Bull Market, Shallow Pool

Marco stood at the edge of the infinity pool, water gin-clear against the backdrop of Mallorca's limestone cliffs. Below him, the Mediterranean stretched dark and endless. Above, the corporate retreat's main villa glowed with artificial warmth—his colleagues already three drinks deep, celebrating the quarter's numbers.

He'd skipped the toast. Instead, he'd come here to stare at nothing in particular and wonder when exactly he'd become the kind of man who could sign off on manufacturing data he knew was bullshit. The whistleblower email had landed in his inbox three hours ago, and he'd forwarded it straight to legal without reading past the first paragraph.

The soft scuff of sneakers on concrete interrupted his thoughts. Elena.

"Couldn't handle the champagne toast either?" she asked, settling beside him on the lounger. In the moonlight, she looked younger than her forty years—though they'd both aged a decade since the Madrid office massacre.

"Just needed air."

She laughed, short and sharp. "Air. Right. Same air you've been avoiding all week?" She pulled a phone from her pocket, illuminated it just enough to show him the screen. An email forward. His signature attached at the top. The whistleblower's original message beneath.

Marco's stomach dropped. "How—"

"I was the whistleblower, you idiot. I sent it. And when I got your auto-forward to legal instead of a response? That told me everything."

He couldn't look at her. "If I'd responded, I would've been obligated to report it."

"So you chose plausible deniability over doing the right thing?" She stood up, paced toward the pool's edge. "God, Marco. Remember when we played padel that weekend in Valencia? You told me you were done being their bull. You said you were getting out."

"I have a mortgage. A daughter in private school."

"And now you have employees knowingly exposed to carcinogenic solvents while you falsify safety reports." She stepped into the water, clothes and all, not bothering to take off her heels. "Funny thing about pools—the longer you stand at the edge, the more convinced you become that jumping will solve everything. But it won't. You just end up wet and alone and still exactly who you were before."

She began to swim laps with steady, furious strokes, water slicing around her like she was cutting through something much thicker than liquid.

Marco watched her, suddenly aware of the water lapping at his own feet—cold, relentless, impossible to ignore. The bull market would crash eventually. They always did. The question was whether he'd still be standing when it did, or whether he'd finally have the courage to jump in.

He took off his watch. Set it on the concrete.

Then he stepped into the pool.