American variety show: Sniper Elite

Chapter 37 On-site Renovation
Vigo slowly put down his phone.

The laughter and conversation inside the room suddenly became jarring. He turned to face the night sky, letting the cold wind blow into his suit collar.

The neon lights of this city that never sleeps gradually fade in his eyes; all the glitz and glamour are falling away, finally shattering on the asphalt road a hundred meters below.

“Vigor?” The lawyer’s voice brought him back to reality: “The terms have all been agreed upon; they’ve accepted everything.”

Vigo pressed the tip of his tongue against his cheek: "How many of us are there now?"

"You mean..."

“Anyone who can get a gun,” Vigo interrupted.

The lawyer adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses: "We have about 120 reliable people."

Vigo said, "Get that idiot, moron, bastard Iosef to the Red Circle Club and send everyone there to protect him."

"What happened, Vigo?" the lawyer asked.

Vigo looked at the lawyer and said expressionlessly, "The Night Demon is coming."

"Night Demon?" The lawyer didn't react in time.

Vigo walked to the safe in the corner, the metal dial clicking crisply. He took out a leather phone book; on its yellowed cover, a single number was written all alone.

John Wick's number.

Vigo dialed the number and waited a long time before it was answered.

“John, this is Vigo.” He tried to sound sincere. “I’m sorry about Helen. I heard your son is back from overseas? How’s his business? Also, about last night…”

On the other end of the phone, John Wick interrupted him abruptly: "Vigo, where's your son?"

Vigo tried to ease the tension: "Listen, John, maybe we can sit down and talk things out calmly and resolve this peacefully."

Before Vigo could finish speaking, a sharp whistling sound tore through the air, shattering the conversation in the office.

A .50 caliber armor-piercing round whistled through the air, instantly piercing the tempered glass floor-to-ceiling window connecting the top-floor conference room to the terrace. In the instant the glass shattered, the bullet pierced the skull of a New York mob partner sitting beside the conference table.

"boom!"

The skull exploded like a ripe watermelon, with bone fragments, brain matter, and blood splattering out in a radial pattern.

Before the gang leaders sitting behind him could react, they were doused with thick, bloody plasma mixed with white brain matter. The hot, pungent liquid dripped down their suit collars and pooled on the conference table, forming a glaring crimson stain.

Vigo abruptly shrank his neck and bent over, rolling behind the solid wood conference table.

John Wick's voice remained cold on the phone: "Don't move."

The meeting room was in complete chaos.

Those usually imposing gang leaders were now scattering like startled cockroaches. Some knocked over leather seats, others overturned crystal ashtrays, and expensive Cuban cigars were puffing smoke in pools of blood.

"Snapped!"

The second bullet pierced through the double-layered laminated tempered glass, creating a perfectly round hole next to the original bullet hole.

The person shot was Carlo, who runs the casino business in Brooklyn.
.
A .50 caliber bullet tore a small, inconspicuous hole in his waist, but as it exited, it took away his entire lower body. His spine was broken; his upper body remained in a running posture, while his lower body convulsed on the carpet. "Don't fucking move!" Vigo roared hoarsely.

But fear had consumed everyone's reason: some pulled out pistols and fired blindly, some tried to climb towards the elevator, and some even smashed the liquor cabinet.

No one followed Vigo's orders not to move.

Of the five high-ranking gang members who were originally at the conference table, two had fallen within seconds. The remaining three were still trying to escape, which only hastened their deaths.

The third bullet tore through the air, accurately predicting the prey's trajectory.

Just as the short, stout Black executive dodged behind the wall next to the floor-to-ceiling window, bullets whistled through the air like the Grim Reaper.

With a muffled thud, a .50 armor-piercing round easily tore through the concrete aerated brick wall, blasting a huge bloody hole in the fat man's chest. Internal organs and blood splattered onto the carpet in front of him. He looked down at his suddenly empty chest cavity, his face filled with disbelief, and knelt down on the ground.

Vigo, huddled behind the oak conference table, roared hoarsely, "Don't the hell move! Anyone who moves dies!"

Victor, who was in charge of the club's pharmaceutical business, stood frozen in place, his hands raised above his head, his legs trembling uncontrollably.

He was facing the closed conference room door, his back completely exposed to the direction from which the bullets were coming. This usually arrogant and domineering gang leader was now like an insect pinned to a specimen board, even his breathing became cautious. Cold sweat slid down his temples, soaking the collar of his bespoke suit.

As the first bullet shattered the glass, the lawyer had already scrambled to a corner of the conference room. He huddled behind a two-meter-tall tropical broadleaf plant, the large leaves of the Monstera deliciosa perfectly concealing his trembling figure.

Vigo's furious roar came from under the oak table, his hand gripping his phone tightly: "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! John Wick! You're fucking declaring war on the entire Tarasov family!"

John Wick's voice remained calm: "Vigo, where is your son?"

“Go fuck yourself!” Vigo roared hysterically into his phone.

Before he could finish speaking, the fourth armor-piercing shell hit the wall in front of the potted plant.

The aerated concrete block exploded with a "thud," and flying fragments swept across the conference room like shrapnel. Vigo only had time to raise his hand to shield himself before his face was covered in rubble.

He rubbed his stinging eyes desperately, and when his vision returned, he saw the tropical plant. Its broad leaves swayed gently in the wind that had pierced through the bullet holes, and the dusty edges of the leaves were still trembling slightly.

Meanwhile, Vigo, the lawyer who had been hiding in the back, followed the radiating pieces of viscera splattered on the carpet and extended them to the Picasso painting on the opposite wall that had been stained red.

There's no need for confirmation; the fragments stuck to the famous painting already say it all.

Vigo swallowed hard, his voice softening. "John, listen, we can resolve this misunderstanding in a more civilized way. Your old car, I'll have it filled up with gas, thoroughly cleaned inside and out, and returned to your garage intact. And all the damage to your house, I swear, includes every single broken piece of tableware."

"boom!"

Standing in front of the conference room door, Victor was suddenly struck as if by an invisible giant hand, his back tilting at a 90-degree angle. His chest was pressed against the bulletproof door, his raised hands still in a surrender position, and around the newly appeared fist-sized bullet hole in the door panel, blood mixed with bone marrow was slowly dripping from the splintered wood.

"Fuck! John Wick!" Vigo roared, his voice trembling, his body almost curled up in a fetal position. "I'm fucking negotiating with you! You fucking..."

His curses suddenly caught in his throat as the fifth bullet grazed his scalp and exploded into large, bowl-sized pieces on the mahogany conference table.

　One reader commented that it's strange how all sorts of assassins randomly appear in this book.

　　This book is categorized as "Infinite Heavens," meaning characters from various film and television works will definitely appear.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)