"From this day forward, the Tarasov syndicate will operate under two absolute, ironclad rules!" Anthony commanded. He held up two fingers, the glowing tip of his cigarette dancing between them like a miniature torch.
"Rule number one: The laws of the High Table supersede all old-world family traditions. If anyone in this room dares to privately accept a contract off the High Table's blacklist..."
He specifically shot a lethal, freezing glare directly at Yuri.
"...I will personally ensure your name is nailed to the top of the High Table's global bounty ledger."
Yuri violently flinched, practically collapsing forward onto the expensive Persian rug.
"I swear absolute allegiance, Boss! I have already canceled every single Camorra shipping order!"
"Rule number two," Anthony continued, his voice dropping into a register even colder than before. "If anyone in this organization dares to collude with an outside syndicate..."
Anthony slammed his index finger violently against the mahogany table. The dull thud echoed like a gavel striking a judge's block.
"...I will personally bury your severed head in the freezing mud of the East River. I will let the crabs eat away the physical manifestation of your betrayal, and then I will issue a nationwide manhunt for your entire bloodline, utilizing your own High Table Markers to fund the bounty."
He slowly pulled the cigarette from his lips. Sergei silently stepped forward from the shadows, flicking a Zippo lighter to re-ignite the cherry at the perfect moment.
"For those of you who possess the spine required to stay..." Anthony's lips curled into a terrifying, predatory smile.
"...Weld your absolute loyalty to the Tarasov flagpole. Because a storm is coming."
Anthony's freezing gaze swept slowly across the terrified faces of his captains. "Are there any objections to the new management structure?"
Abram was the first to speak, clearing his throat. "I have absolutely no objections, Boss."
Aurelio, Mikhail, and the remaining captains rapidly echoed their absolute, unwavering loyalty to the new Tarasov regime.
"Excellent. Now then, Uncle," Anthony said, his tone shifting from violent intimidation to clinical business as he looked at Abram. "Let's discuss the coordinated attack on the Staten Island refinery and the sudden disappearance of our oil tanker."
Abram's eyes darted warily across the remaining captains in the room. "Anthony... I highly recommend we discuss the Staten Island incident privately."
Anthony offered a subtle wave of his hand. Taking the cue, the surviving family lieutenants quickly and tactfully filed out of the cavernous living room.
Anya was the last to leave. She paused near the heavy oak doors, casting one final, deeply complex look back at Anthony.
Her manicured hands, painted with signature scarlet polish, gripped her designer handbag so tightly her knuckles were bone-white.
But in the end, she swallowed her pride, remained silent, and vanished into the shadows of the long corridor.
Only Sergei, Mike, and Tom remained stationed in the deep corners of the room, standing rigidly like three silent, heavily armed gargoyles.
Abram raised a hand. Sergei immediately stepped forward, placing a sleek, high-end encrypted laptop directly onto the mahogany table.
Abram unlocked the computer and double-clicked a heavily compressed video file.
"Radar successfully recovered the destroyed server drives from the Staten Island facility. This was not an industrial accident, Anthony. It was a highly coordinated massacre."
On the high-resolution screen, massive walls of fire engulfed the primary oil pipelines. Several heavily armed figures wearing tactical black hoods moved with terrifying precision through the thick, black smoke.
A squad of masked gunmen systematically executed the surviving tanker crew members, mercilessly shooting them point-blank before tossing their bodies into the freezing waters of the harbor. The massive, bald leader of the strike team possessed a highly visible tattoo of a blood-dripping dagger on the back of his hand.
"The tactical breach occurred the exact same night you and John Wick departed for Rome," Abram explained grimly. "The attackers were flying the colors of the Bloods gang. At least thirty heavily armed, highly coordinated bastards. They didn't hit the vault, Anthony."
"They systematically destroyed all the primary control rooms, detonated C4 on the main oil pipelines, and then flawlessly hijacked a fully loaded, 50,000-ton oil tanker."
"The Bloods?" Anthony's voice was completely devoid of emotion, his eyes locked onto the burning refinery on the screen. "What was our final body count?"
"Thirty-seven dead. That number includes the entire elite paramilitary security detail we deployed to guard the docks," Abram's Adam's apple bobbed nervously. "We managed to drop fifteen of the attackers during the firefight, but our cleaners found absolutely no gang insignia or identifying tattoos on their corpses."
Anthony knew the street politics of New York. The Bloods (the Blood Alliance) traditionally marked their core members with distinct "B" or "Blood" tattoos.
Conversely, their absolute rivals, the Crips, marked themselves with "C" or complex "Crip" iconography.
"If the bodies were completely clean, how exactly can you be so certain this was a Bloods operation?" Anthony asked, leaning closer to the screen.
Abram slowly pulled a small, plastic evidence bag from his jacket pocket. "Our cleanup crews found this specifically planted in the ruins of the primary control room."
Inside the bag was a fragment of a bright red bandana. The edges were heavily charred and curled by the fire, but the pattern embroidered in thick black silk thread in the center was unmistakable.
A bleeding hand grasping a dagger!
"The classic insignia of the Bloods?" Anthony chuckled darkly, tapping his fingernail against the plastic evidence bag.
"Uncle Abram, do you honestly not think this is just a little bit too... obvious?"
Abram's eyes lit up with a flicker of genuine respect. "So you noticed the tactical discrepancies as well?"
"While the Tarasov syndicate may not boast the absolute largest standing army in New York City, anyone operating with half a brain knows we possess massive, highly militarized backing that street-level thugs cannot comprehend."
"The Bloods are just a fragmented, decentralized street-level violence gang," Anthony scoffed. "Since when do low-level bangers possess the suicidal audacity to launch a full-scale paramilitary assault on a multibillion-dollar Tarasov oil refinery?"
Abram cleared his throat, confirming the intel. "The Bloods command roughly thirty thousand active members across the United States. Roughly thirty percent of their manpower is concentrated right here in New York, primarily operating out of Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Bronx."
"Their primary revenue streams are street-level drug trafficking, low-level human trafficking, peddling counterfeit pharmaceuticals, and extorting local businesses for protection money. They have absolutely zero infrastructure or logistical capability to operate within high-end, global industries like unrefined crude oil."
Anthony's freezing smile widened.
He leaned in closer to the laptop screen. He could clearly see the blood-dripping dagger tattooed on the back of the bald strike-leader's neck. It was undeniably a recognized symbol of the Bloods gang.
But how could a cheap parlor trick possibly hide from the hyper-processing speed of his [Rapid Calculation] System?
Anthony's enhanced vision instantly analyzed the visual data: the edges of the "tattoo" on the video feed were slightly raised, red, and actively weeping plasma. That specific tattoo had been violently carved into the man's skin less than twenty-four hours before the assault. It was fresh. It was a prop.
"Uncle, what is the name of the shot-caller currently running the Brooklyn faction of the Bloods?" Anthony demanded, pulling away from the screen. "I need to schedule a face-to-face meeting with him tonight."
"My schedule for tomorrow is entirely booked," he added casually.
"The Bloods recently crowned a new regional leader," Abram replied, consulting a file. "A completely unhinged psychopath who goes by the street name 'Scar' Deshawn. The bastard was just released from Rikers Island three months ago."
"Deshawn?" Anthony slowly chewed on the name, a deeply predatory smile curling the corner of his mouth.
"The other major street gangs have strictly kept to themselves during this transition of power," Abram noted. "None of them have dared to interfere with our legitimate holdings."
"It makes absolutely zero logistical sense for a street gang to suddenly assault a highly fortified refinery and hijack an ocean-faring tanker. You simply cannot discreetly transport a few kilos of heroin using a massive commercial oil tanker."
Anthony shook his head. "They don't give a damn about the physical tanker or the crude oil. The sole objective of this assault was to actively humiliate the Tarasov syndicate and bleed our financial reserves dry through continuous operational losses."
"Furthermore, even the Five Families of the Italian Mafia wouldn't possess the sheer audacity to launch a direct assault on our infrastructure like this. And neither the Bloods nor the Crips possess the tactical capability to plan and execute a synchronized paramilitary raid of this magnitude."
Anthony stood up and slowly paced over to the massive, floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out at the brilliantly illuminated, heavily guarded front courtyard.
"The Staten Island refinery was defended by dozens of heavily armed, private military contractors, the majority of whom were combat veterans," Anthony analyzed aloud. "To successfully breach the perimeter, overwhelm elite security forces, completely seize control of the commercial docks, and successfully pilot a massive oil tanker—which requires a highly specialized, certified maritime crew—all within thirty minutes?"
"That is a tier-one special operations profile. That is something chaotic street gangs could never dream of executing."
Abram silently rolled his wheelchair over to the window, joining his nephew.
"The surviving Tarasov guards who were evacuated to our private medical facility in Brooklyn all corroborated the same story," Abram added grimly.
"They explicitly stated that the tactical commander coordinating the assault was aggressively issuing orders in fluent Italian. Furthermore, the primary weapons utilized by the strike team were highly modified, military-grade M4 assault rifles equipped with advanced optics. That is absolutely not the kind of hardware street thugs can purchase out of the trunk of a car."
Anthony let out a dark, knowing laugh. "Well. That confirms exactly who orchestrated this little performance."
Abram lowered his voice, his tone laced with genuine dread. "You suspect... the Italian Camorra syndicate orchestrated the raid?"
"You already deduced it yourself, didn't you?" Anthony asked, casually stretching his arms.
"The High Table recently granted the Tarasov syndicate exclusive, heavily regulated permits to control crude oil transportation along the Eastern Seaboard. Santino D'Antonio is acutely aware of how incredibly lucrative those specific permits are."
Anthony let out a cold, sharp laugh.
"Santino is a fucking coward. He absolutely did not possess the political courage to openly authorize a direct, Camorra-branded assault against a syndicate recently verified by the Adjudicator. So, he utilized disposable street gangs to do his dirty work..."
Anthony completely understood the political landscape. Santino arrogantly believed he had permanently secured his seat at the High Table by assassinating his sister. Now, he was rapidly laying the groundwork to completely subjugate the New York underworld.
His first major obstacle was the powerful, deeply entrenched Tarasov empire.
However, because the attack was "officially" perpetrated by the Bloods, it legally fell under the category of local gang warfare. And local gang turf wars were explicitly outside the jurisdiction of High Table Adjudicators.
Abram nodded slowly. Heavy beads of cold sweat formed across his forehead.
The low-level captains might not fully comprehend the apocalyptic power of the High Table, but Abram certainly did.
If Santino successfully secured one of the Twelve Seats, he would possess the authority to mobilize the infinite resources of the global underworld.
Furthermore, Santino was currently backed by the full military and financial might of the Camorra empire—a force that vastly eclipsed the Tarasov syndicate's capacity for a protracted war.
"I strongly suspect the Camorra has brokered a highly lucrative proxy agreement with certain elements of the street gangs," Abram theorized, his voice trembling slightly. "Santino is Italian royalty. And the Camorra operates as one of the most ruthless, terrifyingly powerful Mafia families in Naples."
Abram's heart rate visibly accelerated.
"Anthony... if the Camorra has successfully weaponized the local street gangs against us..."
"Then this is no longer a simple turf war. This is a formal, absolute declaration of war," Anthony stated, his eyes turning to freezing ice. "If the Adjudicator refuses to intervene and enforce the peace... I will personally drag the entirety of New York City into absolute hell."
"Santino failed to execute me in Rome. Now, he is attempting to bleed the Tarasov empire dry through aggressive economic warfare. Without the Staten Island refinery and our fleet of tankers, our entire logistical supply chain along the East Coast collapses."
Abram's terrified gaze sharpened slightly as a new thought occurred to him. After a long moment of heavy silence, he spoke up again.
"Anthony... my intelligence network discovered something incredibly strange while we were actively investigating the Staten Island massacre."
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