Winston closed the heavy, black leather registry with a violently crisp click. The sound echoed through the lobby like a hammer driving the final nail directly into Santino D'Antonio's coffin.
He slowly looked up at Anthony. The gaze behind his gold-rimmed glasses was as profoundly complex, dark, and murky as the New York sewer system.
It was a look of deep weariness, mixed heavily with extreme, hyper-vigilant alertness.
However, there was also a distinct trace of profound bewilderment—the agonizing feeling of a man who was used to absolute control suddenly realizing he had been completely, effortlessly outmaneuvered.
"Clean the steps," Winston commanded, his voice entirely dry as he whispered the order to Charon, who was waiting patiently in the shadows.
Charon merely offered a slight, deeply respectful nod, without even lifting his eyelids.
It was as if the massive, violently expanding pool of scarlet gore covering the hotel's front steps—which was currently being desperately scrubbed by a specialized hotel cleaning crew utilizing industrial-grade absorbent cotton—was nothing more significant than a glass of cheap red wine spilled by a drunken guest the night before.
The elite cleaners silently and efficiently scrubbed away the thick, rapidly darkening bloodstains from the marble. The aggressively pungent, chemical smell of their industrial bleach barely managed to mask the heavy, metallic stench of fresh blood and brain matter.
Charon stood perfectly still behind the mahogany counter. He smoothly twirled a solid gold High Table coin between his long fingers, his deeply observant gaze permanently fixed on Anthony.
This terrifyingly young man has once again painted the sacred threshold of the Continental completely red, Charon thought.
"Winston," Anthony called out, seemingly highly amused as he casually admired the fine beads of cold sweat forming across the Manager's aristocratic forehead.
"That massive, bloody mess out on the pavement must cost a small fortune in gold coins to properly sanitize, yes? Please, be sure to put the cleaning fee directly on the Tarasov corporate tab."
Winston was absolutely not in the mood to entertain Anthony's morbid humor. His jawline was pulled as tight as a razor's edge.
He simply offered a sharp, deeply aggressive gesture for Anthony and John to follow him, then turned on his heel and strode purposefully toward his private, highly secured executive elevator.
The highly polished, mirrored doors of the elevator perfectly reflected the deeply tense, entirely silent images of the three men.
Winston looked exactly like a man with an active volcano violently building pressure directly behind his eyes.
John Wick looked exactly like a rough, unyielding stone that had just been violently dragged from the bottom of a freezing glacier. His bespoke tactical suit was completely ruined, heavily riddled with burn marks and bullet impacts. The heavy, suffocating scent of burnt cordite and dried blood practically radiated off him.
Anthony, however, remained eerily, terrifyingly calm. His grey-blue eyes seemed entirely devoid of human life or empathy.
The private elevator ascended silently, eventually gliding to a smooth halt at the absolute top floor of the Continental.
The heavy, reinforced steel doors of Winston's private suite were as thick as a military fortress, yet they swung open without making a single sound.
The interior of the suite lacked any ostentatious, gaudy luxury. It was decorated entirely in dark, polished walnut, heavy genuine leather, and a few incredibly austere, highly curated pieces of modern art.
The gentle, rhythmic crackling of the firewood burning in the massive stone fireplace added a desperately needed touch of warmth to the cold, unforgiving room.
Winston completely ignored his guests and walked straight to the expansive crystal bar situated in the corner of the room.
The crisp, high-pitched clink of crystal glasses striking together sounded incredibly jarring in the dead silence.
Winston aggressively poured three massive glasses of premium, heavily aged whiskey.
This specific vintage was absolutely not the kind of liquor the hotel casually served to its regular guests; the deep amber liquid poured as thick and heavy as molten gold.
He violently slammed two of the glasses down onto the bar top and immediately took a massive, burning gulp from his own glass.
His Adam's apple bobbed violently. It looked exactly as if he were desperately attempting to suppress his violently surging anger and profound terror by actively scalding his own throat.
In Winston's rigidly ordered worldview, absolutely no one possessed the sheer, apocalyptic nerve required to discharge a firearm within five meters of the Continental Hotel.
Admittedly, the ancient, bureaucratic rules of the High Table did not explicitly forbid violent assassinations outside the physical threshold of the hotel steps. However, absolutely no professional assassin genuinely dared to actively test that specific boundary.
Even a highly privileged, universally feared apex predator like John Wick followed that unspoken boundary with absolute, religious devotion.
But within the span of a few incredibly short, violently chaotic days, this absolute, unspoken rule had been violently shattered by Anthony Tarasov. The kid was an absolute madman.
And the bastard has successfully done it twice! Winston screamed internally.
"The sacred rules of the High Table... are absolutely not meant to be utilized as a cheap rag to shine your fucking shoes, Anthony," Winston finally spoke. His aggressively indifferent tone completely failed to mask his violently unvented rage.
"The rules are not a convenient knife that you can simply pick up and use to randomly stab people in the back whenever it suits your political needs."
Winston turned around, desperately attempting to project an air of aristocratic refinement. However, his furious gaze, heavily magnified behind his gold-rimmed glasses, pierced directly into Anthony like a physical blade.
"Whether Santino D'Antonio actually deserved to be violently executed or not is entirely irrelevant to the Continental Hotel! You absolutely should not have chosen my front steps as his execution ground!"
"The sacred threshold of my hotel is currently stained with the blood of a verified High Table successor! The absolute, apocalyptic wrath of the Twelve Seats will violently burn this entire city to the ground! Do you genuinely believe a single, bureaucratic Blood Oath is going to be enough to stop their retaliation?!"
Anthony completely ignored the lecture. He casually picked up his crystal glass and gently swirled the thick amber liquid.
He slowly walked over to the massive, floor-to-ceiling windows. The sprawling, infinitely complex skyline of New York City stretched out far below him. The freezing morning sunlight cut sharply through the shadows of the concrete and steel jungle.
"Rules?" Anthony asked softly, his voice echoing with a cold, unyielding, metallic quality.
"Santino actively utilized the rules as a political talisman to protect himself from the consequences of his own treachery. Therefore, I simply utilized those exact same rules as a sharpened blade to cut his throat."
"As for the supposed 'apocalyptic wrath' of the High Table?" Anthony took a slow, highly appreciative sip of his whiskey. "Winston. I did not actually break a single established rule today. Nor did I actively provoke the true power brokers of the High Table."
"You intimately understand the political reality of this situation, Winston. By aggressively assassinating his own sister to steal her seat, Santino transformed himself into a violently unpredictable, entirely disobedient hyena. A hyena that the veteran members of the High Table genuinely despised."
John gave a slow, heavy nod of agreement from his place by the fire. "Anthony is absolutely correct."
In reality, Winston perfectly understood the brutal political calculus behind the assassination.
Immediately following Gianna's highly suspicious death, the High Table had explicitly refused to publicly announce that Santino would formally inherit her vacant seat.
That massive, highly irregular bureaucratic silence clearly indicated that the veteran members of the Table were deeply disgusted by Santino's treacherous behavior.
While a Blood Oath could theoretically be utilized for almost any request, aggressively weaponizing one to orchestrate a violent coup—specifically by forcing an assassin to murder one's own flesh and blood—had violently struck a deeply offensive nerve with the old guard.
John had technically murdered Gianna, yet the High Table possessed absolutely no legal grounds to officially punish him for the act itself, because he was bound by the Marker.
Furthermore, when John had traveled to the catacombs to deliver the formal notification of the completed contract, Santino's forces had violently ambushed him, actively attempting to silence him. And in the end, Santino had been legally executed for his treachery via a counter-Marker.
It was a brutally violent, incredibly messy affair, but legally speaking... every single action had taken place perfectly within the established parameters of the rules.
Winston's manicured fingers gripped his crystal glass so tightly his knuckles turned entirely white. He was completely speechless.
He knew the ruthless, cold-blooded political calculations of the High Table far better than anyone else in the city. And he knew Anthony was right. The Table wouldn't mourn Santino; they would merely be annoyed by the paperwork.
Anthony slowly turned away from the sprawling window. His cold gaze swept casually over a massive, dark-toned oil painting depicting ancient Roman gladiators locked in mortal combat, before finally settling back onto Winston's deeply tense face.
"Santino's assassination was merely the violent prelude to a much larger conflict, Winston. An entirely separate, highly organized faction is actively utilizing the chaos of Santino's coup as a smokescreen to launch a massive invasion of New York."
Anthony paused, ensuring he had the absolute attention of both men.
"The paramilitary assault on the Tarasov refinery was executed flawlessly by tier-one professionals. They utilized highly sophisticated, military-grade equipment, and they actively pinned the blame on low-level street thugs like the Bloods. That is an incredibly complex, highly expensive false-flag operation. That is absolutely not the kind of tactical maneuver an arrogant, impulsive fool like Santino would ever bother orchestrating."
"What I desperately need to know, Winston, is this: Have any other high-ranking, verified members of the High Table officially visited New York in the last week?"
Hearing the gravity of Anthony's words, John slowly pulled a crushed, deformed 9mm bullet out of the Kevlar weave of his suit jacket and looked up.
"Has someone actively initiated a war against the Tarasov syndicate?" John asked, his voice rough.
"I am aware of the refinery incident," Winston stated, his brow furrowing deeply. "But the specific scenario you are actively hypothesizing is highly improbable."
Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, Winston's eyes—which always seemed perfectly capable of analyzing any grand strategy—suddenly narrowed in profound doubt.
The brutal blood and fire of the Staten Island refinery massacre... the massive, eighty-thousand-ton Polaris tanker that completely vanished into the night...
Anthony genuinely suspected this wasn't simply Santino utilizing a proxy to commit an isolated murder.
He strongly suspected the actual mastermind orchestrating this war was a legitimate, sitting member of the High Table.
"The official, geographic transfer of verified High Table personnel involves an incredibly strict, highly regulated bureaucratic reporting process," Winston analyzed clinically, desperately clinging to his beloved rules.
"As the reigning Manager of this specific territory, I am legally required to be notified well in advance if any verified Table member intends to set foot inside the city limits of New York. Especially if they intend to operate within the Continental's immediate sphere of influence. This is an absolute, ironclad rule."
Winston gestured broadly around his luxurious suite, as if he were officially declaring his innocence to an unseen Adjudicator. "I possess absolutely no official records of any such visit. Nor have I received any encrypted intelligence regarding an impending arrival."
His tone was incredibly firm and highly decisive. It carried the absolute, unquestionable authority that the Manager of the New York Continental was so fiercely proud of.
"No official record..."
Anthony slowly chewed on the words, a deeply mocking, predatory smile playing across his lips.
"Winston... rules are entirely dead constructs written on paper. But the men who actively exploit those rules are very much alive."
Anthony leaned forward, his voice dropping to a dangerously soft whisper as he looked intently at both Winston and John.
"I simply want to ask... do either of you happen to be acquainted with a man named Gramont? I believe he formally holds the title of a Marquis. A deeply entrenched French aristocrat."
CRASH!
Winston's heavy crystal glass violently slipped from his grasp without a fraction of warning. It shattered explosively against the expensive, handmade Persian carpet.
The deep amber whiskey instantly spread across the intricate wool fibers like a dark stain of blood.
Winston looked exactly as if he had just been violently struck in the chest by an invisible sledgehammer. Every single drop of color instantly drained from his face, leaving only a deathly, ashen mask of absolute, paralyzing horror.
He completely ignored the shattered crystal and the ruined, priceless carpet. He simply stared intensely at Anthony, his chest heaving.
Winston's lips trembled slightly, making it appear as though the mere mention of that specific name carried a highly lethal, airborne poison.
Sitting by the fire, John Wick's head aggressively snapped up.
For the first time since the ordeal in Rome began, those deeply exhausted, infinitely sharp eyes entirely focused on Anthony. They were filled with absolute, undisguised, profound astonishment.
"Vincent Bisset de Gramont?" John asked, his voice entirely devoid of its usual calm.
"Anthony... how the hell do you know that name?"
Seeing the sheer, unadulterated terror radiating from their expressions—looking exactly as if they had both just swallowed a mouthful of arsenic—Anthony's suspicions were entirely confirmed.
The Marquis de Gramont was a truly extraordinary, apocalyptic threat.
And that was exactly why the two most dangerous men in New York were so profoundly terrified of him.
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