Thug and Idol: 10X Rewards Second Identity System

The search—the hunt—for Michael continued.

Tristan felt like it took way too much time. One didn't need much of it to go on a plane and far, far away from Los Angeles.

In these days, the public had praised Tristan Gemello and Nelson Mayar for their bravery to stand both against terrorism and government oppression. The oppression came as the state government put such strict regulations on all public gatherings with over 1000 people in attendance, that they could've as well banned a third of them.

Now, if Tristan wanted to perform in the city, he'd have to spend three months just running security checks and arranging things with the city government—only for them still able to force him to start all over again for some inane reason.

Tristan's planned tour was really under question now.

And the worst thing? For all the precautions, the security of FBI against hackers was much worse than they boasted. At least their investigators weren't the worst.

They found that all the terrorists were involved with Noidolism, directly or just sharing their ideas—which Tristan knew already. And they located the person from whom all these people bought their explosives.

It was the same seller. Michael sent them all to the same seller, because clearly, he only knew about one.

This is where FBI leads ended. Tristan guessed that Michael probably bought other equipment from the same weapon trader—one of Tristan's own people, ironically enough.

This man formerly worked for one of the smaller gangs, but kept his post when King Lion Gang swept the competition in Los Angeles. There wasn't much of it left in the city these days, especially people who could provide a large amount of shitty explosives.

The FBI tried to take the dealer into custody, but Tristan got him hidden first—and then questioned him himself.

But all purchases were done anonymously. The trader swore he had no idea that the materials for the bombs even went to the same people. He never had this much in stock at once—he was selling them in small amounts over a long period of time.

Michael must've been preparing this a long while ago.

Tristan hoped Michael would show his nose up online again, but the coward really hid.

Nevertheless, the search for Michael's escape route was slowly but surely bringing results.

Five days after Tristan and Nelson's charity stream, Tristan's people found an address.

From words of witnesses and footage of cameras, they meticulously recreated the route Michael took from the raided gathering. And as a jackpot, a neighbor saw him entering a house.

The same neighbor saw Michael leaving this house three days ago and not returning since.

'This isn't a dead end yet,' Tristan thought, staring at the report on the screen of his laptop. 'If there's a house where Ass-Angel lived, there might still be more leads.'

***

Three hours later.

It was an ordinary one-floor house in one of the cheaper cul-de-sacs of Los Angeles. It wasn't a new building, or a large one, or a well-built one, but it stood and its roof wasn't taken off by a hurricane yet.

It was late evening, but all the windows were dark. The owner could've been asleep, but Tristan was sure the place was empty. The report from his sleuths confirmed it, as much as his acute observation skill.

Tristan was standing here with only Cutout to watch his back. Both of them were dressed in casual clothing, but with cloth masks covering the lower halves of their faces.

Sadly, after the raid, many of Tristan's most loyal people were too injured to work at their best, and Tristan wanted their best.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

He'd rather have fewer people and do things quietly than have someone who might be swayed easily by Michael's words, or someone who will nurse his injuries.

Not that Tristan expected a fight at all. Michael was long gone, and none of his followers ever visited this place. Despite that, Cutout was tense and had his hands close to his weapons.

Tristan was alert, too. He had calculated several possibilities, and one of them was that Michael prepared a trap for them. But Tristan didn't sense any explosives yet, so at least on this account, they were safe.

Tristan made sure no nosy neighbors were watching the two of them, then nodded to Cutout.

"Let's go."

There was a locked fence around the house, but Tristan picked the simple lock with ease. There was another lock on the entrance to the house, as well as an electronic alarm that was on despite the absence of the house owner.

Tristan expertly dealt with both the lock and the alarm and stepped inside. Behind him, Cutout pulled out a flashlight, but Tristan just switched to heat vision.

The place was really just a house, and one that was well-lived in. Tristan immediately noticed the esoteric amulets and stones full of "positive energy" standing on the shelves and hanging from the walls.

There was plenty of other clutter around the living room, and it stretched to other nearby rooms—kitchen and bedroom, Tristan guessed.

He took two steps inside the living room and froze in alarm.

"There's a camera," Tristan whispered to Cutout, pointing into a corner, where a small camera was hidden behind a feathery dream catcher.

Tristan sensed the camera's focus on himself before he even saw it. But as he was looking around, he realized that there was more.

The clutter made it hard to spot, but there were wires running to the place, attached not just to the camera, but to some other electronics, too.

And before Tristan could make sense out of it, a distorted voice spoke from several directions at once.

"Too late. You will never find me. It was a poor choice to even try—and now you are in my domain. Just give up, King Lion, while you can leave with your head still raised high. I know much more about you than you know about me."