Chapter 50: Three Men
Location: Outskirts of Naples, Italy – Hidden Dockside Estate
Time: 3:17 A.M.
Weather: Cold. Mist coils above black seawater. Light rain tapping against steel.
Santino D'Antonio ran like a hunted animal. His thousand-dollar shoes splashed through puddles as he pushed past Corinthian pillars and broken crates stacked beneath a crumbling warehouse canopy.
The thunder of gunfire still echoed from his estate, where two names had turned the halls of the High Table into a slaughterhouse:
John Wick, the Baba Yaga.
And the other... a ghost in a red tie. No name. No identity. No record.
That was the part that terrified Santino the most.
He finally reached the old warehouse, gasping for breath. His heartbeat pounded louder than the rain on the roof. Inside, waiting for him in a candlelit chamber filled with crates of weapons and relics, were two other High Table members:
Arturo Falcone – veteran enforcer, heavyset, silver-haired, his eyes like frostbitten glass.
Dimitri Raskov – bald, tattooed, six-foot-five, said to have killed 37 men in a single night.
They looked at Santino, unimpressed.
Falcone: "You're bleeding."
Santino (panting): "He's here… They're both here!"
Dimitri: "You were followed?"
Santino: "I—I don't know! They moved like ghosts—"
He didn't get to finish.
BOOM.
The steel door exploded inward like paper. Wood splinters and rust shot across the room.
Out stepped a man dressed in shadows: Agent 47, coated in dust, red tie perfectly in place.
Behind him, John Wick, blood on his shirt but calm as death itself.
The High Table guards didn't have time to react.
BANG.
Falcone's head snapped back, blood fanning across the crates like red mist.
THUMP.
Dimitri lunged, but Wick spun, shot twice into his chest, then a final bullet straight through the neck.
Both men fell like slabs of meat.
Santino dropped to his knees, trembling.
Santino: "No… no no no—!"
47 walked forward in silence. Rain dripped from the ceiling onto his shoulders, making the blood on the floor glisten like black glass.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Side Targets Eliminated – 2/11]
47 grabbed Santino by the collar and slammed him against a crate.
47 (cold): "Where are the others?"
Santino: "I—I can't tell you! I swore an oath to the Table! They'll kill me!"
47 raised his hand.
A dagger formed from liquid black metal, forged mid-air through Matter Creation, shaped like a ritualistic tooth.
He stabbed it slowly through Santino's thigh.
Santino: "Fuck you! I'm not—AGHH!"
Another knife pierced just above his knee.
Wick stood silent, watching the knives appear out of thin air—like black glass forming in the air itself, shaped by nothing but thought. He exhaled quietly, unsettled for the first time in years.
Santino: "AGHHHHHHH!!"
Sukuna (from within 47's mind):
"Yesssss… The sound of desperate flesh. Let me out, just for a minute. I'll make music from his screams."
47: "No."
Another knife. This time through the shoulder.
Santino (weeping): "I don't know where they are!"
47 pulled him close by the hair. Whispered with poison calm.
47: "You're lying."
The wall behind them was painted red now. Wick stood at a distance, silent, watching with a clenched jaw. The way the knives formed — instant, cold — it was sorcery unlike anything he'd ever seen.
Sukuna:"How Amusing~~"
47 pressed two fingers into Santino's wound.
Santino: "OKAY! OKAY!"
He screamed, snot and blood dribbling from his mouth.
Santino:"There's… there's a summit. A private gathering. They don't meet often, but… the killings. You two. It triggered a full call. I don't know who will come — maybe all of them — maybe some. But it's happening."
47: "Where?"
Santino: "Cairo. Four days. Hidden under the city — catacombs beneath a wine estate. Masked. Secret password. No tech allowed."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Secret Event Identified – High Table Summit]
Optional Target Cluster – Up to 7 Table Head
Classified Tier Contract – Reward: ???
47's eyes narrowed.
Santino: "I told you everything, I swear—!"
BANG.
The Baller flashed once. A perfect hole opened in Santino's forehead. He crumpled like a sack of bones.
No hesitation.
47 turned his head to Wick.
47: "He was useful."
Wick wiped blood off his blade, staring at the corpse. "And dead."
47: "Now we go to Cairo."