Anthony wanted to see the look on Viggo's face when the mob boss discovered his impregnable vault had been stripped bare.
He parked his newly purchased Ford Pathfinder in a discreet spot across the street from St. Michael's Church.
Shortly after 8:00 AM, a fleet of black SUVs aggressively jumped the curb. Viggo Tarasov stormed into the church.
Ten minutes later, Viggo emerged. Even from across the street, Anthony could see the sheer, unadulterated rage radiating from the Russian boss. Viggo screamed at his surviving men, kicked the side of his own Escalade, and sped away in a furious convoy.
Unbeknownst to Anthony, on the roof of a six-story brownstone directly opposite the church, John Wick stood perfectly still in the morning rain, watching the exact same scene unfold through the optics of a sniper rifle.
John didn't lower his rifle until Viggo's convoy vanished into the city grid.
Anthony let out a satisfied sneer, put the Pathfinder in gear, and drove away.
His burner phone began to vibrate. The caller ID displayed John's number.
Anthony took a slow breath and pressed answer.
"Good morning, John. I heard the Continental doc patched you up and discharged you," Anthony said, his tone laced with light mockery.
There were several seconds of heavy, static-filled silence on the other end of the line.
Then, John's deep, tightly restrained voice came through. "Anthony. Were you the one who hit St. Michael's Church last night?"
"Don't tell me you actually thought Santa Claus came early," Anthony replied without a hint of hesitation. "It was me. I knew you were planning to assault the church today to burn Viggo's vault. But that money is funding my retirement now. Understand?"
"Anthony. Iosef is dead. You killed him," John said, his voice carrying the dangerous edge of suppressed anger. "I had no reason left to touch that vault. My business with Viggo was concluded."
"So why did you do it? Are you trying to force Viggo's hand? Or did you approach me from the very beginning just to use me as a battering ram to tear down his empire?"
"Force you?" Anthony scoffed loudly. "John, you are the most lethal assassin on the eastern seaboard, but right now, you're thinking like a naive civilian. It's going to get you killed."
"Let's talk about last night. Ms. Perkins snuck into your room to kill you in your sleep. You overpowered her, but instead of putting a bullet in her brain, you left her alive with Harry standing guard. And because of your mercy, Harry is dead."
John's silence was deafening.
The attack had happened entirely behind the closed doors of the Continental. Only Winston, Charon, and the cleanup crew should have known about it.
Anthony pressed his advantage relentlessly. "John, acting like a saint in this business isn't just going to get you killed. It's going to get the people trying to help you killed."
"So, you slaughtered Viggo's men and stole his entire war chest," John said, pivoting the conversation, his tone growing dangerously serious. "Do you have any idea the magnitude of what you've done? You are playing with fire, Anthony."
"Viggo will stop at absolutely nothing to find out who raided that vault. And if you think you can drag me down into the flames with you, you are mistaken."
"Cut the self-righteous bullshit, John," Anthony sneered, his voice turning cold. "I warned you about Perkins. You ignored me."
"I am never going to let Viggo walk away in peace. If he wants to kill me, I'll be waiting. But honestly, I'm much more curious about whether Ms. Perkins enjoyed her breakfast this morning. I hear the Continental's Eggs Benedict is to die for."
"Remember this, John. Perkins is still breathing. Viggo's two-million-dollar bounty is still active. They are not going to let you walk away just because you think the score is settled. They will hunt you, and they will hunt the friends who helped you."
John's breathing hitched slightly through the receiver.
"I know you worship the High Table's rules," Anthony continued ruthlessly. "But she was a dead woman the exact second she stepped into your room with a gun. What the hell were you waiting for, John? Were you waiting for her to press her High Table medallion against your eyelids before you finally pulled the trigger?"
"Letting a poisonous snake go isn't an act of mercy. It just guarantees it's going to bite your throat out tomorrow."
There was a long, heavy silence on the line, accompanied only by the faint hiss of cellular static.
A cold glint flashed in Anthony's eyes.
Damn it. It was exactly as he feared. Even with the advanced warning, John's rigid adherence to his internal code had screwed things up.
Perkins had broken the Continental's absolute rule by attacking John in his room. Yet, because John didn't want to technically commit a murder on Continental grounds himself, he had merely subdued her and left her tied to a chair under the watch of his friend, Harry.
Predictably, Perkins had broken free, murdered Harry, and escaped.
It was the exact same maddening flaw John exhibited in the original timeline. In the film, John caught Viggo, but instead of executing him, John tried to force Viggo to call off the bounty. Viggo agreed, only to immediately turn around and brutally torture and murder John's mentor, Marcus.
John knew that letting Viggo and his lieutenants live invited relentless retaliation, yet his weird, inconsistent morality constantly stayed his hand.
How was that behavior any different from a bleeding-heart pacifist?
Anthony understood that John desperately wanted to be the "good man" his wife believed he was. He wanted to adhere to rules and boundaries.
But the rules of the assassin underworld were written by the High Table. They weren't a moral code; they were a cage designed entirely to protect the elite and control the grunts.
"Vengeance for my home is my right. But indiscriminate cleansing is not," John finally spoke, his voice heavy with exhaustion.
"As for Perkins... if she dares to cross my path again, I will not hesitate."
"Rules are rules, Anthony," John stated, his tone leaving absolutely no room for debate.
"The Continental is a neutral zone. Anyone who conducts business on hotel grounds is subject to the High Table's ultimate sanction. Perkins violated that rule, but the authority to execute her lies with Winston. Not with me."
"Rules?" Anthony laughed mockingly. "John, Viggo doesn't give a single, solitary fuck about your rules."
"He planted an assassin inside the Continental. He set a thirty-man ambush at the Red Circle. He used his own flesh and blood as bait. And you? You're still strictly abiding by the rules of a game the other side has already flipped the board on."
John remained silent for so long Anthony briefly thought the call had dropped.
Then, John's voice returned, low and lethal.
"Anthony. Since you claim to know so much about how our world works... I suggest you remember that the rules of the High Table are not to be challenged. By anyone."
"Not to be challenged?" Anthony cracked his window slightly, lighting a cigarette. "No, John. You're wrong."
"Viggo burned my mother alive. Iosef poisoned my drink. They taught me the only real truth of this world: the rules only exist to strangle the weak."
He paused, exhaling smoke as he watched the morning traffic. "Believe me, John. Perkins is going to become your worst nightmare."
"She isn't going to be grateful that you spared her life in that hotel room. She's going to look at your mercy and realize the Boogeyman has gone soft."
"You want to see the true price of strictly following the rules, John?" Anthony chuckled darkly. "I promise you, you're going to see it very soon."
Anthony ended the call.
He stared at the black screen of his burner phone, his sneer deepening into a scowl.
"Idiot. Rules are just tools the strong use to bind the weak."
Anthony realized that even though he had drastically altered the inciting incident by killing Iosef, the inertia of the plot was incredibly strong. The characters were still bound by their fatal flaws.
John had still subdued Perkins without killing her. He had still failed to report her violation to Winston immediately. The dominos were still falling.
Did John actually think he could just walk away now?
Impossible.
Just as Anthony was about to drop the phone into his cup holder and put the Pathfinder in drive, a flash of movement on the sidewalk caught his eye.
A woman with short, sharp blonde hair was walking briskly away from the vicinity of the church.
Ms. Perkins.
She was dressed in a sleek leather jacket, holding a phone to her ear, a dark, vicious smirk playing across her lips.
Anthony watched as she slid into the driver's seat of a black sedan parked half a block away and pulled into traffic.
Anthony waited for two cars to pass, then pulled out behind her.
He kept a strictly disciplined, five-car-length interval, tailing her seamlessly as she crossed the Williamsburg Bridge back into Manhattan.
Twenty minutes later, the black sedan turned down a narrow, graffiti-lined alleyway behind a pre-war, stone-facade apartment building in Tribeca.
Perkins parked. She stepped out, glancing around the alley with the hyper-vigilance of a hunted animal, before grabbing a sleek aluminum Halliburton briefcase from the passenger seat and hurrying inside.
Anthony parked the Pathfinder across the street. He reached over and scratched Helen affectionately under the chin. "Helen, stay down. Wait for me here."
Helen nuzzled his knuckles, then obediently curled into a tight ball on the passenger seat, disappearing below the window line.
Anthony waited exactly three minutes. He pulled a black baseball cap low over his eyes, checked the chamber of his suppressed Walther, and crossed the street.
The electronic access control panel on the heavy glass doors of the apartment building had been visibly jammed open with a wad of cardboard—a classic, sloppy New York security flaw.
Anthony stepped inside. The digital display above the vintage elevator indicated the car had stopped on the 7th floor.
Anthony bypassed the elevator entirely, slipping into the concrete stairwell.
He climbed the six flights silently, keeping his weight on the balls of his feet.
When he pushed through the heavy fire door onto the 7th floor, he altered his posture, walking down the hall with the casual, slightly bored slouch of a resident.
The hallway was narrow, with five doors staggered on each side. Anthony walked to the end of the hall.
Nothing. No sign of Perkins. No forced doors.
Suddenly, his Compensatory Perception screamed. His battlefield instincts flared, the hair on the back of his neck standing at rigid attention.
Before his conscious mind could even process the threat, Anthony's body violently threw itself to the left.
A gust of displaced air kissed his right ear.
Thwack!
A three-inch, razor-sharp steel throwing blade buried itself deep into the drywall directly where Anthony's throat had been a millisecond before. The metal ring at the hilt vibrated furiously with the kinetic force of the impact.
Without pausing to think, without even turning his head to locate the shooter, Anthony launched his entire body weight forward, crashing shoulder-first through the nearest wooden apartment door.
Puff-puff-puff!
The exact second the door splintered inward, a rapid string of suppressed 9mm rounds chased his heels. The bullets chewed through the doorframe, sending clouds of pulverized plaster and drywall dust exploding into the hallway.