Moments later, Cassian strode quickly toward the main entrance.
A strange, complex light flashed in his eyes the exact second he laid eyes on John Wick.
"It is a pleasure to see you again, John," Cassian said, his voice perfectly level as he discreetly scanned the surrounding perimeter.
"However, you have arrived at the absolute worst possible time," Cassian continued. His Italian accent was thick, but his English was as sharp and fluent as a native New Yorker's. "Tonight is the most important moment of her entire life."
"I know." John replied with only two words, his face an unreadable mask.
He slowly raised both his arms. "I want to see her."
Cassian stepped forward and personally patted him down, thoroughly checking for concealed weapons. Once he confirmed the Baba Yaga was unarmed, Cassian stepped back.
He gave John a long, measuring look, let out an inexplicable sigh, and gestured for John to follow him inside.
"Santino traveled to New York recently," Cassian noted, his tone casual but his intent lethal. "I sincerely hope he is not the one who sent you here."
"No," John replied, his expression never shifting.
Cassian did not lead him directly into the grand coronation hall. Instead, he guided John down a labyrinth of ancient stone corridors toward the private baths nestled deep within the underground palace.
As they detoured past the main hall, John observed the sheer opulence of the ceremony. The ancient marble floor was completely blanketed by a lush carpet woven with literal gold thread.
Fresh olive branches were intricately entwined around the twelve massive Corinthian columns that supported the vaulted ceiling. The ancestral bronze scepter of the Camorra syndicate rested heavily upon the central altar.
Gianna D'Antonio stood before the altar, dressed in a breathtaking coronation gown studded with diamonds. She looked like a powerful Venetian duchess ripped straight from a Renaissance painting.
John's tactical eyes immediately swept the room. He noticed there were significantly more armed bodyguards present than actual VIP guests.
Eight gunmen wearing the ceremonial uniforms of the Roman Guard stood at strict attention by the main entrance. At every secondary doorway, maids stood silently, holding high-grade metal detector wands.
John even spotted the unmistakable matte-black barrel of a pump-action shotgun resting discreetly at the organist's feet.
"Please wait in here," Cassian instructed as they reached the private bathhouse. "Gianna will come to see you as soon as she completes the allegiance ceremony."
Cassian gave him one final, scrutinizing look—his eyes conveying a silent warning that John could not quite decipher—before turning and walking away.
Shortly after Cassian left, two maids quietly entered the chamber, arranged a spread of expensive food and vintage wine on a marble table, and departed without speaking a word.
Simultaneously, more than a dozen heavily armed bodyguards silently materialized from the shadows, taking up strategic overwatch positions around the perimeter of the bathhouse.
Seeing the aggressive deployment, John frowned slightly.
Anthony's earlier warning echoed clearly in his mind.
Gianna's private prayer room... she will either agree to see you there, or she will bury you there.
John calmly poured himself a glass of red wine. He didn't take a sip. He just held the crystal glass in his hand, waiting.
In the flickering candlelight, the full scope of the circular stone hall revealed itself.
The ancient walls were carved with countless, agonizing reliefs depicting the twisted suffering of forgotten saints. Beneath the heavy bronze candlesticks, pools of melted red wax had accumulated over the centuries, looking unsettlingly like congealed blood.
The air was heavy with the rich scent of milky bath oils, but beneath the perfume lay a much deeper, colder atmosphere. The smell of old stone and buried secrets.
Twenty minutes later, Gianna swept into the room, flanked by more than ten elite bodyguards. When she saw John standing quietly in the center of the chamber, a chaotic storm of complex emotions flashed through her eyes.
"Dearest John," Gianna greeted, her voice smooth and regal. "Thank you so much for attending my coronation."
Cassian shadowed her closely, remaining exactly three steps behind her at all times. He looked noticeably tense.
She glided up to John and pressed a polite kiss against his cheek, greeting him like a cherished old friend.
In the flickering shadows and soft candlelight, her face appeared unusually serene. She even managed to project a faint aura of divine, aristocratic compassion.
"But John..." her voice suddenly dropped ten degrees, turning to absolute ice. "...Coming to my coronation completely empty-handed? That is quite a unique 'blessing'."
John looked at her calmly. "I am not here for the banquet, Gianna. Santino attempted to force my hand with a Blood Oath."
The stone hall fell deathly silent. The only sound was the faint, wet crackle of burning candle wicks.
Gianna turned her head slowly to look at Cassian. The chief bodyguard instantly understood the unspoken command.
"John likely traveled in a great hurry," Cassian said smoothly. "He did not even bring a fucking pencil with him."
Gianna's piercing gaze snapped back to John's face. "Are you telling me that you actually rejected a Blood Oath?"
"John, no one in our world can break the two ironclad rules of the High Table and live to tell the tale. Do you honestly expect me to believe that?"
"He called you," John deduced instantly, the pieces falling into place. "He told you I was coming to kill you."
Judging by the overwhelming security presence and Gianna's hostility, Anthony's paranoid prediction was coming entirely true.
"He could not find me," John said, offering a half-truth. He had absolutely no desire to explain the mechanics of Anthony's intervention, but he genuinely did not want to enter a blood feud with Gianna.
Gianna's eyes narrowed slightly. The intense, scrutinizing look on her face only deepened.
Cassian suddenly spoke up. "John, if you simply wanted to deliver a warning, you would never have risked coming to Rome in person. I need to know exactly why a retired legend would suddenly materialize at Gianna's coronation ceremony."
"I need friends," John replied simply, offering no further elaboration.
It was an incredibly valid, universally understood reason.
Gianna and Cassian were both acutely aware of the political reality. Now that John Wick had been forced out of retirement, the High Table would never allow him to simply walk away a second time.
John now faced a binary choice: completely submit and pledge eternal allegiance to the High Table, or be ruthlessly wiped out by the very rules he defied.
Given his current, precarious situation, he desperately needed Gianna's political protection.
Gianna remained perfectly silent. Her manicured fingertips gently traced the cold diamond embellishments along the neckline of her gown.
Her gaze lingered heavily on John's stoic face, as if she were desperately trying to assess the veracity of his claim, or perhaps ruthlessly weighing her tactical options.
A few agonizing seconds later, she spoke slowly, her voice entirely devoid of emotion. "A legendary assassin actively hunted by the High Table. A ruthless killing machine who has single-handedly stirred up a hurricane of blood in New York..."
"Where is Anthony Tarasov?" Gianna demanded suddenly.
John looked at her, his expression remaining perfectly blank. "He was terrified Santino would send another hit squad after him. I have no idea where he is hiding."
Cassian instantly raised two fingers. At his silent command, more than ten bodyguards broke off from the main group and sprinted toward the labyrinthine passages of the underground palace.
Meanwhile, deep within the catacombs, Anthony was busy finalizing his weapon placements.
He carefully wedged John's customized AR-15 behind a protruding stone pillar in the middle of a particularly narrow tunnel. The choke point would allow John to effectively suppress any heavily armed enemies rushing from the far end of the corridor.
He stashed the Benelli M4 shotgun just around a sharp blind corner, ensuring John had immediate access to devastating close-quarters firepower the second he needed to transition weapons.
Unlike John, Anthony carried his entire loadout directly on his person. Combined with the heavy ceramic plates of his tactical vest, the gear was significantly weighing him down.
In this extreme environment, he simply did not possess John's supernatural lethality. If he was forced to abandon a position and didn't have a weapon strapped to his chest, he would be a dead man.
Before even entering the drainage pipe, Anthony had meticulously cross-referenced his meta-knowledge of the film with his System. He had perfectly constructed the entire layout of the underground maze within his mind. He could navigate the catacombs flawlessly, even completely blindfolded.
He wasn't worried about John navigating the labyrinth. He was worried about himself.
Because his Compensatory Perception had just detected Ares.
The mute enforcer and her personal hit squad were lurking deep in the rear section of the underground palace, silently preparing to ambush John the moment the chaos started.
If Ares discovered Anthony was creeping through the tunnels alone, she would likely abandon John entirely just for the sick satisfaction of carving Anthony to pieces first.
Anthony knew for an absolute fact that he was no match for Ares in a straight fight.
During the flight, he had dumped all seventeen of his saved System attribute points directly into his [Extreme Planning] skill tree, specifically upgrading his [Rapid Calculation] ability.
His [Rapid Calculation] was now sitting at a formidable LV7. But even with his brain processing variables at supercomputer speeds, the thought of entering melee combat with Ares terrified him.
Even with the upgrades, Anthony mathematically calculated he only had a thirty percent chance of successfully escaping her pursuit if she locked onto him.
Thinking about Ares hiding in the dark like a venomous spider, Anthony offered a cold, mocking smile to the empty tunnel.
"You damn mute," Anthony whispered under his breath. "All you know how to do is bully honest people. John might be a blockhead who plays by the rules, but I am certainly not."
Through his rapid calculations, Anthony realized the grim reality: if Gianna actually attempted to execute John to secure her seat, the plot would violently snap right back to square one.
The only functional difference was that John hadn't actually signed the Blood Oath this time.
John, Anthony thought grimly, I sincerely hope you don't let your past friendship cloud your judgment. If she tries to put you in the ground and you still try to spare her life, I am going to lose all respect for you.
Anthony crept silently forward through the damp passage. The immediate area was entirely clear; every guard in the vicinity had rushed toward the main hall the second John triggered the alarm by walking through the front door like a massive, lethal firefly.
Just as Anthony prepared to push deeper into the catacombs, his System flared. He detected over a dozen heavy footsteps echoing from several connecting passages ahead. A dedicated search team was actively sweeping the sector, moving directly toward his position.
"Ha. Santino, you son of a bitch. You really are more cunning than I gave you credit for."
At this point, Anthony easily deduced the truth: Santino must have called Gianna and explicitly warned her to look for Anthony.
"Damn it. Not all movie villains are braindead idiots like Iosef Tarasov."
Anthony fully activated his Compensatory Perception. The mental 3D map expanded, making him feel like an omniscient spider king sitting at the center of a massive web. He could perceive the slightest vibration, the faintest breath, and the exact trajectory of every single guard moving through the stone maze.
Looking at the tactical data of the approaching search party, Anthony briefly considered leading them directly into Ares's ambush zone to trigger a massive friendly-fire incident.
He quickly discarded the idea. It was entirely too dangerous.
If he exposed Ares, the mute enforcer would instantly go berserk and hunt him down relentlessly. Furthermore, John was currently unarmed and surrounded in the bathhouse. If a massive gunfight suddenly erupted in the outer corridors, Gianna would assume it was an assassination attempt and immediately order Cassian to execute John.
Right now, he and John were each other's hidden trump cards. He could not afford to act impulsively and break the tension prematurely.
Relying entirely on his System's radar, Anthony masterfully evaded the searching bodyguards, slipping like a ghost through the shadows until he reached the high stone archway overlooking the subterranean bathhouse.
Looking down into the sunken hall, he saw John completely surrounded by Gianna, Cassian, and over a dozen heavily armed guards. Worse still, his System easily detected nearly twenty more enforcers concealed in the pitch-black alcoves lining the upper galleries—snipers and riflemen that John likely couldn't even see.
Anthony sneered. He reached up, smoothly pulled his tactical goggles down over his eyes, and firmly adjusted his noise-canceling headphones over his ears.
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