Chapter 45: The Ghost
Location: Abandoned Warehouse District – New York | 2:45 A.M.
Gunfire had ceased. Smoke coiled upward through broken rafters and shattered skylights. The smell of gunpowder, blood, and vengeance filled the still air like the last note of a symphony.
Four bodies lay scattered—each one the echo of a name that once held power in the criminal underworld. Wick had done what he came to do.
Again.
He exhaled, chest rising beneath his bulletproof suit. A faint tremble in his left hand—the only betrayal of the rage that had driven him here.
The warehouse doors opened slowly.
Wick stepped out, bloodied but alive. The streets were empty under the buzz of dying sodium lights. Broken neon signs flickered over cracked sidewalks. And across the road...
A black sedan. Tinted windows. Polished chrome.
Leaning against it:
A man in a black suit.White shirt. Red tie.Head clean-shaven.Eyes like glass and calculation.
Agent 47.
He stood perfectly still, one leg crossed over the other, his posture relaxed, like he had been waiting an hour—or a lifetime.
Wick stopped walking.
No words at first. Just… silence.
The assassin with a body count in the triple digits—John Wick—could feel the weight of this new presence like gravity.
47 pushed off the car casually.
Click.
The soft sound of his heel hitting the pavement as he walked toward Wick. Hands by his side. Holsters peeking from under the tailored jacket.
They stopped a few feet apart—just enough for either to kill.
Wick was the first to speak.
"You were at the warehouse."His voice was quiet, measured."Second floor. With the corpses."
47 said nothing.
Wick's gaze narrowed."You let me clean up the mess while you watched. Why?"
47 tilted his head a few millimeters. Eyes locked, voice flat and toneless.
"Your mess was not my contract."
Wick's jaw tensed.
"Then what is?"
A soft flicker of light. The hum of a system no one else could see.
[CURRENT OBJECTIVE: ELIMINATE THE TARGET – BABA YAGA]
47 didn't show it, but the system hovered before his vision. Still incomplete. No additional intel. Just a name.
Wick's eyes dropped briefly to the polished silverballers on 47's hips.
"You're a professional."
No reply.
"You don't miss."
Still silence.
Wick took a step closer — not threatening, but decisive."If your job is to kill me…"His voice hardened."Why haven't you pulled the trigger?"
47's gaze remained still, void of emotion.
"I don't act without precision."
Wick's head tilted.
"Then let's skip the waiting."
Click.
Wick's hand hovered just beside his jacket — he didn't draw yet, but the shift in tension was lethal. The streetlights buzzed above them like electric anticipation.
47 spoke, voice smooth and absolute.
"So be it."
Two apex predators.No more words.
Just the sound of two professionals —unholstering fate.