Thug and Idol: 10X Rewards Second Identity System

There was one problem with this plan—tracking the flowers was going to take time, and even that could not lead to any usable results. And in the meantime, Tristan was vulnerable. Especially Tristan Gemello.

He let out a long, tired breath.

"Clean the plants up. Burn them and everything else," he said to his guards, then went to his office.

There, he sent messages to his people, telling them to abandon all searches for No Hope.

This was the only thing Tristan could do to win himself time. The only thing!

No Hope had to believe that Tristan got scared by his threats. Then he would back off—if his intention was to kill Tristan anyway, he would have sent a bomb instead of flowers. Or came himself.

But Tristan didn't plan to truly abandon the search.

He used his knowledge of cyber-security to mask his online presence as well as it was at all possible, then searched for the right people online. Tristan already knew a few of them, and some he found.

Private investigators who would sniff for anything for the right amount of money. Not at all like the noir detectives with their bad whiskey and bitchy ex-wives, but perfectly serviceable.

These people, and some even less scrupulous snitches.

Tristan made anonymous donations to the most credible few of them and told them to keep their investigation as secret as possible. They had to find the origin of the—now nonexistent—flowers.

If the card and the box the flowers came with were a clue—too bad. Tristan couldn't just give them out to someone and risk them being found. They could've been poisoned, too. At least by the plants.

***

Next day.

And after all that, Tristan Gemello still had a show to run.

He was standing on the stage, without his background dancers, but with Nelson and Derek for support.

Normally, Tristan wouldn't need much of it. He'd smile cockily and say something incredibly arrogant that only he could pull off and go on to make the crowd wild.

Today, he took every word of encouragement, and his smiles were all an act.

"A lucky guy like you, die in a plane crash? Never! The entire crash was just to boost the coverage of this show," Nelson had said earlier.

He was saying the same things now.

"Go out, slay them, Tris! Everything was coming to this!"

"Break a leg, Mr. Gemello," Derek said, smiling.

"My leg, someone's leg—everybody's legs are going to be broken, and maybe I will even smash my guitar over somebody's head for good measure," Tristan said, mock-saluting to his friends. "Just you watch me!"

Inwardly, he was sweating.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

If No Hope realized Tristan was tricking him, or if he decided to not leave anything unfinished, or if he was simply toeing with Tristan from the start for the sake of pure drama…

In either of these scenarios, there was going to be a sniper waiting for Tristan with a bullet that had his name on it.

Of course, there was security around the show's venue: both ordinary civil men, and gangsters sent by Tristan Hayes. But against this assassin? It didn't feel like enough.

Tristan showed none of this as he stepped onto the stage.

The fans greeted him with wild ovations. Somebody brought a huge tarp with "TRISTAN BEATS AIRPLANES" on it.

Tristan snorted at that and smiled more genuinely.

"Thank you for all the love you've sent me!" he said into the microphone set. "As you see, I'm alive and unharmed. But people like me, thanks to people like you—we get to live eternally anyway, through our music. So let's get started!"

Today, Tristan really played like he was going to live forever through music. He never intended to die even before, but today, the adrenaline of the assassin who could appear at any moment set his every nerve on edge.

When he hit the guitar strings, Tristan felt like he was playing on his own veins, spilling blood of his soul all over. It was an electrifying, enchanting performance that was going to be a sensation. Especially with the story about Tristan's plane crash coming to hit the papers.

There were already several interviews scheduled with Tristan. The first one—right after this concert.

But at the moment, Tristan played and played, and eventually forgot even about the assassin.

He had never appeared—the trick of abandoning the search for the show must have worked. But journalists, sometimes, could get just as bad.

***

Next day.

Tristan spent most of it giving interviews. He was always in the public, but never too close to people who might be dangerous.

The assassin didn't appear, but his investigators brought no news either.

***

Next day.

A lucky break. A VERY lucky break.

One of Tristan's investigators brought him an address to which the plants were delivered before they've been arranged as a bouquet. This had to be the place where the assassin stayed for a while, at least, and it could hold clues.

Or even the assassin himself, but Tristan didn't believe that he'd be THIS lucky.

The search of the apartment was a mission Tristan couldn't give to anybody but himself. In a large way, because he had to be very sneaky about this.

He had left his mansion as Tristan Hayes, but then put on a new nondescript hoodie in a private enough alleyway. From there on, he was hiding his face and himself, using his stealth to the maximum and riding public transport.

And of course, he had a pair of guns on himself, and a bulletproof vest under his clothing. Only a thin one, though—a thick one wouldn't fit there stealthily.

Tristan had made several circles around the target house, making sure that nobody was tailing him, and only then went in.

The apartment building was on the cheaper side. The concrete walls were old and darkened with age, and marred with dozens of graffiti. A young woman with a skull bandanna covering the lower part of her face from the fumes was adding another one to the collection as Tristan walked by.

Everybody ignored what she was doing with brushes and spray cans, but Tristan noted that at least her art was looking like an actual art. A stylized, but stylish image of a racing car.

Pretty wall art or not, with how much No Hope was making from his hits, an apartment in this building was clearly a temporary arrangement. If it was his at all, and didn't belong to a subordinate.

There was an electronic lock, but Tristan quietly waited for someone to exit and slipped in. Nobody paid him more than a glance.

The target apartment was on the second floor. It was locked, but the lock didn't hold out for a second against Tristan's picks.

He stepped inside with a hand that held a gun inside his pocket—but there was no one.

No one and no sign of anybody having lived there, at least for the last week. No personal items, either.

Tristan made sure he looked very carefully for any secret stashes, but—nothing. Yet, from the information given to him, a plant courier passed his delivery to someone inside this apartment specifically, even if the other person didn't show more than his hands.

'An apartment that served as a temporary point, or a distraction. Whoever took these plants from the courier only came there to get them. Although he might still have lived nearby. Perhaps even on the same floor… Either way, I should check the documentation on leases of the apartments in this house. It might have more information.'

That was what Tristan thought as he left the building.

Near a wall, the graffiti artist changed spray cans, only to start fumbling with one. It wouldn't have been worth noting if she didn't suddenly turn to Tristan.

"Mister! Hey, you!"

Tristan hesitated between replying and just walking past her.

"Mister, please, help me get that damned thing open!" The woman shook the offending paint spray can.

"Seriously?" Tristan stopped and even turned to her in disbelief. "Alright, it's a fine art, but you think a random person will just help you with drawing on walls like that? I will get paint all over myself."

"You won't if you put a rag over the can, like that," the artist showed it. The rag she used was dirty enough to smear some paint over her hands. "Please! I can tell—you got some nice muscles under those sleeves. I need those."

Tristan narrowed his eyes at the approaching woman. His muscles showed even in the hoodie—so what? Was this just the artist's weird way of flirting with him? God knew women flirted with him all too frequently.

This one was getting annoying. But she was insistently walking right toward him.

And she was almost there when Tristan noticed a thread of relationship between them. It was a thin one, but there was definitely some negativity there. Some fear—on both sides.

This thread shouldn't have existed if Tristan and the artist were strangers.