Viggo's breathing was wet and ragged. His hand trembled violently as he slowly reached into the breast pocket of his ruined suit and withdrew a sealed, bloodstained envelope, holding it out to John.
"The list..." Viggo gasped, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "Ten old dogs of the Tarasov syndicate... who are still breathing. Captains. They are loyal to me... but they will never submit to a greenhorn bastard who just crawled back from Afghanistan."
He tried to prop himself up on his elbows, panting heavily, but his strength was entirely gone. He collapsed back onto the wet concrete.
"Tell Anthony... to take the throne. Tell him to use this list to buy their loyalty, or... or they will slit his throat in his sleep. The Tarasovs need an iron fist to survive... not a vengeful madman!"
"The men here..." Viggo weakly raised a trembling hand, gesturing to the dozens of corpses littering the warehouse floor. "They were the troublemakers. The ambitious ones. The ones who could only be controlled by me. I brought them here... and now, you have cleaned them up for him."
John stared down at the dying mob boss, a profound, sickening realization settling like lead in his stomach.
He slowly lowered himself, sitting cross-legged on the blood-slicked concrete beside Viggo. He pulled a crumpled, rain-soaked pack of cigarettes from his coat and managed to light two.
He placed one gently between Viggo's pale lips.
"You don't hate him?" John asked softly.
"I hate him... for killing my son!" Viggo's eyes suddenly widened with a final surge of manic energy, the veins in his neck bulging against his collar. "But the Tarasov empire... cannot die with me."
"He hates me more than anything in this world... but he is still my blood. Let him live, Jonathan. Tell him how to let the Tarasovs live..."
The manic light in Viggo's eyes suddenly extinguished. His head lolled to the side, the lit cigarette remaining clamped between his slack lips.
Viggo Tarasov was dead.
John reached out, gently removed the cigarette from the dead man's mouth, and placed it on the concrete beside his hand.
For some reason, Viggo's final confession made John feel physically ill.
To pave the way for his illegitimate, estranged son to smoothly inherit the syndicate, Viggo had deliberately gathered all the rebellious, overly ambitious lieutenants into this warehouse. He had used Marcus as bait, knowing John would come, knowing John would slaughter them all.
The envelope in John's hand was the final piece of the puzzle—the leverage Anthony needed to control the surviving, loyalist captains.
John understood it all now.
After Anthony killed Iosef, and after Viggo broke the rules by sending Perkins into the Continental, Viggo knew the High Table would execute him. He knew he wasn't going to survive the week.
Viggo hadn't brought Marcus to the docks to torture him. He had brought Marcus here to force John Wick to clean house for Anthony Tarasov.
"They're all insidious bastards," John sneered bitterly, the smoke stinging his eyes.
"Hey, John. Do you think I'm going to live through this?" Marcus's strained voice echoed weakly from the center of the warehouse.
John shoved the bloodstained envelope deep into his trench coat pocket. He stood up, walked over to the steel gantry, and methodically unchained Marcus, lowering his battered friend to the floor. John's face was a mask of sullen silence.
"Fifteen shots fired. Thirty-seven hostiles. A sixty-six percent hit rate," Marcus managed a weak, bloody smile as John supported his weight. "You've regressed, Jonathan. You're getting sloppy."
John didn't smile back. He simply unbuttoned his ruined trench coat, revealing the massive patch of fresh blood seeping through his shirt from his reopened abdominal wound. It was his only response.
The freezing rain had gradually subsided to a heavy drizzle by the time the stolen car sped into the private back alley of the Continental Hotel.
Charon rushed out from the reinforced side door, a massive black umbrella obscuring John and Marcus from any prying eyes on the street.
Winston stood deep in the shadows of the hotel's loading dock, the gold rims of his glasses reflecting the taillights of the car. He watched the two legendary assassins limp inside, his expression unreadable.
Inside Room 818, the Continental's underground doctor worked in absolute silence. Raindrops meandered lazily down the thick windowpanes.
John sat bare-chested on the edge of the bed. The doctor skillfully snapped on a fresh pair of latex gloves and wiped the jagged edges of John's bullet grazes and knife wounds with iodine swabs.
The curved surgical needle and heavy nylon thread made a soft, wet hissing sound as they pierced his flesh. John stared blankly at the wall, seemingly entirely immune to the pain.
Two hours later, John and Marcus were both heavily stitched, bandaged, and pumped full of high-grade painkillers.
John's entire upper torso looked like a patchwork quilt of white gauze, new injuries layered directly over the wounds he had sustained at the Red Circle.
After the doctor packed his kit and left the room, Marcus leaned back heavily into a plush velvet armchair, a glass of expensive bourbon resting on his knee.
"Are you really going to deliver that envelope to the kid?" Marcus asked quietly.
While John was driving them back, he had briefed Marcus on the entire situation. Marcus now knew of Anthony Tarasov's existence. He knew Anthony had killed Iosef, and he knew Anthony had been the one to tip John off about the warehouse.
Given Viggo's master plan, Viggo likely would have called John himself eventually to spring the trap. But Marcus was a pragmatist; he acknowledged that Anthony's early warning had likely saved his life. He owed the kid a favor.
John closed his eyes wearily, leaning his head back against the headboard. "What do you mean?"
"I think Viggo is setting the kid up to be the ultimate sacrificial lamb," Marcus said, taking a slow sip of the whiskey, the amber liquid swirling in his glass.
"Viggo used you to slaughter the internal opposition, clearing the board for Anthony. But what happens next? The High Table absolutely loathes unauthorized syndicate succession wars. The second Anthony uses that list to assert dominance over the remaining captains, the High Table's Adjudicators are going to come knocking on his front door."
Marcus dropped his voice into a mocking, aristocratic sneer. "Hehe, esteemed Mr. Tarasov. We have noticed your family has recently violated the Blood River protocols regarding succession. We require your immediate... explanation."
Marcus scoffed, taking another drink. "They'll execute him just to make an example."
"I don't care about the High Table," John said dismissively, his eyes still closed. "And I don't care about the fate of the Tarasov syndicate."
"Viggo asked me for a final favor as he died. I will deliver the envelope. That is the extent of my obligation. As for what Anthony chooses to do with it, we have no right to advise him."
It was clear to Marcus that John was still deeply resentful of how thoroughly Anthony had manipulated him over the past three days.
If Anthony was greedy enough to try and take the throne, he would inevitably have to deal with the wrath of the High Table. That was his problem.
Furthermore, Charon had just informed them that hotel security was officially investigating the sudden disappearance of Ms. Perkins. She had seemingly vanished from the city.
John had briefly suspected Anthony, but quickly dismissed the idea. Anthony was a skilled Marine, but John knew firsthand that the kid didn't possess the sheer, superhuman lethality required to hunt down and kill a High Table elite like Perkins.
"You should care, Jonathan," Marcus coughed violently, a fresh spot of red seeping through the bandages on his ribs.
"Viggo is using his bastard son's blood to paint a final layer of dignity over the rotting Tarasov name. In Viggo's twisted mind, a son who dies violently while trying to clean house is better for the family legacy than a cowardly leader kneeling to be executed by the High Table. That's exactly what the old man planned!"
John finally opened his eyes.
His face was gaunt, his eyes sunken into deep, dark bruised shadows. His usually immaculate hair was a greasy, tangled mess, and a thick, rough scruff covered his jaw. He looked like a man who had been dead for a week.
"Are you really going to hand him that list?" Marcus asked again, his voice dropping to a low, urgent rasp.
"I gave Viggo my word," John said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. "I will deliver his final effects. After that, I am completely done."
"Fuck his effects!" Marcus struggled to sit up straighter, a rare, genuine anger flashing across his stoic face. "Listen to me, John. We have known each other for twenty years."
"In Prague... in St. Petersburg... in all those godforsaken shitholes... how many men have you killed? Hundreds. But you always rigidly follow your personal rules. You think it makes you look honorable. It doesn't. It makes you look fucking stupid."
"Viggo took advantage of your 'honor,' just like he took advantage of his own son."
John's gray-blue eyes remained as calm and frozen as a winter lake.
"This is Anthony's business, Marcus. It is his path to walk. We have no right to make his choices for him."
"Choose?" Marcus let out a harsh, barking laugh, as if John had just told the funniest joke in the world.
He tried to lean forward, but the movement aggravated the stab wound in his thigh. He gasped sharply, his pale face turning a shade whiter, and slumped back into the velvet chair.
"What choice does the kid actually have? Viggo spent his whole life trying to forge the boy into a mindless knife. And now, this knife is being thrown directly at the High Table—a pack of starving wolves who will eat him alive and won't even spit out the bones."
"By handing him that list, John, you aren't giving him a choice. You're pushing him directly into the furnace!" Marcus gripped the heavy crystal tumbler tightly, taking a long, angry swig.
"As for your precious rules... there is only one actual rule in this damn underworld: survival is the only victory. And Viggo knew that. He even calculated the exact size of his own coffin to ensure he won the final hand."
John didn't argue. He stopped talking entirely.
He reached over to the bedside table, picked up the disassembled pieces of the HK P30L, and began to meticulously clean the slide with an oiled cloth.
The only sounds in the luxurious suite were the soft, rhythmic rustling of fabric against steel, and Marcus's heavy, labored breathing.
Marcus watched John clean the weapon. It was a posture Marcus knew well—it was John's physical manifestation of an absolute refusal to communicate further. The wall had come down.
Marcus finally slumped back deep into the chair, letting out a long, defeated sigh.
"Dog shit..." Marcus muttered helplessly, closing his eyes against the dim light. "It's all dog shit..."
After a long time, John finished reassembling the pistol. He racked the slide, locked it, and finally replied to the silence.
"No matter what you say, I have to deliver that envelope to Anthony. This is the end, Marcus. My end. I'm out."
Marcus opened his eyes and stared at his oldest friend for a long, heavy minute. So long that the sound of the rain lashing against the windowpane seemed to fade away entirely.
Finally, Marcus slowly raised his glass of bourbon into the air, a sad, knowing smile touching his lips.
"Cheers to the finish line, old friend."
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