Anthony casually pocketed the mother-of-pearl nail clippers. He slowly drew a pristine, snow-white silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and began meticulously wiping the microscopic dust from his fingers, actively ensuring he didn't miss a single crease.
Only after his hands were perfectly clean did he finally raise his eyes, his gaze locking directly onto the Bowery King for the absolute first time since the execution began.
There was absolutely no localized fear, no sympathetic anger, not even a microscopic ripple of emotion in the Russian's icy blue eyes.
The Bowery King violently clenched his teeth, his face entirely drained of blood, looking like a rotting corpse.
Zero's high-carbon blade moved with a terrifying, mechanical cadence—neither frantically fast nor deliberately slow. Seven flawless, ceremonial cuts delivered in exactly two seconds.
On the absolute final, seventh cut, Zero violently twisted his wrist. The razor blade cruelly, aggressively rotated a full half-circle deep within the King's localized muscle fibers before being forcefully extracted.
The Bowery King's massive head snapped backward. He let out a horrifying, bloodcurdling scream that echoed violently across the rooftop before collapsing completely against the rusted railing. His chest heaved erratically as thick, arterial blood cascaded down his back, pooling thickly over the dried, dark brown scum that already stained his coat.
"But you must fully understand, Anthony," Gramont stepped closer, his voice dropping into a dark, theatrical whisper explicitly designed for Anthony's ears alone.
"When confronted with the absolute reality of true sovereign power, these intangible localized assets—gangs, nightclubs, street credibility—are exactly like thin smog under a nuclear sun. They can be violently blown away with a single, synchronized breath."
Gramont smiled. "If the High Table fundamentally commands you to drop to your knees... you mathematically have to kneel. If the Table commands you to bleed... you mathematically have to bleed."
"Look at the Baba Yaga right now. Does John Wick not currently resemble a localized stray dog violently sprinting into the desert with his tail tucked between his legs?"
"Not bad," Anthony replied, a slight, freezing smirk touching his lips as his gaze swept over the King's massive, nearly lifeless body.
His eyes tracked past Zero's dripping, crimson blade, finally settling directly onto Gramont's aristocratic face, which was currently slightly flushed with sadistic excitement.
"Unfortunately, Marquis, the ancient, theatrical tactic of executing a localized pawn to serve as a geopolitical warning... fundamentally does not work on me."
Anthony shook his head slowly, his tone perfectly flat and completely unimpressed.
"So long as you attempt to aggressively suppress my syndicate within the strictures of the rules... I will simply systematically slaughter your underhanded proxies within the rules."
"But if you violently cross the line and engage me outside the rules... I will simply cut your fucking head off outside the rules."
Anthony's freezing smile widened as he watched Gramont's breathing rapidly hitch, genuine fury flaring in the Marquis's dark eyes.
"You intimately comprehend the reality, Etienne. I am fundamentally unafraid of a localized deathmatch."
Anthony casually shifted his gaze away from Gramont, looking directly at the Adjudicator.
"She, and the local Vanguard pioneers currently bleeding in the gutters, can both explicitly testify to my operational resolve."
The Adjudicator stood perfectly still, looking exactly like a carved obsidian statue. Her face remained a complete, impenetrable void as she calmly processed the horrific execution. It was as though the man currently bleeding out mere feet away from her hadn't been violently tortured, but had merely participated in a dull, bureaucratic ceremony.
The Tick Tock Man scurried forward. He meticulously examined the seven deep lacerations, mathematically confirming that no vital organs or major arterial vessels had been intentionally severed. He offered the Adjudicator a single, sharp nod.
Gramont smoothly walked over to the bleeding King, looking down at the historically arrogant monarch with absolute disdain.
"Ensure you properly triage your localized wounds, Bowery King," Gramont's voice was deceptively gentle, yet carried an absolutely chilling, lethal undertone.
"And ensure you permanently internalize this highly educational lesson: The rules are absolute. No localized entity possesses the capability to break them."
The Bowery King desperately struggled to raise his massive head. His bloodshot, agonizing eyes locked onto Gramont. His cracked lips moved violently, but he lacked the biological oxygen to produce a single sound.
Gramont turned gracefully on his heel and walked back to Anthony.
"What are your specific, localized thoughts regarding the education, Mr. Tarasov?"
Standing exactly half a head taller than the Marquis, Anthony looked down at Gramont with a gaze as calm and freezing as a deep, abyssal pool.
"The High Table established foundational rules. Violating those rules triggers catastrophic, localized consequences. The mathematics are perfectly fair."
"However, Marquis. You are mathematically incorrect regarding one highly critical variable."
"Oh?" Gramont aggressively raised a bruised eyebrow. "And what specific variable is that?"
Anthony simply smiled, entirely refusing to answer the question, and turned his back on the Special Envoy to walk toward the exit.
Anthony inherently understood the geopolitical reality. When the Bowery King eventually crawled off that bloody rooftop, he would still remain the absolute, undisputed sovereign of New York's localized intelligence network.
His physical biology would eventually heal. But the catastrophic, highly public humiliation the High Table had violently inflicted upon him today would permanently remain an unhealed, festering psychological wound.
And deep psychological scars are precisely the localized mechanism that permanently locks a man into absolute, homicidal hatred.
Gramont stood perfectly still by the railing. The arrogant smile entirely vanished from his bruised face.
He stared intensely at Anthony's departing silhouette, his manicured fingers slowly, violently clenching into tight fists at his sides.
The Adjudicator glided smoothly up beside him.
"Your highly theatrical 'education' absolutely failed to achieve the desired psychological outcome."
Gramont took a deep, ragged breath, actively forcing his trembling fingers to relax.
"It is mathematically irrelevant," Gramont stated softly. "At the absolute minimum, the Russian peasant witnessed the raw kinetic power of the rules. That is sufficient."
"Is it?" The Adjudicator looked toward the rusted metal door.
Anthony's tailored silhouette had already seamlessly vanished into the dark stairwell.
"My psychological assessment suggests that what Anthony actually witnessed today... was your absolute, localized vulnerability."
The Adjudicator let out a soft, freezing sigh. "Marquis de Gramont. For every single faction that politically supports your localized ascent, there exists a sovereign faction that actively desires to watch you burn."
"You and I are simply specialized tentacles that the Table extends into the dark. And they..." Her cold gaze lingered intensely on Zero for exactly half a second, "...are merely the localized tentacles actively placed within our hands."
"I am fully aware you desperately desire to execute Anthony. Anything is legally permissible, provided you operate strictly within the structural parameters of the rules. You possess the authority to actively force him into committing a fatal administrative error, and then legally weaponize the rules to authorize his termination."
Gramont sneered, a dark light returning to his eyes. "The moment John Wick returns from the desert... I will legally force the Excommunicado to execute the Russian himself."
"That is a mathematically viable protocol," the Adjudicator replied, her tone perfectly stagnant. "Provided you actually possess John Wick's Blood Oath Marker. Without it, excluding the absolute authority of the Elder, you fundamentally possess zero capability to command him."
She turned her dark eyes toward the distant skyline of Brooklyn.
"Unfortunately for you, Iosef and Santino systematically eradicated absolutely every single piece of localized leverage that could mathematically be utilized against John Wick. The Baba Yaga fundamentally no longer possesses any biological or emotional weaknesses you can exploit."
Gramont stared at her, an incredibly tight, forced smile warping his bruised face. "So. You are actively pleased by this geopolitical reality?"
The Adjudicator's voice remained exactly like a frozen, motionless pond.
"I simply refuse to allow Anthony Tarasov to violently manifest as a bureaucratic stain on my official record at this specific juncture. I absolutely refuse to allow my administrative capability to select competent localized agents to be questioned by the Twelve Seats."
"Outside of that specific parameter... whatever localized violence occurs between you two is fundamentally none of my concern."
Having delivered the absolute reality of her position, the Adjudicator smoothly turned around, her physical movements resembling those of a highly expensive, precision clockwork instrument, and walked off the roof.
Gramont didn't even watch her leave. His dark eyes remained violently fixated on the empty stairwell where Anthony had vanished. His forced smile slowly expanded into a genuine, unhinged grin.
It possessed a deeply sickly, violently reddish hue.
Did that bureaucratic drone genuinely calculate that her administrative warnings would mathematically prevent me from actively bleeding the Russian?
"Anthony..." Gramont whispered into the freezing wind. "I intimately know you deeply enjoy the visceral reality of localized killing. Therefore, I sincerely hope you can maintain that exact same homicidal energy for this next engagement."
"I am fascinated to see if your localized blade remains terrifyingly sharp when you are mathematically forced to strike against the impenetrable corporate vault of JPMorgan Chase!"
The Tarasov Estate. New York.
When Anthony finally pulled his armored SUV into the heavily fortified compound and stepped into his primary command center, Abram was already frantically pacing the room.
The veteran, sixty-year-old mafia capo's face was an absolute, terrifying shade of livid purple. He was violently gripping a thick, highly classified financial dossier in his trembling hand.
"Anthony," Abram's voice vibrated with extreme, suffocating tension. "We possess a catastrophic structural breach."
Anthony calmly stripped off his tailored suit jacket, flawlessly checking the chamber of his Glock before casually draping the jacket over the back of his leather executive chair.
"Deliver the localized data, Uncle. I am processing."
"JPMorgan Chase!" Abram roared, violently slamming the heavy financial dossier onto the mahogany desk.
"At exactly 10:00 AM this morning, the senior account manager specifically assigned to oversee our primary corporate holding accounts—a white-collar bastard named Richard Collins—electronically authorized a massive, unauthorized wire transfer."
"He actively drained the entire twenty-million-dollar insurance settlement we violently secured out of the bank."
Anthony froze for a microscopic second. He slowly walked over to the crystal decanter, poured himself a glass of iced water, and took a highly disciplined sip.
"Where exactly did the capital route?"
"It aggressively bounced through eight completely decentralized, highly encrypted overseas holding accounts," Abram hissed, aggressively grinding his teeth. "The digital trail completely terminates in a ghost-shell corporation deeply buried in the Cayman Islands."
"I immediately engaged the bank's localized administration. Their official, bureaucratic explanation is that this was exclusively a rogue, personal action executed by a highly compromised employee. They claim it legally constitutes localized embezzlement, and the bank formally refuses to assume any structural liability for the missing capital."
"Instead, they highly 'suggested' we immediately initiate standard legal action against the individual."
Anthony took another slow sip of water. "At what exact time did the corporate administration provide you with this official response?"
"Three hours ago," Abram said, his hands shaking. "I physically deployed to their localized Manhattan headquarters. Their senior compliance executive received me with a highly manufactured, absolutely nauseating level of corporate politeness."
"The suit aggressively spouted a massive volume of empty, bureaucratic platitudes regarding their 'deepest regrets' and their 'absolute commitment to cooperating with a federal investigation.' But the underlying, mathematical message was absolute: If you lost your capital, dial the NYPD. Do not threaten the bank."
Anthony remained perfectly silent for several long seconds, his mind rapidly processing the geopolitical attack vector.
"I mathematically guarantee the account manager is already physically off the board," Anthony stated coldly.
"He is absolutely not geographically located within Queens or Brooklyn," Abram agreed with absolute certainty.
Abram rapidly moved around the desk, desperately grabbing Anthony's arm.
"Anthony. Listen to me. JPMorgan Chase is a completely impregnable corporate fortress. It is heavily backed and historically operated by absolute apex 'old money' bloodlines—the Morgans, the Rockefellers. They possess devastating, deeply entrenched connections within the federal government and the global elite."
"We mathematically have no choice but to absorb this massive financial loss."
Anthony simply stood there, silently drinking his water. He fully comprehended his uncle's absolute, suffocating terror. Abram was deeply afraid that Anthony would simply authorize the Vanguard to violently breach the bank with heavy ballistics, utilizing the exact same kinetic methodology he had successfully weaponized against the insurance executives.
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