Inside the Brooklyn Bloods' headquarters.
Three of DeShawn's core lieutenants retreated up the main staircase to the second floor, standing back-to-back as they fired blindly down the hallway. Their wild, undisciplined bursts of gunfire tore chaotic, jagged holes through the drywall, hitting nothing but air.
The Cartel hit squad didn't even bother launching a full-scale frontal assault up the fatal funnel.
Instead, a Sicario perfectly banked two M84 stun grenades off the stairwell wall from a dead angle.
The blinding flash of magnesium light and the deafening, 170-decibel shockwave completely engulfed the VIP room.
DeShawn collapsed heavily onto the floor, his eardrums rupturing in a screech of agonizing pain. His vision was entirely whited out.
He felt a heavy, gloved hand grab him violently by his braided hair, yanking his head back. A heavy combat boot slammed directly into his face.
"Are you DeShawn?" a cold voice asked in heavily Spanish-accented English.
DeShawn violently spat out a mouthful of blood and shattered teeth. "You've got the wrong fucking guy! I'm not him!"
The Sicario didn't argue. He simply drove the steel butt of his rifle directly into DeShawn's floating ribs. DeShawn clearly heard the bone snap.
He screamed in agony, curling into a fetal position.
"I'm not DeShawn! I'm just the fucking accountant!" DeShawn roared desperately. "You hit the wrong room!"
The Cartel leader turned to one of the surviving Bloods lieutenants pinned to the floor nearby. "We only have a contract for DeShawn. Point him out. If you lie to me, I blow your kneecaps off."
The terrified Blood didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. He pointed a trembling finger directly at DeShawn. "That's him! He's our boss!"
The Cartel leader stared at DeShawn. He raised his hand to his tactical headset, remaining silent for a few seconds as he confirmed the positive ID with his overwatch.
Then, DeShawn heard the distinct, terrifying mechanical clack of an assault rifle bolt being racked back.
"Wait!" DeShawn thrashed violently, not even having the breath to curse his lieutenant for the betrayal.
"I can pay you! I have money! I just seized the entire Crips empire, I have millions in the vault right downstairs!"
"We'll take the money ourselves," the Sicario sneered. "As for you... my apologies. The Bloods cease to exist tonight."
The last thing DeShawn ever saw was the cold, dead eyes of the Cartel assassin and the slowly rising muzzle of a suppressed HK416.
From his concealed vantage point on a rooftop a block away, Marcus watched the brilliant flashes of muzzle fire inside the club suddenly cease, replaced by a deathly, suffocating silence.
Marcus pressed his finger to his throat-mic. "The sweep team consists of thirty-four hostile targets. They are deploying a standard, four-squad urban assault formation."
"Team One is securing the primary structure. Team Two is establishing a perimeter defense. Team Three is acting as the mobile reserve. Team Four is currently executing a fan-shaped sweep of the adjacent alleys."
"These aren't standard street bangers. They move like PMC operators," Marcus reported smoothly. "My sniper element has a hard lock on the perimeter guards. We can initiate the purge at your command."
Anthony's voice crackled through the encrypted earpiece. "We have arrived at the perimeter. Execute."
Down on the street, the Cartel gunmen began an orderly, tactical exfiltration.
Two Sicarios dragged a massive, heavy black duffel bag entirely filled with DeShawn's cash and narcotics out of the club, hurling it into the open trunk of a waiting Suburban.
The Cartel security team took up elevated vantage points on the street corners, utilizing high-end night-vision goggles to scan the surrounding rooftops and windows.
Suddenly, every single streetlight on the block shattered simultaneously.
It wasn't a power grid failure. Marcus and his sniper element had perfectly synchronized their suppressed shots to blow out the bulbs, plunging the entire street into pitch blackness, illuminated only by the pale moonlight.
"Contact!"
The Cartel security team leader roared over their radio channel.
"Sniper fire! Rooftop at ten o'cloc—"
His command was violently cut short by the wet, muffled thwack of a high-caliber sniper round. The team leader's head snapped back, and he tumbled lifelessly off the rusted fire escape.
Gun barrels suddenly emerged from the shadows of every rooftop, window, and alleyway on both sides of the street.
There were no warnings. There were no demands for surrender. There was only the sudden, overwhelming roar of perfectly coordinated crossfire.
The barrage sliced through the Cartel formation with mechanical, terrifying precision.
In the opening three seconds of the ambush, all seven members of the Cartel's outer perimeter guard fell dead to the asphalt, every single one of them taking a suppressed 5.56mm round directly to the head or upper chest.
"Ambush!" the commander of the mobile reserve roared, desperately diving behind an engine block.
"Team Three, lay down suppressing fire on the left flank buildings! Team Two, cover the exfil! Team One, secure the cargo and retreat!"
The Cartel Sicarios were elite; their training prevented a total rout. Instead of breaking and running, they immediately dropped behind the armored Suburbans and initiated a disciplined counter-attack.
But the sheer volume and accuracy of the incoming firepower was entirely beyond their comprehension.
The incoming bursts weren't wild. They were frighteningly steady. Every single short, three-round burst fired by Anthony's PMC operators inevitably resulted in a Cartel shooter dropping to the pavement.
Furthermore, there wasn't just one sniper. The overwatch fire shifted constantly, the angles changing so rapidly the Cartel couldn't pin them down. Every time a Cartel gunner attempted to peak from cover to throw a grenade, their arm or shoulder was instantly blown apart by Marcus's element.
"These aren't gangsters!" a Cartel gunner screamed into his radio, his voice cracking with terror. "This is the fucking military!"
"It's the Taraso—"
A bullet entered through the Sicario's screaming mouth and blew out the back of his skull, painting the side of the Suburban with brain matter.
A voice, speaking flawless, unaccented Spanish, echoed from a portable loudspeaker at the end of the street.
"Drop your weapons. Lie face down on the asphalt with your hands behind your heads. You have exactly ten seconds to comply."
The remaining Sicarios responded by screaming curses and blindly firing their rifles toward the loudspeaker.
Before the Cartel commander could pull the pin on a fragmentation grenade, his forearm was violently severed at the elbow by a high-velocity rifle round.
From the shadows of the alleyways, six figures dressed in matte-black tactical gear and quad-node night-vision goggles slid onto the street like ghosts.
James and his Tier One fireteam.
They moved through the chaos with terrifying synchronization.
The suppressed MP5SD submachine guns in their hands emitted short, sharp hissing sounds as they closed the distance.
Instead of aiming for center mass—which was protected by the Cartel's body armor—James's team fired surgically into the gaps. Bullets tore through the Sicarios' unprotected necks, armpits, and femoral arteries the instant they tried to pivot from cover.
They weren't instantly fatal wounds, but they caused massive, catastrophic blood loss that incapacitated the targets in seconds.
This wasn't a gunfight. It was an extermination.
The final eight Cartel shooters formed a desperate, back-to-back circle behind the last Suburban, firing wildly into the darkness.
The six ghostly figures simply vanished back into the shadows. With every muzzle flash from the Cartel, a suppressed round answered from the dark, and another Sicario dropped to the street.
The final Cartel gunner's rifle clicked empty. He frantically pulled the trigger, realizing his magazine was dry.
A dark figure materialized completely silently behind him. The operator casually tapped the back of the gunner's neck with the heavy steel stock of his MP5.
The gunner's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed unconscious to the asphalt.
The street fell entirely silent. The only sounds were the suppressed, agonizing groans of the bleeding Sicarios and the wet dripping of blood into the storm drains.
Anthony stepped out from the shadows of a nearby storefront. He drew his Glock 17, casually walking among the wounded, executing the Cartel survivors with single shots to the head.
"Clean up the site," Anthony ordered James. "Seize all Cartel weaponry. Load DeShawn's cash into our vehicles. The NYPD will handle the body collection in the morning."
Anthony holstered his smoking pistol, turning to smile at John Wick, who was leaning casually against a brick wall nearby, having not fired a single shot.
"You see, John?" Anthony chuckled. "This kind of heavy lifting doesn't require High Table gold coins."
Inside a dimly lit, hyper-modern penthouse on the Upper East Side.
The Marquis de Gramont sat perfectly still in a leather reading chair, his long fingers drumming a slow, rhythmic beat against the armrest.
Chidi stood three meters away, as rigid and silent as a marble statue.
"Total annihilation?" Gramont asked, his voice entirely devoid of inflection.
"Thirty-four elite operatives deployed. Zero survivors," Chidi replied, his tone as calm as still water.
Gramont slowly raised his crystal glass of vintage Bordeaux to the dim light.
He didn't drink. He simply watched the heavy, dark red liquid swirl against the glass, leaving thick, viscous streaks that looked exactly like fresh blood.
"Professional," Gramont finally whispered, a genuine, terrifying note of appreciation bleeding into his voice.
"Highly professional."
Chidi remained silent, awaiting orders.
Gramont's lips twitched. The twitch slowly expanded into a cold smile, creeping up to the corners of his eyes until his entire face relaxed, as if he had just heard a magnificent, subtle joke.
"Chidi, do you not find this deeply amusing?" Gramont turned to look at his bodyguard.
"The Cartel pieces I placed on the board to test his defenses were entirely eradicated. They were slaughtered in the most brutal, mathematically efficient manner possible, without even managing to inflict a single casualty in return."
"Do you see it now, Chidi? Anthony Tarasov isn't employing standard mercenaries or gang enforcers. He has built a localized, military-grade Special Forces battalion."
"My Lord," Chidi said cautiously. "The assassination operation failed."
"Failed?" Gramont let out a soft, echoing chuckle.
"I never actually expected those pathetic Mexican monkeys to successfully assassinate a legend like John Wick. I merely deployed them to confirm a single variable: the true depth of Anthony Tarasov's military infrastructure."
"And now, I have my confirmation," a brilliant, psychotic light flashed in Gramont's eyes.
"His operators... the men who fought alongside him in Afghanistan. They didn't die in the desert. He brought them all home and forged them into a private army."
"My Lord," Chidi interrupted gently. "Emilio Vargas from the Gulf Cartel has called three times on the secure line. He is aggressively demanding a tactical explanation for the loss of his men, and he expects the immediate wire transfer of his remaining operational commission."
"An explanation?" Gramont raised a single, elegant eyebrow. "A commission?"
He set his wine glass down on a silver tray, stood up, and glided over to the massive floor-to-ceiling window.
The glittering expanse of New York City lay entirely at his feet. Gramont knew that somewhere deep in that sprawling grid, a street corner in Brooklyn was currently soaked in fresh blood.
"Inform Emilio," Gramont said smoothly, keeping his back turned to Chidi.
"Tell the Cartel boss that he did not provide me with elite gunfighters. He provided me with thirty-four mobile target dummies. They were useless trash who failed to even breach the perimeter of the primary target. Trash does not earn a commission."
Chidi pulled a secure satellite phone from his jacket, dialed Emilio Vargas's personal number, and placed the device on speakerphone.
"Emilio," Gramont's voice dripped with arrogant, mocking aristocratic disdain. "Your men performed terribly."
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