Anthony washed the blood and plaster dust from his face and hands in Perkins's bathroom sink.
He stripped off his ruined tactical jacket and blood-soaked shirt, stuffing them into a garbage bag he found under the sink. He grabbed a random, oversized hoodie from Perkins's closet to cover his soft armor and the fresh, bleeding lacerations on his arms and ribs.
He packed his gear and dragged his utterly exhausted, aching body out of the apartment, leaving the bloody battlefield behind.
The sustained, muffled gunfire had clearly startled the other residents on the floor. None of them dared to open their doors, but as Anthony limped down the hallway, he could feel terrified eyes peering at him through a dozen peepholes.
No one tried to stop him. No one called the police. This was New York; people knew when to look the other way.
Back in the Pathfinder, Anthony slumped heavily into the driver's seat and tossed the garbage bag of bloody clothes into the back.
Helen immediately scrambled into his lap, her wet nose sniffing anxiously at the scent of blood and gunpowder clinging to him.
Anthony started the engine, drove two blocks to put distance between himself and the safehouse, and pulled into an empty alley. He put the car in park, lit a cigarette with shaking hands, and took several deep, desperate drags.
I will never underestimate a High Table elite again.
He knew exactly why he had survived. Perkins's ultimate downfall was her arrogance. She had underestimated him.
If she had treated Anthony with the same lethal caution she reserved for John Wick or other elite assassins, she would have simply shot him in the back of the head from the fire escape while he was blinded by the flashbang.
But she hadn't. She had chosen to close the distance. She had insisted on engaging in hand-to-hand combat, likely intending to cripple him and interrogate him to find out who he was working for.
That arrogant decision to capture rather than kill had given Anthony the microscopic window he needed to leverage his Compensatory Perception and out-draw her at point-blank range.
Anthony tossed the cigarette butt out the window, took a slow, steadying breath, and pulled out his burner phone. He dialed John Wick's number.
John picked up on the second ring, but didn't say a word.
"Stop doing the brooding, silent-assassin routine, John," Anthony rasped, wincing as a sharp pain flared in his ribs.
"Listen to me carefully. Before I killed her, Perkins managed to inform Viggo that Marcus was the sniper who saved your life at the Continental last night."
Anthony paused, letting the weight of the information settle.
"Viggo's men are moving on him right now. They're cornering Marcus at his safehouse—Warehouse B7, the old shipping docks on 14th Street in Queens."
"Whether you get there in time to save him or not is your business."
Without waiting for John to process the shock, Anthony hung up the phone and crushed it in his fist, tossing the broken plastic onto the passenger floorboard.
Anthony knew exactly who Marcus was.
Marcus was an independent elite assassin operating within the High Table's ecosystem, and he was John's oldest friend and mentor.
Marcus's standing in the underworld was arguably on par with John's. He was one of the few people allowed to freely enter and exit the Continental, and his reputation was so cemented he could openly question Viggo's bounties to the Russian boss's face without fear of immediate retaliation.
In the rigid, hierarchical world of assassins, that kind of blatant disrespect was a privilege reserved exclusively for living legends.
Marcus was the only person in the entire world whose motives John never questioned.
His public cover was a retired, unassuming gunsmith, but in reality, he still handled highly sensitive, top-tier contracts.
In the film's timeline, Marcus accepted Viggo's two-million-dollar contract to assassinate John, but he used his sniper overwatch to actively protect John instead—saving him from Perkins at the Continental, and later providing covering fire during the church shootout.
In the assassin industry, accepting a contract and then actively protecting the target was the ultimate betrayal. It was professional suicide.
Anthony had no idea how his phone call would alter the timeline now.
Regardless of what John did, Viggo's ultimate fate was sealed. Even if John couldn't bring himself to execute his former boss, Anthony would.
The only thing that genuinely baffled Anthony about the original film's plot was how Marcus—a legendary, elite-tier sniper—could be so easily ambushed, beaten, and captured in his own home by Viggo's standard-issue thugs.
Then again, Anthony chuckled dryly, wincing at the pain in his chest. In the movie, even John Wick managed to get himself captured by Viggo's men because he literally stood in the middle of a street and let an SUV hit him.
If Viggo hadn't engaged in the classic "villain monologue" and ordered his men to suffocate John with a plastic bag instead of just shooting him in the head, the movie would have ended an hour early.
Despite knowing Marcus was in danger, there was absolutely zero chance Anthony was going to Queens to mount a rescue mission himself.
He had barely survived a one-on-one fight with Perkins. Viggo's personal bodyguard detail—specifically his top enforcer, Kirill—were highly capable killers who had nearly beaten John Wick to death twice in the films.
Anthony was not about to drag Nick, Mike, and Tom into a suicide mission against Viggo's elite guard just to save a man they didn't know.
Furthermore, Anthony's chest felt like it had been hit with a sledgehammer. Every breath was a struggle, his fractured ribs grinding against his soft armor. He had completely lost his combat effectiveness for the next forty-eight hours.
He was not John Wick. He did not possess the "Baba Yaga" protagonist aura that allowed John to get stabbed, shot, hit by cars, and thrown off balconies, only to wake up the next morning and kill fifty people.
Anthony drove home, parked the Pathfinder in the garage, and limped inside.
He threw the bloody clothes and Perkins's oversized hoodie into the fireplace, doused them in lighter fluid, and struck a match.
He stood under a scalding shower for twenty minutes, scrubbing the grime and dried blood from his skin. He carefully applied antiseptic ointment and tight butterfly bandages to the grazing bullet wounds on his collarbone and ribs, and wrapped his punctured forearm tightly in fresh gauze.
Exhausted beyond measure, he finally collapsed onto his mattress.
He pulled out his personal phone, found Winnie's number, and hit dial. He listened to the ringing, his fractured ribs throbbing in time with his heartbeat.
"This is the second phone call in twelve hours," Winnie's voice came through the receiver, tinged with a mixture of corporate exhaustion and faint amusement. "Anthony, please tell me you aren't calling from a hospital bed again."
"I'm not in a hospital, but I am pretty banged up. I definitely can't cook," Anthony said, allowing a genuine, tired smile to bleed into his voice. "Could I convince the future CEO of the Pritzker Empire to bring me some food? You can put it on my credit card."
"Don't play cute with me, Anthony Tarasov," her tone suddenly shifted from amused to stern. "Are you getting yourself into violent trouble again? Just like you did in high school?"
"I saw the morning news. There was a massive shootout at the Red Circle club last night. Dozens of people dead. The anchors are saying it's connected to the Russian syndicates. To Iosef Tarasov. Are you..."
"Winnie, how could a nightclub shootout possibly have anything to do with me?" Anthony interrupted smoothly, injecting just the right amount of defensive innocence into his tone. "But it is true that I got jumped by a couple of muggers and took a beating."
"You know I don't have any family left. Right now... you're really the only friend I have in this city."
There were several seconds of heavy silence on the other end of the line. Anthony could hear her taking a slow, deep breath, clearly fighting a losing battle against her own empathy.
"Send me the address. You manipulative bastard." She hung up the phone with a sharp click.
Anthony chuckled softly, wincing at the pain in his ribs, and texted her his location.
Forty minutes later, the front doorbell chimed.
Anthony shuffled to the door and pulled it open.
Winnie stood on the porch, holding a massive, insulated catering box bearing the logo of a high-end Manhattan steakhouse. She took one look at Anthony's pale face and bruised jaw, her expression hardening.
"Well. You look like you're going to survive the week," she said flatly.
"It wasn't that serious. Just a disagreement with two guys over my wallet," Anthony lied smoothly, shrugging his good shoulder. The movement pulled at his stitched forearm, causing him to involuntarily grit his teeth.
Winnie snorted in disbelief. She pushed past him into the house, leaving a trail of crisp, expensive perfume in her wake.
Her chestnut-blonde hair was pulled back into a severe, elegant ponytail. She was dressed impeccably in a tailored, dark navy cashmere coat, a cream-colored silk blouse, and knee-high brown leather boots. She looked entirely out of place in Anthony's rundown, dusty living room.
She slammed the heavy catering box onto the cheap coffee table. The sharp clack of the metal clasps popping open caused Helen, who had been wagging her tail excitedly, to immediately sit down and freeze.
Winnie didn't ask about his injuries. She treated the situation with the exasperated familiarity of a mother dealing with a delinquent child. She did a quick, sweeping lap of the living room, kitchen, and hallway.
"Your house is somehow in worse condition than your high school locker," she declared, turning around to glare at him, her hands planted firmly on her hips. "At least back then, the janitorial staff would occasionally intervene."
"You don't have a job. You sit in this dusty house all day. And you're apparently still getting into fistfights in alleys. You are completely hopeless, Anthony. Truly."
Anthony sank slowly into his battered armchair, letting his heavily bandaged left arm rest carefully on the armrest. His right hand reached down to gently knead Helen's soft, floppy ears.
He didn't argue. He just watched her with a gentle, appreciative smile, perfectly content to let her scold him.
"Do you want something to drink?" he offered mildly. "I only have cheap beer and black coffee."
"Shut up," Winnie ordered.
She lifted the lid off the insulated box. A three-tiered, stainless-steel food container was stacked inside. As she unlatched the tiers, the rich, mouth-watering aroma of slow-roasted beef, garlic, and rosemary filled the small room.
From the very bottom of the box, she pulled out a small glass jar wrapped in a velvet napkin.
"This is Helen's organic pumpkin and boiled chicken puree. Please do not let your filthy hands touch her bowl while you serve it," Winnie instructed.
She began unpacking the rest of the feast. "Your meal consists of authentic Russian borscht, half a roasted chicken, and a seasonal vegetable salad. It's enough calories to feed you for two days."
She pulled out a wooden dining chair, spun it around, and sat down hard, her leather boots tapping an impatient rhythm against the floorboards.
"Do you have any concept of how incredibly busy I am right now?" she demanded.
"I was supposed to be doing a site inspection for the new boutique hotel build in Central Park right now, but you ruined my schedule. This afternoon, I have to go to City Hall and fight with those bureaucratic vultures over zoning and land-tax exemptions."
"Tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM, I fly to Chicago for a board meeting, then a red-eye to Detroit, and then back to New York by Friday for a family trust summit."
She leaned forward, her sharp blue eyes locking onto his bruised face.
"How can you possibly live such a carefree, aimless life, and still manage to get yourself beaten up like a common street thug? If it weren't for the fact that I've known you since we were teenagers, I wouldn't give you the time of day."
She looked at the thick, bloody gauze wrapped around his forearm, her angry facade cracking just a fraction, revealing a sigh of genuine exhaustion.
"How did I end up stuck with a classmate who is so utterly addicted to causing trouble?"
Anthony picked up a slice of still-warm, homemade apple pie from the catering box with his uninjured right hand. The flaky, buttery crust crumbled slightly, dusting his bandages.
"If I told you I got these injuries rescuing an old lady from a mugger..."
"Do I need to recite your disciplinary record from the high school administration?" Winnie cut him off, a cynical sneer returning to her lips.
"Like the fight on the football field? You claimed you were protecting a freshman from bullies. But the security footage clearly showed you walking up and kicking the varsity captain's locker door into his face completely unprovoked."
The memory hit them both simultaneously, pulling them back a decade in an instant.
Seventeen-year-old Anthony, clutching a torn copy of Guns & Ammo magazine, blood dripping from a split lip onto the pristine, checkered handkerchief a furious Winnie Pritzker was shoving into his hand.
The teenage girl pinching his ear with a terrifyingly stern expression: "Anthony Tarasov! If you cause one more scene this semester, I swear I will personally call the campus police and have you dragged to juvenile detention!"
"You told me I had a brain made of pigskin," Anthony laughed suddenly, the memory easing the tension in his chest. His bronze, scarred face softened into a boyish grin.
"It was an accurate assessment," Winnie laughed, the icy corporate executive finally vanishing, replaced by the girl he remembered. "I also remember you got suspended for two solid weeks because of that fight."
"His name was Mike Jensen," Anthony corrected her, taking a bite of the pie. "And I kicked his locker because he made a crude comment about you in the locker room. I heard his family moved to Alaska the next year."
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