John Wick - Chapter 44: Revenge (Finale) (Patreon)

John had already dragged Iosef into one of the private rooms.

This was his revenge.

He had to settle it himself.

Nate, meanwhile, went around the second floor and put a bullet into each security guard who looked like they might still be alive.

Then he walked over to the martial arts expert and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

[Boss-level unit killed. 835 Resource Points obtained. Current Resource Points: 2248/8000.]

“Damn, you're worth that much?”

Nate was genuinely surprised.

Anyone capable of giving John Wick that much trouble really did live up to his reputation.

Time to loot the body.

Nate pressed his palm against the man's suit and stored the bulletproof suit in the [System Backpack].

Then he checked his system inventory.

His gold coins had increased by seventeen.

Jackpot.

He proceeded to collect the equipment from the other bodies on the second floor and stored everything in the [System Backpack].

No more gold coins turned up, though.

Nate was still searching when he heard something downstairs.

Most of the people inside Red Circle had already fled.

Even the ones high on drugs, slow as they had been to react, eventually realized what was happening and escaped with the crowd.

Nate walked over to the east stairwell and listened.

It wasn't music.

The music had stopped long ago.

Someone was crying.

Gun in hand, Nate descended several steps.

Two people were huddled together at the bend in the staircase, a man and a woman clinging to each other.

The woman had taken a stray bullet to the leg. Tears streamed down her face as her entire body shook uncontrollably.

Nate nodded toward the exit, signaling for them to get out.

“Thank you.”

The man lifted the woman onto his back and slowly carried her away.

Nate paid them no further attention and continued downstairs.

The first-floor dance floor was empty.

The disco ball was still spinning.

Lights continued sweeping across the room, flashing over abandoned bottles, broken glass, and the bodies scattered across the floor.

Several security guards who were still alive were slowly crawling toward the exit, leaving dark red trails behind them.

One of them even tried to raise his gun when he saw Nate approaching.

Nate lifted his pistol.

One shot each.

His expression never changed.

Then he went down to the underground pool.

The men wounded there had already been terrified by the overwhelming firepower. Anyone still capable of moving had fled long ago.

The ones left behind were the badly wounded, some missing limbs or unable to move.

Nate finished them off one by one.

He also collected their equipment and stored it in the [System Backpack].

Ten minutes later, Nate returned to the large private room on the second floor to meet John.

Iosef had been thrown onto the sofa.

He was still unconscious.

Nate's pistol strike had hit him hard. A large bump had swollen on his head, drool hung from the corner of his mouth, and he was sleeping like a corpse.

Nate handed John a bottle of liquor.

John unscrewed the cap and poured it over Iosef's face.

Iosef choked and jerked awake.

Shock flashed across his face. His pupils contracted sharply, as though he had just awakened from a nightmare.

Then he saw John.

Blood and wounds covered John's face.

His eyes were red.

He stood there looking down at Iosef without expression, yet somehow that blank stare was more terrifying than any expression could have been.

“Don't... don't kill me.”

Iosef had completely lost his nerve.

He shrank deeper into the sofa. His back was already pressed against the leather, yet he kept trying to push himself farther away, as though he could somehow disappear inside it.

Then he saw Nate standing behind John, equally expressionless.

His eyes shifted toward the door.

The bodies of his two bodyguards lay outside.

His lips began to tremble.

“Do you know who I am?”

His voice rose into a shrill pitch.

“My father is Viggo Tarasov! If you kill me, he'll find you. He'll...”

John tilted his head slightly.

The red in his eyes hadn't faded.

He remained silent.

But that silence was more frightening than any shouting could have been.

Iosef's voice died in his throat.

The private room became deathly quiet.

Nate could almost feel the pressure in the room drop.

Then Iosef broke.

It began with his eyes.

The fear inside them suddenly overflowed.

Tears streamed silently down his face until it was soaked.

He stared at John, his mouth opening and closing like a fish pulled from the water.

“Please.”

His voice became barely audible.

“Please don't kill me.”

His body slid off the sofa.

He dropped to his knees on the carpet, raised both hands over his head, and began bowing repeatedly as he cried.

“I shouldn't have killed your dog... I'm sorry... I'm sorry!”

His forehead struck the carpet with dull thuds.

He wasn't holding back.

“I can give you money. Lots of money. However much you want. My father will pay you. Please...”

Tears and snot smeared across his face.

He shuffled forward on his knees, trying to grab John's leg.

John kicked him away.

Iosef crashed against the wall and collapsed facedown, his shoulders shaking as he sobbed like a child.

Nate looked down at the mess of tears, snot, and blood on the floor.

Not long ago, this same man had been lounging around arrogantly with women in his arms, drinking wine and surrounded by bodyguards, acting as though he stood above everyone else.

Now he was kneeling on the floor, begging like a dog.

No.

That was insulting to dogs.

John pulled the empty HK P30L from behind his waist.

He took a single round from another pistol and loaded it into his own, then checked the chamber.

The brass cartridge sat ready inside.

John stepped around the sofa and stopped in front of Iosef.

The kneeling man slowly lifted his head.

His tears and snot had carved streaks through the blood and grime covering his face.

John hooked the muzzle beneath the gold chain around Iosef's neck and snapped it.

Then he grabbed him by the neck and pulled him upright, forcing him to kneel straight.

Iosef trembled violently.

His teeth chattered.

Whatever hope had remained in his eyes disappeared.

John pressed the muzzle against the center of his forehead.

The cold metal compensator touching his skin pushed him completely over the edge.

“No... no... please. We can talk. We can...”

John pulled the trigger.

The padded walls swallowed most of the gunshot, leaving behind a muffled sound almost like a sigh.

Iosef fell backward onto the carpet.

His upper body lay flat while his legs remained bent beneath him in an awkward position.

The hole in the center of his forehead was small, almost like a third eye.

Dark red blood slowly seeped from it.

John remained there with the pistol raised for about three seconds.

Then he lowered his arm.

The muzzle pointed toward the floor.

He closed his eyes and released a long, deep breath.

It seemed to come from the very bottom of his chest.

It carried the weight of the last five years.

Helen's gravestone.

Daisy's warmth.

Then John opened his eyes.

The red was gone.

It had receded like the tide, leaving nothing behind.

He simply stood there beside the corpse with the gun in his hand, like a tree that had already been cut down but somehow remained standing.

Nate had seen that kind of expression before.

Drunks.

People who had gambled away everything.

Men whose wives had left them.

But never anything this complete.

“John?”

John looked at him.

His eyes were empty.

Not unfocused.

This was the emptiness left behind when everything that could burn had already burned away, leaving only ash.

Nate opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.

The emptiness that came after finally taking revenge.

He could understand that.

John lowered his gaze and removed the magazine from the pistol.

He placed the gun and magazine separately on the arm of the sofa.

His movements were slow, as though none of it mattered anymore.

Then he turned toward the door.

As he passed Nate, he stopped briefly.

His lips moved, as though he had something to say.

“Thank you.”

Then he kept walking.

He pushed the door open with his shoulder and disappeared into the darkness at the end of the hallway.

Nate remained where he was.

He looked down at Iosef's body.

Then at the unloaded P30L resting on the sofa arm.

He stored the pistol and magazine away, pulled several tissues from the table, and wiped the blood from his hands.

Time to move forward.