“My parents will handle some surveillance. Fume Hood and the Malfunctions will as well, but they’re novices when it comes to that.”

“That’s reassuring,” Tristan said.

“We can get others,” I said. “Tap the teams, figure out who doesn’t care about PR.”

“The good ones do,” Tristan said. “I called, on your suggestion. They told me your idea of how we move forward, so I reached out. I only got one of my four teams to agree, and they aren’t totally committed.”

I nodded. I’d somehow figured mine would be more loyal—not because I was anything special, but because there was a lot more personal investment in it. I outlined the next step in my greater plan, “We’ll scratch together something to hold down the fort, and then we handle the current PR crisis. Once it’s handled, those who flew the coop should come back to roost.”

“You’re going to let this go?” Chris asked.

“Hm?” I made a sound.

“I don’t think you’re sincere, saying you’re going to ignore this whole thing here, just because Sveta asked nicely.”

“We have other things to focus on.”

“We do,” Tristan said. “Don’t cause trouble, Chris.”

“I only kinda-sorta agreed to this because I thought she wouldn’t go for it.”

Ashley looked away.

I was noting Ashley’s silence. She seemed annoyed. Chris… he was baffled, if I had to put my finger on it, which was a very different thing from Natalie’s confusion.

Those were the three who looked more bothered by this scene.

“I trust Sveta,” I said. “And I trust you guys as a group. Whatever the other teams are reporting—you’re keeping it from me. Okay. Because I trust you guys, I’ll trust you’re doing it for the right reasons.”

“It’s weird,” Chris said.

“Chris,” Tristan said.

“It is, but I’m going to go with it,” I told Chris. “Because I trust them. There was someone in the past who told me something. I ignored them, I gave them a hug. Everything fell apart. My best friend tells me not to pry? Fine. I’ll listen.”

“Best friend. That’s so sweet,” Kenzie said.

Sveta didn’t look like she was super happy. Guilty? Something else?

I put it out of mind. My concern was more in the realm that I really wanted to talk to Sveta about other things, and now it might seem like I was trying to butter her up with gifts or attention. It was just so hard to actually sit her down and have a conversation. We kept getting interrupted or distracted.

“First problem is the PR issue,” Tristan said. “If we can’t fix that, it’s impossible to do anything else.”

“We get out ahead of it,” I said.

“Solving one quasi-illegal or illegal issue with more extortion,” Ashley said, her tone dry. “Naturally.”