hers served her trade. With Dwight's thunderous consolidation swallowing most of the Night Demon affiliates, she smelled opportunity: these gangs were now dangerously low on ammo and weapons after the slow grind of attrition. With the final holdouts hunted down, now was the perfect time to sell firearms—vast profits awaited.
In the broader view she might have seemed green, but to Alex and Dwight she was a recruit worth cultivating.
Late—23:00—Lena, Daniel Pine, and the other three operatives were deep asleep in the five deluxe single rooms arranged for them. Per Alex's plan, their dinner had been laced with a soporific. Even two gunshots in the room wouldn't rouse them.
Agent 47 slipped into Lena's room from next door, dismantled a door-triggered trap set at the threshold, then moved on to Daniel's door. He entered quietly, locked it, and sat on a chair at the foot of the bed. Fox bound Lena's hands and feet, and Anna administered an antidote injection. Lena stirred, disoriented; her head lolled before her vision slowly cleared.
When she saw Alex seated at the foot of the bed, her first instinct was to sit up—then she realized her limbs were restrained. Her eyes flicked to Fox and Anna—guns trained on her—and then to Nikita standing beside Alex. Resistance drained away.
"What do you want, Mr. Cross?" she asked.
"Miss Lena," Alex said, leaning back in his chair and regarding her with cold curiosity. "Before I tell you what I want, answer a few questions."
He spoke with languid interest as Lena held her silence. He started with the first question: "You're about this age—five years ago when your father died—didn't you undergo the clan's rite of servitude in your organization?"
The question tightened Lena as if a wire had been pulled. Her eyes fixed on him, wary. Alex continued, unhurried.
"As far as I know… you should have a younger sister. By the math, she'd be about sixteen or seventeen now."
"What are you getting at?" Lena snapped at last, unable to keep the strain from her voice.
Alex smiled, slightly, and leaned forward. His voice was calm, almost gentle—but with an underlying pressure that made it feel like a noose. "Five years ago you had no power. Even if your father was killed by the organization, you couldn't fight back. But what if I told you your sister is alive? If your group learned that, and old events replayed—would you, now that you have strength, make the same choice?"
Lena's pupils narrowed. She searched Alex's face, trying to find a lie—some sign of deception—but he remained unreadable. Only now did she grasp how dangerous the leader of the Lighthouse really was, despite his youth.
She mouthed answers and closed her lips again, torn between loyalty to the organization and a desperate, aching longing for a sister she had been taught to forget. After a long, ragged pause she finally conceded, voice raw with the weight of long submission and pent-up devotion.
"What do you want me to do…? What do you want from me?"
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