Thug and Idol: 10X Rewards Second Identity System

Vargas replied quickly. He also wrote a message—those were safer than phone calls, even if still not 100% secure.

[This is hard to say. I will start with the basics, boss. His name is George Fovesco, he's 55 years old. Married, two children. From the press, the marriage seems to be doing alright.

The man himself did nothing too incriminating in the past, either. He was promoted from being a homicide detective, which he was good at. There were a few scandals later, mostly related to police brutality and violence, but nothing that can be pointed at him personally instead of the system.

My opinion—he's as clean as it gets in his position. I'm sure he got bribes from politicians once in a while to "lose" some rich kid's incriminating evidence. But if he's organized crime dirty?.. Not for us, at least. And even if he was, he's still pissed off at our gang. All the LAPD is.]

[What about his possible inheritors, Vargas? I mentioned asking about them earlier, didn't I?]

With all the logistical problems, Tristan honestly forgot.

[You did, boss. The most likely next candidate is Frank Robertson, the Assistant Chief. 49 years old, divorced, wife has custody of the child. There's almost no press about him. All I found are rumors from my inside sources is that he was in internal affairs until that. You know, pigs that sniff out other dirty pigs.]

Tristan nodded to himself.

He supposed this was the most one could get without talking with these two personally.

[I see. Vargas, are there any public events incoming which one of the two is going to attend?]

[I don't know, but I can look into it. Just give me a day. But—if you want to send someone there, that will be easier said than done. That person will still need an invitation, and to not be on the police shit list, official or unofficial. I can't think up anyone whom I'd trust to not botch this up and who fits the criteria.]

[That's alright, I do. Just find the info, Vargas.]

[Okay, boss.]

As soon as the conversation with Vargas was over, Tristan got another email—this time, it was a minor administrative problem he had to solve. That was a daily routine.

With a huff, Tristan opened his status.

Before, he had the governing skill and the logistics skill. Now they both were a part of the strategy skill, which helped Tristan orient himself in the intricacies of large organizations of any kind.

The skill of a king.

[Strategy skill increased from 458 to 1958.]

[Strategy rank increased from Fine to Grand Strategist.]

Things immediately got clearer. The problem, which was mildly stressful before, turned into something that required only a couple of messages to solve.

Tristan smiled and quickly typed them. Then, fueled by new knowledge, ideas sprouted in his mind about how he can organize his criminal business better.

Sometimes ships and their shipments were delayed because of poor weather, but perhaps a system could be made to make up for it? Especially since keeping wares lying for long in LA meant risking police raids.

More could be done about inter-gang integration, too. Perhaps a mixed training program? There was a clear difference in the way gangs under King Lion's control operated. Their people could learn from each other.

And so on, and so forth.

Emboldened by these ideas, Tristan threw himself into work and didn't notice how the time passed.

***

Next noon, profoundly tired in the brain but satisfied with all the work done during the night, Tristan went to check his social media.

Fans left him a lot of positive feedback for Tristan's released album, which was a great mood boost. The songs from it were steadily climbing the charts, and had already reached the top 75.

There were less impressed people, too. Haters of various kinds, which Tristan could easily ignore.

But then he saw something bigger than that.

There was a post with a photograph of him in motion, pushing a familiar fat woman away. The shot was done from a phone and blurry, but the angle hid the fact that Tristan was getting away from the woman's mad charge.

The caption under the photo went:

[I can't believe this!!! He assaulted his own fan, and everybody is silent about it??? Is it just because the attacked woman was plus-size? Tell me you won't keep supporting this asshole! #cancel_Gemello]

Just reading this idiocy made Tristan scowl a little, but worse was the amount of people responding and sharing the post.

Too many.

In a blink of an eye, it was becoming the next hot controversy that was going to storm over half the Internet. It wasn't even about Tristan anymore, it was about men attacking women, especially those who weren't "conventionally beautiful".

'Beautiful, not beautiful… This just proves that you can't trust any of them! I bet the original post was made by a woman, too.'

Tristan tried to remember the exact details of the moment, but couldn't. There were many, many people taking photographs of him at the moment. Anyone could've done the photo.

'With this angle, it was made from somewhere in the queue inside the VIP booth. People weren't prohibited from taking photos there.'

Still fuming, Tristan took his phone and called Derek.

He didn't trust himself to deal with this on himself. He didn't even trust himself to write a social post that won't be full of insults.

It took a while for him to pick up the call.

"Mr. Gemello! My apologies, I was caught up in some organizational matters… Do you need something?"

Tristan frowned.

Recently, Derek shifted all the stars under his workload except for Tristan and Nelson to other people within the GTG agency. But he was still a very busy man.

'Perhaps I should get myself a personal assistant at some later point to lift some of Derek's workload. Anyway…'

"Yes. Derek, when you have free time, check my social media. You won't like what you will see."

"Oh. Just wait five minutes, and I will look—"

"I will send you a link. And after you look, Derek—I really hope you know a good way to deal with this mess."