“Interesting,” he mused, before falling silent again.
“You gonna share with the class?” Jaeson asked.
“Tell me again what you said a moment ago,” Luka said. “About the blackmailer.”
“They went to ground?” Jaeson said.
“More than that,” Luka said. “Keep going.”
“They might have gone quiet because we know too much about them,” Jaeson said.
“Precisely that,” Luka said, smiling fully now.
Jaeson rolled it around in his head before it dawned on him. “They’re not going to come out on their own. We need to draw them out. Provoke them. Hope they make a mistake.”
“The question is,” Luka began, “how do we accomplish that?”
“Attention,” Riot said. “They hate Aubrey. They hate all the attention she’s getting.”
“So you want to lavish more attention on Aubrey?” Jason asked.
Riot nodded.
“She’ll hate that,” Jaeson warned.
“Not if we do it in the right away,” Riot said.
“So how do we give her more exposure, beyond what we currently do?” Luka asked.
“More content,” Riot said. “Daily posting.”
“I can see it working,” Jaeson said, nodding thoughtfully. “Drumming up more interest with fresh content for the VIP Lit magazine every single day means more readers with their eyes on Aubrey’s work. She can write more than one installment of her serial a week, if she wants.”
“And with this,” Luka said, “we can finally drive the blackmailer out from hiding and stop them.” A slow smile crept across his lips, ominous and not at all good natured as he contemplated doing just that.
“It’s also good for Aubrey,” Riot said.
“You’re right,” Jaeson agreed. “Even if it doesn’t help the blackmailer situation, it’ll get Aubrey the exposure she needs to help further her career.”
“This is perhaps the best way we can give back to her, for now,” Luka said, the dark expression on his face smoothing out.
“Better than doing nothing,” Riot muttered.
“Then let’s get something done about all of this,” Luka said, opening the office door and ushering the others out.
As they left, a feeling of solidarity overcame all three men. Not quite happiness, but there was at least a small spark of hope.
They wouldn’t be happy until they could guarantee the threat against Aubrey had been stopped.
