Market Watch

The neon numbers danced across Elena's screen at 2:17 AM, her third consecutive night watching the European markets bleed. She'd stopped expecting sleep weeks ago. The cat—Barnaby, a rescue with half an ear and a judgmental stare—curled against her ankle, purring like a small engine. He was the only living thing who didn't want something from her.

"You're still here?" Marcus's voice cut through the quiet. The firm's resident bull—aggressive, loud, utterly convinced of his own genius—leaned against her doorframe, loosening his tie. He'd made partner last year through sheer force of personality, drowning out quieter voices like hers. "Market's not going to fight itself, El."

"Some of us do the work," she said, not turning from her screens. Marcus had already claimed credit for two of her trades this quarter. She'd let him. There were battles worth fighting, and then there was keeping her job until she could afford to disappear.

He laughed, the sound too big for the small office. "You know what your problem is? You think this is about merit. It's not. It's about who screams the loudest."

Barnaby hissed.

Marcus ignored him. "I'm heading out. Drinks with the Singapore team. You should come. Network."

"Maybe next time."

He shrugged and left, and she waited exactly thirty seconds before reaching for the burner phone hidden beneath her desk. The spyware she'd planted on his laptop six months ago had just pinged.

The downloaded files made her stomach turn. Marcus wasn't just stealing her trades—he was selling the firm's positions to competitors before execution, collecting kickbacks that dwarfed his salary. Worse, he'd been doing it for years, and compliance had somehow never noticed. Or maybe they had, and looked away.

Elena stared at the evidence, her finger hovering over the send button that would forward everything to the SEC. This would destroy her career too. She'd installed the spyware. She'd violated god-knows-how-many confidentiality agreements. But she was tired—bone-deep, soul-exhausted tired—of being the person who stayed quiet while men like Marcus screamed their way to the top.

Barnaby stood, stretched, and jumped onto her keyboard, walking across the keys with deliberate indifference.

"You're right," she whispered. "Fuck it."

She pressed send.

Three weeks later, watching Marcus's mugshot flash across the business news channels—his face pale, his arrogance finally stripped away—Elena packed her box. The firm had offered her a generous severance, a non-disclosure agreement thick enough to choke a horse, and a pristine reference letter. They wanted this gone as badly as she did.

Barnaby watched from his carrier by the door.

"Ready to go?" she asked. He blinked slowly.

She stepped out of the building for the last time, the morning sun already burning through the fog. For the first time in years, her future felt like something she might actually get to choose.