The Corporate Vitamin

Elena adjusted her wide-brimmed hat, pulling it lower as she sat across from David in the crowded coffee shop. The orange glow of sunset through the windows made everything feel cinematic, which was appropriate given the circumstances.

"You're really going through with it?" David asked, his fingers tracing the rim of his untouched espresso.

"I have to." She checked her watch again. "In twenty minutes, I walk into that boardroom and tell them everything. About the fake clinical trials, the altered data, the vitamin supplement that's actually killing people."

David laughed bitterly. "And you think they'll just let you walk out? Elena, you work for spies. Not the glamorous kind—corporate ones who destroy lives with spreadsheets and NDAs."

She remembered the night she'd found the documents. She'd been wearing his hat then too, dancing in his living room, both of them drunk on cheap wine and the thrill of their affair. Then the email notification had popped up on her phone—a careless mistake by a junior analyst. That was when she'd learned the truth about the company's flagship product, the "miracle" vitamin that had made them all rich.

"Someone has to blow the whistle, David."

"And you chose that someone to be you." He reached across the table, his hand warm and trembling. "Come to my sister's place in Barcelona. We can disappear."

For a moment, she let herself imagine it—orange groves and old stone buildings, a life without secrets or lies. But then she thought of her father, popping those same supplements every morning with his breakfast. She thought of the millions of people who trusted them.

"I can't run." She stood up, smoothing her skirt. "But I want you to know—I don't regret us."

"Elena—"

"Goodbye, David."

She walked out into the cooling evening air, adjusting her hat one last time. Behind her, he remained at the table, his face in his hands. Ahead of her lay the boardroom, the lawyers, the inevitable ruin of everything she'd built. But some betrayals, she decided, were actually choices. And this one—this one she could live with.