Gianna dismissed the maids with a subtle flick of her wrist. She answered the encrypted phone, her voice laced with absolute zero.
"Santino. If you are calling to congratulate me, I accept. But I know you far too well to believe you possess that kind of grace."
On the other end of the line, Santino's voice dripped with an exaggerated, sickly sweetness.
"My dearest sister. Does the Roman moonlight shine brightly enough to illuminate the steps to your stolen throne?"
Gianna's jaw tightened. In the mirror, her reflection instantly hardened from an elegant aristocrat into a ruthless syndicate boss.
"Santino, you should be focusing your energy on wresting the Sicilian olive oil shipping routes back from the Greeks, instead of lusting after a chair that will never belong to you."
"A chair that doesn't belong to me?" Santino's voice suddenly spiked, sharp and vicious.
"When our father died, you were in Paris studying fashion design! The dockworkers and the capos bled for the D'Antonio name, not the imported lace on your dresses!"
Gianna heard the distinct sound of crystal shattering violently against a wall on Santino's end.
"You know, Gianna, I'm in New York right now," Santino chuckled darkly. "And I am absolutely certain you know exactly who resides in this city."
"My dear sister, I simply couldn't wait to share some... fascinating news. You do remember the sacred, inviolable nature of a High Table Blood Oath, don't you?"
Gianna's knuckles turned white around the phone. "You invoked a Marker? Against me?"
Sensing her sudden dread, Santino pounced. "He has my Marker, and he should be touching down in Rome right about now. His objective is the very head you are about to crown!"
Santino let out a short, malicious laugh that grated against her ears.
"You understand High Table law better than anyone, sister. He accepted the Blood Oath. He has no choice but to execute it. Tonight, he will kill you, or... you will have to kill him!"
A cold spike of genuine anxiety pierced Gianna's chest. The faint, rhythmic chanting from the coronation ceremony echoing down the palace halls suddenly felt incredibly distant.
"I am willing to walk away from that seat," Santino's seductive whisper slithered through the receiver. "But you must eliminate him permanently. Once he is dead, there will be absolutely no one left in New York who can stop me."
"Let us strike a bargain, my dear sister."
"Once you resolve this Baba Yaga problem, once you paint your coronation with his legendary blood, I swear upon the bones of our D'Antonio ancestors... I, Santino, will never set foot in Rome again!"
"New York is more than large enough to satiate my ambitions. You can sit comfortably at the High Table, and I will expand my own empire. We will never cross paths again."
Santino paused, injecting a masterclass of feigned sincerity and weariness into his tone.
"Our family cannot afford to be divided any further, sister. This is the best possible outcome for both of us."
Gianna sneered into the receiver. "You deployed a Blood Oath to assassinate me, and you actually expect me to believe a single word of that diplomatic garbage?"
Santino laughed softly.
"He has likely already breached your perimeter, Gianna. However... I can call him off. I can make him stand down, lowering his guard against you."
"You know his location. Even if he is the Baba Yaga, he cannot escape an ambush from your entire royal guard if he thinks the contract is canceled."
Gianna was silent for a few agonizing seconds. "He is my friend," she finally replied, her voice tight.
"Hahaha..." Santino erupted into genuine, hysterical laughter, as if she had just told the greatest joke in the history of the underworld.
"Gianna, do not insult my intelligence! We both know the exact price you paid to secure the High Table's backing for that seat. You promised them you would kill John Wick."
"By giving him the Marker, I have effectively delivered the High Table's most wanted man directly to your doorstep."
Gianna's heart plummeted into her stomach.
Santino was right.
Her gaze drifted to the gilded dressing table, landing on a heavy, wax-sealed envelope delivered by a High Table Adjudicator that very morning. It was a formal, undeniable mandate.
[Priority Mandate: Active upon Coronation]
[Target: John Wick. Alias: Baba Yaga]
[Threat Classification: Exterminatus]
[Justification: The existence of a retired, surviving legend fundamentally undermines the absolute authority of the High Table. His capacity for resistance presents an unacceptable systemic risk.]
[Engagement Authorization: Unrestricted]
[Operational Window: 72 Hours]
[Failure Penalty: Immediate Seat Review and Potential Excommunicado]
To fully secure one of the Twelve Seats of the High Table, her very first mandate was to personally orchestrate the execution of a living legend.
The High Table demanded that her new throne be baptized in the blood of the Baba Yaga.
Only now did Gianna realize that John's forced return to the underworld was not a random tragedy.
The High Table had orchestrated this from the shadows. They had tacitly permitted Santino to use the Blood Oath to lure John out of retirement, specifically intending to use Gianna to put the legend in the ground once and for all.
Gianna's hands began to tremble.
She was genuinely terrified.
John Wick.
The Baba Yaga.
An apex predator residing at the absolute pinnacle of the assassin food chain. Aside from the mythical blind swordsman, Caine, there was likely no single operative on earth capable of taking John in a fair fight.
Gianna knew that if the High Table had simply allowed her to issue an open bounty, she could have feigned compliance while deliberately stalling the hunt.
But John was bound by Santino's Blood Oath. He was coming for her personally, and no amount of Roman guards could stop him from reaching her chambers.
"You want me dead, Santino!" Gianna hissed, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "You still want this seat, and you're using him as the executioner."
"My dear sister," Santino replied smoothly, "if I do not officially revoke the Blood Oath, you will undeniably die tonight. Your bodyguards cannot stop a force of nature."
"However, if you agree to my terms, I will call the Marker off immediately. He will revert from an assassin to a guest. You can leverage your past friendship to get close, and Cassian can put a bullet in the back of his head. We both get exactly what we want."
"Do you honestly think I am stupid enough to believe your lies, Santino?" Gianna smirked coldly. "You are still so childishly naive."
"If he breaches this room, I will slit my own wrists before I let him fulfill your contract. But before I bleed out, I will give Cassian one final, irrevocable order: to hunt you and every single one of your loyalists to the ends of the earth."
"Sister... Gianna," Santino's voice dropped the theatricality, suddenly sounding strained. "I am genuinely concerned for your safety."
"Concerned? Or impatient?" Gianna replied, the dim glow of the vanity mirror illuminating her perfectly still, emotionless face.
"I have known you since we were children, Santino. You have always found a way to take exactly what you want, usually by employing the most cowardly, dishonorable methods available."
Santino's voice turned to jagged ice. "Gianna, if you die tonight, do you honestly believe Cassian would survive long enough to reach me?"
"I would instantly place a global, twenty-million-dollar bounty on John Wick's head. Do you think the Camorra would support your dead ghost over their new, living boss? Do you think the High Table would object to me executing the man they just ordered you to kill?"
Gianna fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.
"Fine. Cancel the Blood Oath," Gianna finally commanded, her voice slow and deliberate, sounding like a woman who had just signed her own death warrant.
"An incredibly wise decision, dear sister," Santino smiled, his tone dripping with victory.
Then, his voice contorted into something rabid and unhinged.
"Gianna, even if Cassian fails to kill John tonight... you must capture the man traveling with him. Anthony Tarasov. That despicable, arrogant Russian bastard."
"The Tarasov syndicate?" Gianna blinked, genuinely caught off guard. "Why on earth would you target the Russians right now? I was informed the Adjudicator and the Harbinger just formally recognized their new leadership."
Through the receiver, Gianna heard the unmistakable sound of heavy furniture being smashed to pieces, accompanied by Santino's frantic, spit-flying roar.
"Because that Russian lunatic broke into my suite at the Continental and pointed a loaded gun directly at my skull!"
"Gianna, if you do not capture him, if you do not hold him hostage... John will never stop coming! As long as John breathes, that Blood Oath remains eternally binding!"
"Right now, the only thing I want in this world is to lock that arrogant Russian bastard in a lightless cage, shatter all four of his limbs, and force him to eat his own filth to survive!"
Gianna slowly lowered the phone and ended the call.
She looked at her own reflection in the mirror, and then met the calm, all-knowing eyes of Cassian standing guard by the door.
A complex, profoundly dangerous storm of calculations flickered deep within her eyes.
Meanwhile, above ground, John Wick stood silently beneath a massive Roman stone archway. A dark red velvet carpet stretched endlessly down the dimly lit corridor, leading directly toward the coronation hall.
Two heavily armed, sharply dressed Camorra bodyguards stood blocking the massive double doors, eyeing the approaching figure with intense suspicion.
"Signore. Please present your petition of entry," the lead guard demanded, stepping forward to block the path.
"John Wick," John replied, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. "Gianna D'Antonio should still remember me."
"Fuck... The Baba Yaga?" the second guard whispered, the color instantly draining from his face.
Upon hearing the legendary moniker, both seasoned bodyguards froze completely solid.
Anyone who had ever drawn a paycheck in the global underworld—whether a low-level street enforcer or an elite royal guard—knew the terrifying bedtime stories of the Baba Yaga.
"Mr... Mr. Wick. Please, wait just one moment," the lead guard stammered, his previous arrogance entirely evaporating.
The bodyguards suddenly looked incredibly small. Neither man dared to look John directly in the eye, keeping their gazes respectfully averted toward the floor.
Despite the sheer impossibility of the situation, neither guard doubted his identity for a second. Absolutely no one in the underworld was suicidal enough to impersonate the Baba Yaga.
The lead guard pressed two trembling fingers against his earpiece.
"Cassian," the guard whispered urgently, terrified John might overhear. "John Wick has just arrived. He is standing directly at the main entrance."
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