Christine sneered, looking at Anthony as if he were a bug on the bottom of her shoe. "Who the hell are you? How dare a nobody speak to me like that?"
"Ah, no wonder you can't find a decent boyfriend; it turns out you have terrible eyesight," Anthony laughed, wrapping his arm securely around Winnie's waist. "I'm Winnie's boyfriend. Come on, introduce yourself properly and call me your brother-in-law."
Christine's face instantly turned bright red with fury. She could feel the eyes of the surrounding socialites on her, and she heard the muffled, mocking whispers of people laughing at her expense.
"Winnie, do you have any idea what kind of high-level occasion this is?" Christine hissed. "How could you bring a filthy stray dog in here to ruin our family's reputation?"
Just as Anthony opened his mouth to deliver a vicious retort, Winnie stepped firmly in front of him, her expression turning terrifyingly cold.
"Christine, you need to watch your mouth right now," Winnie warned, her voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "Or I absolutely will not mind having my PR department leak a highly detailed, fabricated 'mental health assessment' report regarding your stability to the tabloids tomorrow morning."
Anthony immediately chimed in, perfectly playing the role of the obnoxious boyfriend. "Don't be too harsh on her, Winnie. She's getting so old, and she still doesn't have a man. It's honestly just kind of pitiful."
"Can you please just shut up for one minute?" Winnie muttered under her breath, genuinely shocked by how effortlessly rude Anthony could be.
Enrico's face turned grim. He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. Several burly hotel security guards immediately detached themselves from the walls and approached.
"Throw him out onto the street," Enrico ordered the guards, pointing at Anthony.
Just as the security guards stepped forward to grab Anthony's shoulders, Winnie raised an eyebrow and shouted with absolute, aristocratic authority.
"Get lost!"
The security personnel instantly froze in place, caught in a terrifying dilemma between the two warring heirs of the Pritzker dynasty. They didn't dare touch a guest of the eldest daughter.
Enrico stared at her, his jaw clenching so hard his teeth ground together. "Winnie. Are you seriously going to go to war against your own brother in public over this stray dog?"
Winnie offered him a cool, utterly dismissive smile. "At the very least, my dog doesn't randomly bite people he's supposed to be loyal to."
Anthony felt a bizarre sting of betrayal from that comment, feeling like he had just taken a stray bullet from friendly fire. He settled for winking defiantly at the furious Christine, who was glaring daggers at him.
Winnie looked back at her older brother, her eyes completely devoid of warmth. "Grandpa is still alive, Enrico. It is not your place to make executive decisions regarding this family or its guest list."
Just then, a lazy, highly amused male voice echoed from the side.
"I must admit, the internal corporate infighting of the Pritzker family is vastly more entertaining than anything currently playing on Broadway."
Anthony looked over and saw a blond young man leaning casually against the marble bar. He was idly swirling a heavy crystal tumbler of bourbon, a playful, manic smile plastered across his face.
He wore a seemingly casual, unstructured linen suit, but Anthony's sharp eyes caught the subtle, incredibly expensive family crest embroidered onto his French cuffs.
The Wentworth family. A massive, long-established old-money dynasty on the East Coast. And the young man leaning on the bar was widely known in elite financial circles by his infamous moniker: "Mad Dog" Leon Wentworth.
"Leon?" Enrico's aggressive expression faltered slightly, his bravado shrinking in the presence of someone with even more generational wealth.
Leon swirled his bourbon and sneered directly at Enrico. "You keep loudly throwing around the phrase 'stray dog' like it's a curse. Are you subtly trying to insult my moniker, Enrico?"
"Because if it weren't for my profound respect for your grandfather, and if I wasn't currently trying very hard to pretend I'm a civilized socialite, I would have already smashed this glass across your face."
Enrico quickly forced a terrified, placating laugh. "Leon, please, you've completely misunderstood the situation."
"You have been publicly pursuing Winnie for months," Enrico deflected, pointing an accusatory finger at Anthony. "Yet she brought this complete stranger here tonight to mock your advances. Isn't it obvious she's deliberately trying to publicly embarrass you?"
Leon sighed dramatically. He pushed off the bar and strolled over, his sharp gaze sweeping over Winnie's stunning figure a few times before meeting her eyes. "Do you really despise me that much, Winnie? Your father genuinely wants you to marry me. Our portfolios would merge beautifully."
Winnie smiled faintly, entirely unbothered by his presence. "I don't date chaotic playboys, Leon. And your financial nickname is literally 'Mad Dog.' It's a bad brand alignment for my hotels."
Leon didn't seem angry in the slightest. He turned his attention to Anthony, looking him up and down. "To be completely honest with you, pal, you aren't nearly good enough for Winnie. But I genuinely like your arrogant personality."
He extended a manicured hand. "Leon Wentworth."
"Anthony Tarasov," Anthony replied smoothly, taking the man's hand in a firm grip.
Leon's playful gaze suddenly sharpened significantly. "Tarasov... that specific surname... is incredibly uncommon in our legitimate circles."
Anthony offered a polite, disarming smile. "So try not to jump to any wild conclusions."
Don't misunderstand me. I'm just a perfectly normal, legitimate businessman!
Leon let out a short breath and turned back to Winnie, a hint of genuine annoyance in his voice. "I honestly thought you had lost your mind and actually smuggled a literal devil into the Plaza."
"But I have to admit, Winnie, your eye for terrifying men is even sharper than your eye for real estate."
Leon turned back and enthusiastically patted Anthony on the shoulder. "I'm just here tonight to have some fun watching your corporate rivals squirm."
Leon raised his heavy crystal glass to his eye level, closing one eye as if he were looking through the scope of a sniper rifle. He made a series of sharp, clicking noises with his tongue as he swept his "scope" across the faces of the crowd.
Anthony followed his gaze. He noticed that, apart from the wealthy young heirs and socialites mingling near the bar, there were four distinct young men strategically positioned around the ballroom. Some were standing, some sitting in velvet booths, but they were all engaged in quiet conversations, explicitly avoiding looking in Winnie and Anthony's direction.
Before Anthony had even stepped out of the elevator, his Compensatory Perception had automatically deconstructed the layout of the Grand Ballroom, establishing tactical sightlines and mentally modeling the behavior of every single person present.
He had immediately noticed that the exact second he and Winnie walked in arm-in-arm, those four specific men had snapped their eyes toward them, only to immediately and unnaturally turn their heads away in a synchronized display of dismissive arrogance.
They were the "blind dates" Tristan Pritzker had arranged.
Mad Dog Leon looked at Anthony from behind the rim of his bourbon glass, his eyes glinting with a predatory, almost blood-red reflection from the chandeliers.
"Anthony. Do you know exactly why those four men are aggressively ignoring you?"
Anthony's gaze lingered on a specific booth in the corner for a few seconds before he looked back at Leon's manic eyes and smiled. "The clothes. And the physical distance."
"Fuck," Leon laughed, his expression morphing into genuine, delighted surprise. "So you actually do know."
Leon gestured toward Winnie with his glass. "Winnie, his bespoke suit is absolutely flawless, but it still has the microscopic scent of industrial fabric sizing on it. It's obviously brand new, literally bought within the last hour. Which means you dragged him off the street at the absolute last minute to play a role."
Leon curled his lip in a mock pout. "Do you really think everyone in this room is blind to the theatrics?"
Leon leaned in slightly closer. Winnie immediately took a half-step back, maintaining her boundary.
"I actually possess some genuine affection for you, Winnie," Leon whispered, his tone suddenly dropping its playful edge. "So please, for the love of God, don't ruin this poor bastard's life by dragging him into your father's war."
Anthony barely heard Leon's warning. His eyes were slightly narrowed, his entire tactical focus suddenly locking onto a terrifying anomaly in the room.
Earlier, his perception matrix had swept over a semi-enclosed, VIP booth nestled in the darkest corner of the ballroom. There were three people sitting there.
To be precise, Anthony was only truly looking at the man sitting in the center.
The man possessed flawlessly styled, slicked-back black hair, a sharp, aristocratic Roman nose, and a faint, terrifyingly arrogant smile playing on his lips.
Most notably, as the man casually held a flute of champagne, Anthony spotted the heavy, unmistakable gold snake ring adorning his pinky finger.
It was Santino D'Antonio.
A pivotal High Table Oligarch from John Wick: Chapter 2, and the undisputed head of the massive Italian Camorra mafia syndicate.
Anthony's pupils constricted slightly.
What the absolute fuck is he doing here?
It was a fundamental rule of high society: legitimate, Fortune 500 business dynasties like the Pritzkers would never knowingly invite a known, globally recognized mafia boss to a public corporate gathering.
If the financial sector or the FBI discovered that the Pritzker family was actively entertaining the Camorra, they would face an immediate, catastrophic backlash from their investors and the SEC.
That meant the Pritzker family patriarch absolutely didn't know Santino's true identity.
Anthony knew the lore perfectly. While the Camorra held a highly coveted seat at the High Table, their vast sphere of influence was heavily concentrated in Europe, specifically southern Italy.
New York City was historically Tarasov territory. It was the undisputed core area of the High Table's North American operations.
There was only one logical explanation for Santino D'Antonio's sudden presence in this "legitimate" New York social setting.
He wasn't here to drink champagne or invest in hotels. He was here to physically scout out the territory before he initiated his violent coup against the Tarasovs.
As if sensing the intense scrutiny, Santino slowly raised his head, looking toward the entrance. But Anthony's gaze had already smoothly shifted away, staring blankly at the chandelier.
"Do you recognize Santino?" Winnie asked in a low whisper. She had noticed Anthony's gaze lingering on the VIP booth, and she followed his line of sight.
"I don't know him," Anthony lied flawlessly, turning back to her with a laugh. "Is that one of the blind dates your father set up? He must be pushing forty!"
Leon sneered, taking a sip of his bourbon. "So what if he's forty? Are you actively underestimating the financial resources and sheer ruthlessness of an older man?"
Winnie glared at Leon before turning back to Anthony. "He represents a massive European conglomerate that owns several boutique hotels. I've had passing contact with their regional district manager before regarding a potential merger. This is allegedly Santino's very first time visiting New York."
Anthony turned to Leon. "Are you familiar with his family's portfolio?"
Leon shook his head, a hint of suspicion in his eyes. "I ran a quiet background check when I saw him on the guest list. I heard his family's private equity business is absolutely massive, primarily operating out of Rome and Milan."
Leon's gaze swept over the Italian before he pursed his lips in distaste. "But honestly? He feels off. Maybe he's just another slick European imposter trying to squeeze his way into American high society."
"Crazy Leon, you need to watch your words before you insult an investor," Winnie chastised him sharply. "You stay here and entertain Anthony. I'm going to go over to the booth and formally say hello to maintain appearances."
After Winnie gracefully walked away, Leon smoothly plucked two fresh glasses of champagne from a passing waiter's tray and handed one to Anthony.
"So, what's your actual deal?" Leon asked, squinting suspiciously at Anthony. "Are you a hired corporate caregiver? An escort? A surrogate lover? How much is she paying you an hour for this performance?"
Anthony perfectly understood the insult; Leon assumed he was a cheap gigolo.
"We are classmates," Anthony replied coldly. He didn't pay the insult any real attention; his mind was racing with the geopolitical implications of Santino's presence, and he wasn't in the mood to banter with a trust-fund kid.
As if the universe wanted to confirm Anthony's darkest tactical theories, Santino suddenly stood up from his booth. He ignored Winnie entirely and began walking directly toward the bar.
Santino's footsteps were relaxed, perfectly measured, and undeniably elegant. He moved through the crowd exactly like a lion casually surveying a new hunting ground.
He stopped directly in front of Anthony. He didn't bother to introduce himself. He simply gestured with his chin toward where Winnie was standing, his dark eyes locking onto Anthony's face.
"Give up the girl and walk away," Santino commanded, his Italian accent thick and dripping with absolute authority.
"And exactly who do you think you are?" Anthony asked, taking a slow, defiant sip of his champagne. "Do you honestly think you can order me around just because you're older than me?"
Leon burst into genuine, delighted laughter, slapping Anthony hard on the back. "You know what, Anthony? I've officially decided I want to be your friend."
Read ahead with 70+ chapters now with daily updates!
@patreon.com/Authorizz