The next morning, the rain had settled into a steady, freezing drizzle.
Inside a high-end, discreet coffee shop adjacent to the Continental Hotel, Anthony sat perfectly still in a corner booth. His right arm was heavily bandaged beneath a thick wool sweater, his left hand idly stirring a cup of black coffee.
John Wick and Marcus sat across the table from him. Both older men looked battered, bruised, and deeply exhausted.
"Viggo is dead," John said, his voice flat and devoid of any triumph.
Anthony didn't look up from his coffee cup. His expression remained entirely neutral. "Marcus is alive and sitting here. Your presence already told me the ending."
Marcus let out a dry, raspy chuckle, studying the young man across from him. "I have to admit, I'm curious, Anthony. How exactly did you know who I was, let alone where Viggo was holding me?"
"You'll get used to it," Anthony replied, finally raising his eyes. He offered a faint, cryptic smile. "At least for the foreseeable future, no one in this city knows more about how things are going to play out than I do."
He looked at Marcus's sunken, bruised face. "Of course, some minor details have gone slightly off track. But the overarching direction of the plot remains the same."
Marcus naturally didn't understand the meta-context of Anthony's words, but the deep frown lines on his forehead deepened noticeably. The kid's absolute confidence was unnerving.
John completely ignored the cryptic exchange. He looked at Anthony, his gray-blue eyes piercing. "You truly don't care at all? That your father is dead?"
"Why should I?" Anthony took a slow sip of his coffee. "As long as he's in the ground, it doesn't matter to me who put the bullet in him."
John didn't react to the callousness. He reached into the inner pocket of his trench coat, withdrew a crumpled, blood-stained, and rain-streaked envelope, and slid it across the smooth wooden table.
"His last words," John said quietly. "He said he wanted you to take over the Tarasov syndicate. He said he hoped you could keep it alive."
Anthony casually reached across the table for the envelope.
Before his fingers could touch the paper, Marcus's hand slammed down, pinning the envelope to the table. His expression was dead serious.
"Anthony. You need to fully understand what this piece of paper means," Marcus warned, his voice low and gravelly. "I strongly suggest you think this through before you make a decision that can't be unmade."
Anthony simply pulled his hand back, completely unbothered. "Unlike you two, I don't have millions of dollars stashed under a floorboard. I'm young, I'm broke, and I need a stepping stone to build capital."
"You don't understand the reality of the Tarasov family's existence," Marcus pressed, leaning forward. "Taking this envelope means you are agreeing to step into Viggo's shoes. It means you will be working for them."
Anthony tilted his head, feigning genuine confusion. "Why would I have to work for anyone? I intend to run my family's legitimate shell corporations. Real estate, shipping. Clean money."
"Bullshit!" Marcus barked a sudden, harsh laugh. The movement aggravated his freshly stitched ribs, causing him to wince sharply and grab his side. "Fuck. I just had these put in."
He gasped for air, glaring at Anthony. "Kid, are you actively trying to commit suicide by Adjudicator?"
"No," Anthony replied, a cold, Viggo-esque smile touching his lips. "I'm just confident I can renegotiate the terms of my employment."
Anthony shifted his gaze to John, who had remained entirely silent during the exchange. "John. What happens if I simply refuse the envelope?"
"That is entirely your problem," John said, his tone icy and detached. "But for the record... I also think you are out of your mind."
Marcus nodded emphatically. "Maybe what the Tarasov family actually needs right now isn't an heir. Maybe they just need a gravedigger."
"Winston is looking for Perkins," John said suddenly, abruptly changing the subject. His voice dropped to a near-whisper.
"She's dead. Someone hit her safehouse in Tribeca last night. Shot multiple times at point-blank range. But Winston's cleanup crew reported signs of a massive, brutal close-quarters struggle inside the apartment before she died."
John's freezing gray-blue eyes locked onto Anthony, searching for a reaction.
"Winston is incredibly displeased. A High Table certified assassin was murdered while operating outside of official sanction protocols. To the High Table, an unauthorized kill like that is a direct provocation against their rules."
"Perkins?" Anthony smirked, his voice dripping with perfectly manufactured indifference. "I don't understand. John, you are a living legend. Your rank in the underworld was vastly higher than hers. Why would a mid-tier operative like Perkins dare to assassinate you in the first place? Doesn't that mean she betrayed the High Table by attacking a superior?"
Marcus stared at Anthony, utterly bewildered. "Anthony... do you genuinely not have any basic intelligence channels? How can you possibly be asking a question like that?"
The truth was, Anthony's knowledge of the John Wick universe came entirely from watching the movies as an action-movie fan. He knew the broad strokes of the plot, the major characters, and the cool action set-pieces. But he lacked a nuanced understanding of the dense, bureaucratic world-building and the complex legal hierarchy of the assassin underworld.
Marcus let out a long sigh and began to explain the reality of the High Table's structure.
High Table assassins were broadly divided into two categories: "Faction Affiliates" and "Independent Assets" (Lone Wolves).
Perkins was a Faction Affiliate. She belonged exclusively to the Viggo Tarasov syndicate. Her retainer, her weapons, her safehouses—all of her operational expenses were reimbursed by Viggo's organization. Her attempt to assassinate John wasn't a rogue action; she was officially carrying out a direct order from her faction leader, fulfilling a sanctioned, open bounty.
John, conversely, had been retired for over five years. He had surrendered his territory and his standing. In the eyes of the High Table's bureaucracy, he was currently classified as a "Non-Factional Individual." He was essentially a free asset, stripped of institutional protection, making him entirely legally viable to be hunted under the rules of an open contract.
Perkins, as a certified assassin carrying out a faction leader's bounty, was operating perfectly within the system.
In the High Table's ecosystem, upholding the procedural rules of a contract alwayssuperseded an individual's past reputation or historical "rank." Once a bounty was officially authorized and published by the switchboard, legacy status meant absolutely nothing.
"Okay, I understand the faction politics now. But there's another thing," Anthony said, leaning forward. "I know the gold coins are the primary currency. But I really don't understand the exchange rate. How exactly are they valued?"
It was a question that had always bothered him when watching the films.
In the movies, the economy of the gold coins made zero logical sense. A single gold coin could buy a shot of bourbon at the Continental bar, pay for a night in a luxury suite, cover the disposal of a dead body, or be used as a down payment to hire a mid-level assassin for a hit. The value fluctuated wildly.
Marcus chuckled, a knowing glint in his eye. "You're thinking like a civilian, Anthony. This isn't about the monetary value of gold. It's about your right to speak within the circle."
Marcus reached into his pocket. "Here." He slid a heavy gold coin across the table.
Anthony picked up the specialized coin, examining it closely in the dim light of the coffee shop. It was roughly four centimeters in diameter, incredibly heavy, and minted from a solid gold-plated copper alloy.
The obverse face featured the High Table's iconic eagle emblem at the center, surrounded by the Latin inscription "Ex Unitae Vires" (From Unity, Strength).
The reverse side featured a relief of a lion and a shield, with a tiny Roman numeral "XII"engraved at the bottom—representing the twelve oligarchic families that comprised the ruling seats of the High Table.
Anthony knew from his meta-knowledge that Viggo had offered a massive $2,000,000 USD cash bounty for John in the first film. Yet, in the subsequent films, the High Table's global, open-contract manhunt for John was entirely transacted using gold coins, not paper currency.
In John Wick: Chapter 2, the gold coins John paid to the Rome Continental were enough to purchase a custom-tailored ballistic suit, a black-market armory, and an untraceable international escape route.
It was exactly as Winston, the manager of the New York Continental, had once famously said: "You are not buying alcohol with these coins, Mr. Wick. You are buying the right to drink in my establishment without getting your head blown off."
Or, as the Bowery King had put it: "When the clinking of the coin falls, it is either the start of a service, or the end of a life."
The coins weren't money. They were physical manifestations of a social contract. They were favors. They were proof of membership in an exclusive, lethal society.
John looked at the gold coin resting in Anthony's palm, his expression darkening with a mixture of weariness and regret.
Anthony didn't hesitate. He casually stuffed Viggo's bloodstained envelope into his jacket pocket, then seamlessly palmed the gold coin, slipping it into his jeans.
He ignored the deeply complicated, warning looks from both John and Marcus. He reached over, scooped Helen up from where she had been sleeping on John's lap, and stood up.
"Well. I suppose this is goodbye."
Without another word, Anthony turned and walked out of the coffee shop, stepping out into the freezing New York rain.
Late autumn rain meandered down the living room windowpanes like countless tiny, transparent snakes.
Anthony sat cross-legged on his worn living room rug. The meticulously disassembled components of his Walther P99 were spread out across the cheap coffee table. He was slowly, methodically wiping the firing pin assembly with a cotton cloth lightly soaked in Hoppe's No. 9 gun oil.
Helen was curled into a tight ball at his feet, her soft ears twitching occasionally in rhythm with the metallic clack-clack of Anthony reassembling the slide.
Deep within his consciousness, his Compensatory Perception extended outward like an invisible, hyper-sensitive spider web.
At this exact moment, a highly complex, glowing virtual combat model was projected across Anthony's mind's eye. He was systematically reliving the brutal, near-death CQB engagement with Ms. Perkins from two days prior.
Target repositioning to exterior fire escape. Wind speed: 3.2 meters per second. Barometric pressure: 112 hectopascals.
Anthony closed his eyes, the phantom echoes of suppressed gunfire ringing in his ears.
Opponent weapon: 9mm hollow-point. Muzzle velocity: 420 m/s. Gravitational drop over 3 meters: negligible.
Torrents of tactical data surged through his brain. The desperate fight in the Tribeca apartment flashed repeatedly behind his eyelids, analyzing every mistake, every near-miss.
He analyzed the exact millisecond the blinding white light of the flashbang had engulfed his vision. He re-calculated the kinetic force of Perkins's tackle. He felt the phantom, icy touch of her hidden stiletto grazing his nose, and the burning impact of the 9mm round tearing through his forearm.
In the corner of his peripheral vision, the system prompts for [Compensatory Perception]and [Rapid Computing] flickered continuously.
For the past forty-eight hours, while his physical body healed, Anthony had been obsessively using his enhanced cognitive attributes to run hundreds of simulated combat scenarios, reviewing his performance and breaking down Perkins's elite High Table tactics.
He was absolutely certain that if he had to face Perkins in that exact same hallway today, his probability of securing a clean kill without sustaining critical injury would increase by at least twenty percent.
What Anthony hadn't expected was that this intense, meditative combat review would actually trigger his cheat system.
By aggressively analyzing and processing the life-or-death experience, his [Compensatory Perception] attribute had organically increased by 5 points.
His [Rapid Computing] had also increased by 3 points, and several of his minor physical attributes (reflexes, spatial awareness) had ticked up by 1 or 2 points.
It had been exactly three days since the coffee shop meeting.
Since pocketing Viggo's bloodstained envelope, Anthony had only briefly glanced at the names written inside. He had made absolutely zero effort to contact any of the surviving Tarasov syndicate captains mentioned on the list.
He fundamentally did not believe Viggo's dying promise that the list was a key to the kingdom, nor did he entirely agree with Marcus's apocalyptic warning that it was a guaranteed death sentence.
Anthony understood one absolute truth: the Tarasov family was inextricably, legally bound to the High Table.
He knew that when a sanctioned faction leader like Viggo Tarasov died violently, the High Table did not simply allow an illegitimate son to walk in and claim the throne based on a bloodstained piece of paper. The High Table was a bureaucracy. They would initiate a standardized, ruthless power-transition protocol to audit the territory and appoint a new leader.
The High Table didn't care about bloodlines or rightful heirs. They only cared about three things: Could the new leader continue to generate massive profits? Could they reliably pay their tribute (protection money)? And would they absolute obey the High Table's directives?
That was exactly why Anthony hadn't made a move to seize the Tarasov assets.
If he walked into a room of hardened Bratva captains and demanded their loyalty, the High Table would view it as an unauthorized coup and execute him immediately. Viggo's dying words meant nothing to the Adjudicators.
Anthony wasn't abandoning his ambition. He was simply biding his time.
He was waiting for the High Table to make the first move.
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