After the priest hurriedly threw on his black clerical robes, Anthony forced him forward at gunpoint, marching him toward the basement access door.
In the nave behind them, Nick and Tom had already secured the altar area, silently dispatching the two remaining guards who had come to investigate the lack of radio check-ins.
"Take us down," Anthony commanded coldly. "Remember, Father. Your continued survival is entirely dependent on your cooperation."
The basement stairwell was dark and damp, ending in a heavy, reinforced steel door equipped with a biometric fingerprint scanner and a digital keypad.
The trembling priest reached the door and pressed his thumb against the illuminated glass of the scanner.
With a heavy, mechanical clunk, the locking bolts retracted. The massive steel door hissed as it slowly swung outward.
Behind the door lay a subterranean room roughly twenty square meters in size. It was packed from floor to ceiling with pallets of loose, unbanded currency.
Several priceless religious icons and classical oil paintings hung haphazardly on the bare concrete walls, while stacks of antique Bibles and sacred golden chalices were piled carelessly in the corner.
"Jesus Christ. Look at all this paper," Nick whispered. Even as a hardened Special Operations veteran accustomed to raiding cartel compounds, the sheer volume of physical wealth took his breath away.
"There is roughly six million dollars here. This is Viggo's lifeblood," the priest said, his voice trembling as he looked at the fortune. "But please remember, my friends... the Lord is watching you."
"And remember this as well. Viggo will hunt down anyone who touches his wealth. He will not let this go unpunished."
The priest had barely finished his sermon when Anthony raised his Walther and shot him cleanly in the back of the head.
The old man collapsed forward, his blood pooling over the stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
"Then go report me to your Lord," Anthony said, his expression completely blank.
He turned to his team, a satisfied smile breaking through his tactical mask. "Boys, fill the bags. And pry open those wall safes. Viggo wouldn't use biometric steel doors just to protect loose cash."
The four operators moved with ruthless, practiced efficiency.
Tom and Nick began frantically stuffing bricks of cash into the massive, heavy-duty duffel bags they had slung over their shoulders.
Mike drew a heavy pry bar from his kit and went to work on the row of metal lockboxes bolted to the far wall. When leverage failed, he used specialized breaching rounds to blow the hinges.
Inside the lockboxes, they found gold bullion, stacks of classified documents, black-market ledgers, and heavily encrypted micro-hard drives.
Anthony personally sorted through the documents. He recognized the files—these were Viggo's shipping manifests, money-laundering ledgers, and arms-deal contacts involving the New York docks and various front warehouses. This was the blackmail material Viggo used to keep the city's politicians and police captains in his pocket.
Inside a velvet-lined rosewood box, Anthony found an ornate Makarov pistol, a solid gold Orthodox cross, and something far more valuable: a heavy, black metal medallion engraved with the crest of an eagle.
Anthony immediately recognized it. It was a High Table Marker. In the assassin underworld, this functioned as an absolute, unbreakable blood oath.
The four men finished stripping the vault bare in under three minutes. They hauled the back-breaking duffel bags up the stairs and loaded their spoils into the back of the waiting van.
As Anthony slid the van door shut, a distinct, metallic chime echoed in his mind.
[System Rewards Calculated.]
[Twelve hostiles eliminated. Attribute Points +14.]
[Successfully crippled enemy faction infrastructure. Attribute Points +5.]
Back at Anthony's rundown house in Mill Neck, the team hauled the heavy duffel bags into the living room, dumping the contents onto the floor. A mountain of cash, gold, and intelligence files buried the cheap rug.
"I'm keeping half the cash to fund future operations. You three split the other half," Anthony said, tossing them each a cold beer from the fridge.
Nick glanced at the mountain of money, then looked at Mike and Tom. He shook his head.
"Lieutenant, this money technically belonged to your family. And you're still our commanding officer. We don't need a cut."
Mike and Tom both nodded in silent agreement. They were soldiers, not mercenaries. They had come tonight out of loyalty to the man who had kept them alive in Afghanistan.
Anthony took a slow sip of his beer. His expression turned dead serious. "Listen to me, Nick. In the military, rules were rules, and personal loyalty was secondary. But out here? Personal loyalty is the only rule that matters. You bleed for me, you get paid."
Nick stared at the duffel bags for a long moment. Finally, he stepped forward, unzipped the nearest bag, and scooped up a single, large double-handful of banded bills. "This is plenty."
Because the bills were mixed denominations, the handful amounted to less than fifty thousand dollars.
Mike and Tom smiled, stepping forward to do the exact same thing. They each grabbed a modest handful, clinked their beer cans against Anthony's, and headed for the door.
Once he was alone, Anthony stared at the remaining millions of dollars and the piles of classified ledgers. He suddenly realized he had a massive logistical problem: he had nowhere to safely store it.
His cheat system was purely attribute-based; he hadn't been granted a magical "spatial inventory" like the protagonists in cheap fantasy novels.
He spent the next two hours wrapping the cash and the hard drives in thick layers of industrial plastic wrap, heat-sealing them to make them watertight.
He kept a few hundred thousand dollars in a duffel bag under his bed for immediate operational expenses. The remaining millions, along with the blackmail ledgers, he buried deep in the overgrown woods behind his property, carefully masking the disturbed earth.
The High Table Marker he kept hidden inside the lining of his combat jacket. He knew that piece of metal was worth far more than all the cash in the vault combined.
As for tomorrow's plans...
In the original timeline, John was going to assault the church tomorrow. Anthony planned to tag along, purely as an observer, and perhaps buy a reliable used car on the way.
Viggo was going to receive the catastrophic news about the vault tomorrow morning, right around the time John showed up to burn it.
But because Anthony had already killed Iosef, the original plot was severed.
Given John Wick's fundamentally weary nature, once he learned Iosef was dead, his crusade for vengeance would officially be over. John would have no reason to continue hunting Viggo.
Anthony decided not to stress over predicting tomorrow's exact flow of events.
One thing was absolutely certain: Viggo Tarasov was a proud, vicious man. He would never simply let John Wick walk away after the humiliation he had suffered. Viggo would retaliate.
When the time came, Anthony resolved to intervene and save Marcus. It was a damn shame the legendary sniper had died in the original timeline. If Anthony could save him, Marcus could train Nick and the rest of the fireteam, dramatically increasing their combat effectiveness and survivability in the coming syndicate war.
The morning sun filtered through the cheap blinds, casting zebra-striped shadows across Anthony's bedroom floor.
He was awakened by a wet nose aggressively nudging his cheek. He rubbed his eyes and checked his phone on the nightstand.
7:15 AM.
Seeing him open his eyes, Helen's tail began to thump a rapid rhythm against the mattress, a happy, gurgling sound vibrating in her throat.
"Alright, little one. I know, you're starving."
Anthony smiled, scratching behind her ears. He rolled out of bed, filled her bowl with premium kibble, and stepped into a freezing cold shower to shock his system awake.
As he dried off, he stared at his reflection in the fogged mirror. He looked at the bronze skin, the lattice of faded shrapnel scars, and suddenly remembered the burning, drug-fueled passion of his first night in this body...
But today, he needed to compartmentalize the ruthless syndicate killer. Today, he needed to just be Anthony—the lanky high school kid who had a massive crush on the untouchable Winnie Pritzker.
After drying his hair, Anthony dialed Winnie's private number.
"Good morning, Winnie," he said, his voice carrying a soft, morning rasp. "Did you sleep well?"
There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end of the line. "Anthony? Why are you calling so early?"
"I wanted to invite you to breakfast. Would the Honor Council Chair be so kind as to accept?" Anthony asked bluntly, a genuine smile playing on his lips.
There was another long pause. Anthony could hear her soft, measured breathing through the receiver.
"Anthony, I am deeply grateful for your help the other night. But I think it is best if we maintain our distance," Winnie said, her voice snapping back into its icy, professional cadence. "The Pritzker family cannot afford to be dragged into whatever underworld trouble you are involved in."
Anthony leaned against the window frame, looking out at the gloomy, rain-washed rooftops of Mill Neck. "Winnie, I just asked you to get some pancakes. I didn't propose marriage."
"You know what I mean, Anthony," Winnie said, her voice dropping slightly, losing some of its corporate armor. "I'm not rejecting you because of the danger. It's just... I need to forget some things."
Anthony understood instantly.
Even though they had agreed to the "mutual amnesia" cover story to protect her dignity, Winnie couldn't look him in the eye without being confronted by the phantom memories of what they had done in that cheap motel bed. The shame was too fresh.
"I understand," Anthony said smoothly, not sounding the least bit offended. He smiled. "When you're finally ready to let it go... you can buy me dinner."
"It's a deal, Anthony." Winnie hung up the phone, a faint, relieved smile evident in her final words.
Anthony grabbed a quick protein bar and drove his battered taxi to Aurelio's Chop Shop, with Helen riding shotgun.
"Well, look who it is. Young Master Tarasov," Aurelio greeted him as he walked into the garage, his tone dripping with lukewarm sarcasm.
Anthony ignored the attitude. "Aurelio. I need a vehicle. Ten grand budget. I prefer something modified for durability."
Aurelio squinted at him, wiping grease from his hands with a rag, then slowly stood up. "So, you're a paying client today."
He led Anthony to the back lot.
"1998 Ford Pathfinder. The engine block is completely rebuilt, the chassis has been reinforced with welded steel plates, and it's fitted with Level B4 ballistic glass," Aurelio said, patting the hood of a rugged, dark green SUV. "Eight thousand, five hundred."
Anthony walked a slow circle around the truck, inspecting the heavy-duty all-terrain tires, checking the suspension clearance, and listening to the idle of the engine.
It was an older model, but just as Aurelio promised, it was impeccably maintained. It perfectly fit his operational needs.
Unassuming, heavily armored, and reliable.
"Cash." Anthony pulled a thick stack of banded hundreds from his jacket and tossed it onto the hood. "Can I drive it off the lot right now?"
"Keys are in the ignition," Aurelio said. He snatched the cash, shoving it into his greasy overalls without bothering to count it. He looked up, his expression grim. "Watch your back out there, kid. Things are about to get extremely ugly. Iosef was killed last night."
Anthony's eyes narrowed in feigned surprise. "Is that right? Well, that's excellent news."
Aurelio's gaze swept across Anthony's face, searching for a tell, but the mechanic didn't say another word.
Anthony climbed into his dark green Ford Pathfinder, shifted into drive, and steered the armored SUV out of the lot, heading directly toward St. Michael's Church.