"The Elder I killed was not Harun's father. Whatever happened to him was not my fault," John corrected and indeed he was not wrong. The Elder he had killed had said so himself, his predecessor was long gone.

"When you broke the rules and killed Santino on Continental grounds you brought chaos to order. You shook up the establishment and made the untouchable touchable. While you and Charon were fighting for Winston's precious hotel against the adjudicator the chess board was being reset. Among those making power moves was the Marquis. He killed Harun's father and put his puppet in his place. As they took control that included going through every piece of his personal details, even the most trivial ones, and guess what they discovered?"

"Harun."

"Yes . . . and me. If it were just me then it would have been no big deal, but Harun . . ." Elisa stood and walked towards the edge of the building, her eyes looking out over the city as the rain poured down. She was still angry, but the intensity of the storm had died down. She was feeling so many things, and yet she didn't know how to explain any of them. There were many rules to the assassins code, but the most important was to bury your emotions and never speak of them. How could she possibly break a rule so ingrained in her? "I discovered what had happened the day after the attack on my veterinary clinic."

"The Marquis is dead."

"Yes, but others always take his place. The genie is out of the bottle, John, and it can't be put back. Of course that doesn't affect you because you're dead, aren't you?" she answered, voicing her contempt at his choice to 'die'. If she had known what was about to happen she might not have answered The Bowery Kings call to stitch John up after Winston shot him. Then again, perhaps she would have helped him anyway. It was like when they were children together. All it ever took was for one to reach out their hand and the other would take it and follow no matter how foolish or dangerous. It had also been why hearing he had died, had nearly destroyed her. Without him she had no allies, no friends, nothing.

"You are not as alone as you think."

"Aren't I?" she snipped, "I was at your funeral, you know." She pictured that cemetery in her mind with its many tall stone monuments and the various mourners, like Winston, there. A few were there out of respect, but most they wanted to confirm with their own eyes that Baba Yaga was truly dead. In a sense it was the reason she had gone there. "I made sure I was hidden where no one would see me, but I did stay until the casket was lowered into the ground . . . right next to Helen." John felt no guilt about the death of either of The Elders, the chaos he had brought or about faking his death. He did regret what they had done to his oldest friend. Hurting her or disrupting her life had not been his goal.

"I wasn't trying to hurt you." he said, feebly and he could see Elisa nod slightly. She had to know he was telling the truth but that didn't change what the news of his death had done to her. She had been shot and stabbed more times than she could count in her life but hearing that John Wick had died was a pain like no other she had experienced. Only her son's death could have made her feel worse. There was still a way to betray and wound him just as badly and she wondered whether he realized it.

"What's to stop me from revealing your secret John? I could tell The Bowery King or even Winston. They know me and my reputation well enough to know I'm not lying." Yes he knew this was no idle threat and his already dark eyes grew darker at the possibility. "You might call it betrayal, but I see it as sweet revenge."

"Telling people I'm alive won't protect your son or make the assassins stop coming after him. I didn't mean to hurt you, but you did the same to me once. " Hearing this she turned around and faced him as he got up and approached her. "When You went into the employ of The Elder and were not allowed to contact me, I looked for you. All I found were dead ends and no one willing to talk. I thought you were dead and I mourned too. I grieved for nearly a year and then I met Helen. She made me live again and showed me a life I never imagined."

Elisa sighed then looked up at the rain that was pelting down on them. Despite both of them being soaked there was simply not enough rain to wash away the sins of their past. Lightning flashed again and this time all the anger and resentment was gone from Elisa's eyes. He was right and she knew it. Perhaps that had been a part of The Elder's plan from the moment she met him. Separate her from John Wick and then when the moment was right make her his mistress. It had worked at least partially. She never laid with The Elder no matter how many times he asked or tried to seduce her. With John marrying Helen, Elisa had wanted no attachments to anyone and believed that if she conceived Harun by IVF then it would be easy to give him up to his father and go off and enjoy her freedom on the other side. She quickly discovered that once she had looked into that small wrinkled face and held him in her arms that she had become more attached to a person then she could ever have imagined. Now more than ever, he needed his mother, the infamous Azhdaya, to protect him.

"I should probably go," she said. "I-I've been gone too long."

"Elisa . . ." John started to say. He was not a man of words, never was, and he was a master of burying his emotions. Usually Elisa was the same. Yet, they could never hide them from each other. "I promised you I would protect Harun should anything happen to you. No blood oaths, tickets or markers." He took hold of her hand in his and held it.

"Something more precious." She reached out with her other hand and traced the line of his wet beard with her finger. Emboldened she slowly started to raise up on her tiptoes intent on stealing a momentary kiss from his lips resealing the promise between them.

Before she could get a taste a searing burning pain ran across the outside of her upper left arm as the sound of a quick ominous ssssst of a bullet passed by her. Less than a second later they both heard what sounded like a sledgehammer as the same bullet lodged itself into the brick ledge of the building. Instantly they moved behind the shack of an entrance to the staircase that led inside the dormitory. Someone had found Elisa and the next shot would not be a miss. Their eyes searched the darkness for the sniper and quickly noticed a figure standing on the next rooftop holding an AR-15. They couldn't tell who it was, but could make out the shock of red hair covering the man's head.

"Give me a gun." John reached out his hand expectantly.

"I don't have one on me." she answered. 'I only intended to cut you, not kill you. I never planned on being up here this long. Besides, you never go anywhere without a gun."

"True, but I'm dead, remember."

"Shit!"

Crouched there on the roof they took a quick cursory look at her wound. She was bleeding but it was nothing more than a graze. She still had use of the arm, which was good, and given where the bullet had lodged itself, they knew the direction of the shooter. Their best chance would be to make their way to the fire escape over on the other side of the shack. With no other escape route they made a mad dash for the ladder then in one swift movement they began making record time descending down to the street where her red Pontiac firebird 400 Ram Air was parked. Like John Wick and his Mustang, she took great care of her car and treated it like it was her baby.

"You're driving," she said before tossing John the key and jumping into the passenger side, where she pulled two Glock 34s out from under the seat. John said nothing, just moved the driver's seat back, put the key into the ignition then slammed his foot down on the accelerator as he closed the door.