Night deepened, and more and more men and women crowded onto the dance floor.
Jason lounged comfortably in his chair, completely relaxed.
His face was flushed from the alcohol, and his eyes had gone slightly unfocused.
The bottle of Scotch on the table was nearly empty.
The door to one of the club’s private rooms opened, and Franklin emerged with a satisfied grin, supported on either side by two tall women.
“Hey, Boss! It’s getting late. Let me drive you home.”
Jason slowly got to his feet and looked at him with amusement.
“Your legs are barely working. You sure you can drive?”
Franklin looked downright proud.
“I might not be the best at much, but when it comes to driving, I ain’t never met anybody I couldn’t beat.”
They left the club and headed toward a nearby parking lot.
Franklin’s car was a white Dodge Challenger, a used car he had supposedly spent years saving up to buy.
Once they got inside, Franklin asked, “Boss, where am I taking you?”
Jason gave him an address.
Franklin looked surprised.
“Ain’t that whole area just warehouses? Boss, you seriously living somewhere like that?”
“I’m wanted by both the cops and the underworld right now. A safe house is all I’ve got.”
“Shit.” Franklin thought for a moment.
“If you don’t mind, you can stay at my place.”
“You live alone?” Franklin shook his head.
“My parents died when I was real young. My aunt Denise got custody of me. I live at her place.”
So he’s living under someone else’s roof too.
“Forget it. I’ll stick with the warehouse.”
Franklin shook his head hard.
“Nah, don’t worry about it. My aunt loves money. Give her a little cash and she won’t give a damn.”
Franklin’s house was only about five minutes from the club.
It was a detached two story home with a small garden and a garage.
It was nowhere near as luxurious as Wesley’s villa, but in a poor neighborhood where homeless people could be found on almost every street, it was already an excellent place to live.
Franklin drove into the garage, pulled out his keys, and opened the front door.
Immediately to the left of the entryway was a tiny room of barely ten square meters.
That was Franklin’s bedroom.
Jason couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him.
Apparently, his aunt really was pretty harsh.
A middle aged Black woman came down the stairs.
“Well, look who finally decided to come home, you freeloading little bastard.”
Then she looked up and noticed Jason.
“Who’s this? I thought I told you not to bring your no good friends into my house.”
The way Denise spoke to him clearly irritated Franklin.
Before he could say anything, however, Jason patted him on the shoulder and walked over to her.
He pulled out a thick wad of cash, around three or four thousand dollars.
“Ma’am, I’m a friend of Franklin’s. I may need to stay here for a while. Consider this rent.”
The instant Denise accepted the money, her expression brightened exactly as Franklin had predicted.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Never thought this useless boy had a friend with money to burn. There’s an empty room next to his. Have Franklin clean it up for you.”
Franklin muttered under his breath, “Boss, you gave her way too much.”
Jason’s gaze lingered on her retreating figure as he replied casually, “A little money saves a lot of pointless arguing. Seems like a fair trade to me.”
Franklin curled his lip.
He clearly disagreed.
Three thousand dollars.
How many jobs would I have to pull to make that much?
While Franklin cleaned the spare bedroom, Jason took a shower.
Later, lying on the hard wooden bed, Jason felt more relaxed than he had in a long time.
With the alcohol still in his system, he quickly fell asleep.
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The next morning, Jason woke up and instinctively opened the system interface.
[Accomplice Franklin Clinton successfully recruited.]
━━━ ACCOMPLICE ━━━
Name: Franklin Clinton
Character Source: Grand Theft Auto V.
One of the three main protagonists of Grand Theft Auto V.
He is a young Los Santos criminal trying to move beyond small time hustling and build a more successful life.
He is ambitious, practical, and generally more level headed than Michael or Trevor, and his story focuses heavily on loyalty, opportunity, and escaping his old environment.
━━
[Skill]
𖦏 Theft Mastery (Level 4)
𖦏 Driving Mastery (Level 6)
[Shop: Click here]
Note 1: Abilities purchased from the Shop for an Accomplice receive a 50% discount and ignore the Accomplice’s personal attribute requirements.
Note 2: Accomplices recruited through the system possess Absolute Loyalty.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What?
Half price in the Shop, and no attribute requirements?
Jason stared at the screen in disbelief.
Who the hell is the protagonist here?
Still, the second note pleased him immensely.
After what had happened with Paul, Jason had become suspicious of everyone.
He barely trusted anyone anymore.
As far as he was concerned, loyalty merely meant that nobody had offered a high enough price yet.
Franklin might be absolutely devoted to him now, but who could guarantee that he wouldn’t change his mind someday?
The system’s note completely erased that concern.
If his subordinates couldn’t be guaranteed absolutely loyal, then Jason wouldn’t buy them a single ability even if the Shop gave him a ninety percent discount, or handed the abilities out for free.
The stronger someone became, the harder they were to control.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jason opened his bedroom door, and the rich smell of meat immediately drifted toward him.
Following the aroma into the kitchen, he found Franklin wearing an apron and making breakfast.
The smell came from bacon sizzling in a pan.
“Boss, give me a minute. Breakfast is almost ready.”
Jason nodded, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
“Where’s your aunt?” This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Franklin snorted disdainfully.
“Went shopping with her shitty friends. Bet those few thousand dollars you gave her will be gone in a couple days.”
Franklin’s mention of money reminded Jason of the one million dollars he needed for Firearms Mastery Level 6.
Jason rested his head on one hand and fell into thought.
He needed to find a way to make money.
“Franklin, what do you usually do for work?”
“Uh… vehicle repossession.”
“What?”
Franklin explained, “People finance cars from dealerships, then stop making their payments. My job is to go take the cars back.”
“Doesn’t sound like it pays much. Anything else?”
“Stealing cars. Driving illegal cabs. Garbage trucks. Tow trucks… Pretty much anything involving a vehicle, I’ve done it.”
His Level 6 Driving Mastery clearly wasn’t just for show.
“Stealing cars…”
Jason suddenly remembered that Kingpin had a gang under him specializing in vehicles, the Biker Gang.
They wore punk-style tactical streetwear and rode heavily customized motorcycles.
Thanks to the mobility of their bikes, they mainly transported weed, though they also stole cars on the side.
Franklin set breakfast on the table.
Jason, however, stood up.
“You eat first. I need to make a call.”
He returned to the bedroom and dialed Wesley’s number.
“Hey.”
For once, Wesley immediately exploded.
“Hey, what?!”
“Thanks to you, every gang in New York has gone completely out of control!”
Jason dug a finger into his ear.
“What happened?”
Wesley snapped, “You wiped out the Russian mob. Now every gang in the city is scared shitless. They’re afraid you’ll show up at their door looking for trouble, and they’re also afraid the cops will catch you and drag them into your mess.”
Jason sneered.
“They should be worried.”
“Oh, really?” Wesley said.
“Then here’s something else you’ll enjoy. Every gang in New York has joined forces and put a 15 million dollar bounty on your head.”
“Even international assassins are starting to take an interest in you.”
Jason fell silent.
Wesley’s voice softened slightly.
“Jason, stop fighting this. Give up. You’ve got both the law and the underworld hunting you. There’s no way you survive this.”
Jason lowered his head and remained silent for a long time.
Then, little by little, fighting spirit ignited in his eyes.
“Then let them come.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Translator’s Notes]
The author didn’t include any description for the accomplice, so I added a short character description.
Hopefully, this will help you understand the accomplice’s background and personality a little better 😁