Charon stopped in front of the door and hesitated briefly before tapping his knuckles on the elaborately carved wood. An hour ago, an Adjudicator of the High Table had arrived at the Continental Hotel and requested a meeting with the manager, and since then Charon had neither seen nor heard from his supervisor.

"Come in," came a deep, tired, voice from within.

Charon opened the door and went inside the office. He closed the door after him and took a moment to study the face of his supervisor, a man named Winston. Charon had worked at the Continental for over fifteen years, and he had never seen his supervisor with a look on his face like the one he had now.

"Sir?" Charon asked carefully.

Winston gestured vaguely with a hand currently holding a glass of wine. Normally he would be seated at his ornate desk, but he was instead slumped on the couch against the wall. His jacket was unbuttoned, his shirt collar was loose, and his tie lay on the table.

"The Adjudicator," Winston murmured. "I miscalculated."

"What's going on, sir? What did she say?"

Winston leaned his head back and sighed longingly. "The High Table is moving against me. That's what's going on. The death of our dear friend Santino D'Antonio has led to … greater consequences than I had anticipated."

To the worried expression on Charon's face, Winston gave a weak smile and reached for the bottle of wine. "Grab a glass. Have a drink with me."

Charon took one of the chairs across from the desk and brought it over. He poured himself a glass of wine and sat down. "What should we drink to, sir?"

"Dispense with the formalities," Winston said. "You're not my employee right now. You're a sympathetic ear. A shoulder for me to cry on."

"Okay, then," Charon said with a nod. He leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees. "What's going on, Winston? What exactly did the Adjudicator say?"

"I'm being removed. They're going to replace me."

Charon expected something like that. Winston's uncharacteristic behavior could only be the result of such a dramatic action on the part of the High Table. However, it was still a surprise, even with the arrival of the Adjudicator. "But why? Because Mr. D'Antonio was killed on Continental grounds? They can't possibly hold you responsible for the actions of a guest, even a guest like John Wick."

"Not D'Antonio's death, per se," Winston explained. "But my inaction against John, once he had done the deed. I let John go, and then gave him an hour head start before the contract became open. For that, they're taking the Continental away from me."

"You knew there would be repercussions, but ..."

"Of course, but not this. A warning, a reduction in prestige, a slap on the wrist. D'Antonio was not a well-liked member of the Table. He had his own sister assassinated. Does the Table really think that I should have personally tried to kill John for what he did to D'Antonio? Do they realize how many people John has killed?"

Charon nodded to himself and then sat back. He cradled his glass of wine and then sipped it thoughtfully. Personally, he didn't like wine very much, but he drank it just the same.

It was against the rules to conduct business on Continental grounds, but it was hardly unheard-of for an ambitious or foolish individual to break those rules. A few weeks ago, a contractor named Perkins had been punished for just such a thing. John Wick was excommunicated for his actions, and rightly so. However, Charon could not recall a time when a member of the High Table had been killed in such a way.

Charon had a good professional relationship with Winston. They were not friends – no one was really friends with anyone in their line of work – but they shared mutual respect and had a good understanding of one another. Losing Winston as the manager of the Continental was not something that Charon looked forward to. He would not be promoted to the office, that much was certain. In all likelihood, the new manager would replace all of the high-ranking staff, including him. He could certainly find other work, but his position as Concierge of the Continental bestowed considerable perks and advantages that he had become quite accustomed to.

"How long did they give you?" he asked.

"One week," Winston replied bitterly. He drank his wine.

"So you have some time."

"Sure, but do to what? I'm seventy-eight years old. I can't very well go back to working the streets."

"Retire somewhere nice. Spend your golden years playing shuffleboard and watching old movies."

At that, Winston laughed, but it was a humorless sound. "Not likely. I've made lots of allies over the years, but a man in my position also makes enemies. Once I'm no longer the manager here, I'll be an open target to anyone with an old grudge. I'll last three months if I'm lucky."

"Then what are your options?"

Winston considered the question. "If I refuse them, they'll excommunicate me as well. They might even deconsecrate the hotel. They'll have to send a message. That's what this is really about, you know. Sending a message."

"You have allies, though."

"Yes," Winston said. He finished his glass of wine, and to Charon's relief, set the empty glass on the table and did not refill it.

"If the High Table wants to send a message, then perhaps you could send a message of your own," Charon suggested.

Winston sighed and set his hands in his lap. He shook his head slightly. "It's been done before, you know. Before your time. When I was a younger man, the manager of the Continental in Los Angeles tried to fight the High Table. He thought he could challenge them for control of the entire Los Angeles metropolitan area."

"What happened?"

"The Continental became a war zone. He had about thirty men fighting with him, and some of the local contractors and mid-level associates as well. But the Table brought in a hundred of their best soldiers from Europe and just razed the place to the ground. They killed everyone. They even killed some of his other close associates who had nothing to do with it. The entire command structure in Los Angeles changed overnight."

"Sounds like overkill to me," Charon said.

"It was, definitely, but it sent the message. The High Table does not tolerate disobedience."

Charon and Winston sat in silence for a moment, contemplating privately. In truth, Charon had little contact with the mysterious overlords known as the High Table. He was, at best, a low-level player in the grand scheme of things. The High Table was mostly based out of Europe, where the worldwide web of criminal organizations and syndicates had first gotten their start many centuries ago. In some ways, the current state of affairs in the United States was a pale imitation of the real thing in Europe.

But for all their insistence on rules and proper protocol, even the High Table could be a chaotic and ruthless kind of place. Charon knew the details of John Wick's personal vendetta against Santino D'Antonio, as Winston had already told him. John Wick had apparently given Santino a Marker at some point in the past, and in return for the Marker, Santino ordered him to assassinate a member of the High Table, Santino's own sister Gianna. As such, Gianna's murder was within the rules that the High Table had put in place. However, it seemed to Charon that such loopholes and exceptions served to make the organization less stable in the long run.

If Santino D'Antonio could arrange for the murder of a member of the High Table without punishment, then why couldn't a Continental manager use his own prerogative when it came to violations within his own hotel? John Wick was excommunicated. He had a bounty on his head of 14 million dollars. Giving him a tiny head start hardly seemed to warrant Winston's removal as Continental manager. But Charon wasn't the one who made the rules.

"Damn it, John," Winston muttered to himself. "Why did you have to kill D'Antonio in my hotel?"

"I haven't heard news of anyone claiming the bounty on him," Charon said.

"That's because he made it out of New York. He managed to convince the Director of the Roma Ballet House to honor a Marker and smuggle him out of the city."

"That's … surprising," Charon said, understating the matter.

"Oh, she'll be punished," Winston explained with a short wave of his hand. "She'll have to get down one on knee and beg forgiveness and pledge her fealty to the Table. They'll mark her and perhaps sanction her. But they can't take the Ballet House away. It belongs to her."

"So where is John Wick now?"

"No idea. If he was smart, he'd go to Antarctica. Perhaps they won't look for him there. Perhaps I could go there and join him."

Charon set his own glass aside. He had only drunk about half of it. "Listen, sir – Winston – there must be something you can do. You've been in charge here for how long?"

"Forty years."

"You've been manager of this hotel since before most of the members of the Table even came into power. They can't just get rid of someone with all your years of experience."

"That's what I thought. I practically said as much to D'Antonio himself. I thought I was untouchable here. But as I said, they want to send a message."

"But why send a message like this?"

Winston sighed again and shook his head. "It's all politics, Charon. The High Table fights with itself as often as it fights others. This dirty business with D'Antonio hiring John to kill his sister is par for the course. They're always backstabbing and betraying each other, it's always been that way. But for someone like John Wick – a common hitman, someone beneath their notice – to take it upon himself to target a member of the Table? It was perfectly within D'Antonio's rights to demand repayment for his Marker, and the contract he put out on John was totally above board. It was a petty, disrespectful, foolish thing to do, but it wasn't against the rules. John, on the other hand, sought to enact personal vengeance upon a member of the High Table, and that is something they simply cannot tolerate."

Charon thought about it. The point here wasn't the fact that Winston allowed someone to break the rules of the Continental and leave unmolested. It wasn't even that he decided to hold the contract for an hour. John Wick could have killed almost anyone else and Winston would not have received so much as a stern warning. The pivotal fact here was that the man John Wick killed was a Table member. It seemed the High Table still felt that certain rules applied to them but not to anyone else.

"So this is all John Wick's fault," Charon said, pursing his lips.

Winston nodded. "Indeed. And to think, I let him get away."

"What if you killed him?" Charon said. "If you killed John Wick, would the Table take that as fair payment for what happened to D'Antonio?"

"I doubt it." But the look on Winston's face told Charon that he was thinking about it. "I could collect the bounty, I suppose. Maybe buy my way into another comfortable position somewhere. But many men have tried to kill John and failed. His body count's probably in the thousands by now."

Charon set his hands on the arms of the chair and sat back. Winston was right. John Wick was a legend, that much was true. Among the Russian syndicates he had once worked for, he was known as Baba Yaga. His reputation was legendary, and that was before his retirement. Charon had heard whispers of the impossible assassinations that John Wick had carried out to earn that well-deserved retirement, and the thought of one man leaving such a trail of bodies in his wake was almost terrifying. That a man with such skill at death and murder could walk away and have a happily married life was hard to fathom.

Winston rubbed his chin and stared at the wall. "John and I are friends, or as much as men in our business can truly be friends with each other. But I'm not going to lose the Continental because of him. He threw our friendship away when he pulled the trigger on D'Antonio. I should have accepted that, but I suppose I got sentimental in my old age."

Charon tried not to smile. He knew that his supervisor wasn't going to just give up without a fight. It just took a little bit of time to think it through, that's all. Winston just needed some time to have a drink and feel sorry for himself. Now that that was out of the way, they could get down to business.

"So what do you plan to do? Will you defy the High Table after all?"

"I don't see how I have much of a choice." Winston seemed resigned. With a grunt, he pushed himself up off the couch and straightened the front of his jacket. He picked up his tie and pulled it around his neck. "I'll have to play this just right, and I won't be able to do it alone," he said as he began to tie it.

Charon stood up as well. "I'll be on your side, sir. I have no allegiance to the High Table. You're the one who put your trust in me. I know most of the men here are loyal to you as well."

"It's going to get bloody," Winston warned.

"I understand. What's your plan?"

"We'll have to fight them, that's unavoidable. But if we can hold them off for just a little while, fight them to a standstill, then we might be able to get them to negotiate."

"What about what happened in Los Angeles?"

"Well, that was a long time ago. Things are different now. I'm not trying to be the King of New York, I just want to keep what I already have. But still, it won't be easy. As I said, I'll have to play this just right, and we'll need some luck on our side."

Charon nodded. "Should I put the word out, then?"

"No," Winston said quickly. He finished tying his tie. "No, we don't want this to reach beyond the walls of this hotel. It must be contained here or else it will get out of control. We have one week to prepare."

"So we're going it alone?"

Winston grinned. "Does that bother you?"

"Not at all," Charon replied smoothly.

Winston patted him on the arm. "Good man. We may very well have to do this ourselves, but as I said, we'll need some luck as well. There's no sense in trying to negotiate with the High Table if we don't have anything to offer. We need an Ace in the hole, so to speak."

"What do you have in mind?"

Winston began to button up his jacket. "You still have John's dog here with you, correct?"

Charon had almost forgotten about the dog. "Yes, of course."

"You don't think John would just leave New York forever and leave his dog behind, do you?"

"I suppose not. You think he's coming back?"

"John's not going to just run away, that's not how he does things. I'm not sure where he is right now, but I know he has a plan. And that plan will bring him back to New York. I'm sure of it."

Charon smiled at that. "Our Ace in the hole?"

"Indeed. If John joins with us, then the High Table can send a hundred men and it won't make a difference. Once the bodies start piling up, they'll have to negotiate with us. I'll make them a deal. If they agree to let me remain the manager of the Continental, then I'll get down on my knee and pledge my fealty."

"And in return?" Charon asked.

Winston reached down and picked up Charon's half-empty glass. He downed it and took a breath. "You suggested it yourself. We'll have to kill John Wick."