The Last Orange

The orange sat in Elena's palm like a small, burning sun. She squeezed it, feeling the skin give way, releasing a burst of citrus that cut through the stale office air. It was 3 AM, and she shouldn't have been here. But corporate espionage didn't keep office hours.

Her iPhone buzzed on the desk—David, again. Three missed calls since midnight. He knew she was working late. He just didn't know what she was working on.

The company's servers had been bleeding data for months. Someone was selling their client list to competitors, and Elena had been hired to find the leak. Not as an IT specialist, but as what they politely called a "consultant." In reality, she was a corporate spy, paid to infiltrate from within.

She'd spent weeks building trust with Marcus, the lead developer. Coffee breaks, shared lunches, carefully orchestrated encounters. He'd seemed genuine. His wife had just left him. He talked about his dog, a retriever named Max, with such tenderness that Elena had almost forgotten she was lying to him.

The orange peel fell away in her hands. She ate a segment, the sweetness exploding against her tongue. Outside, palm trees swayed in the wind, their shadows stretching across her desk like fingers.

Her phone lit up again. A notification from David's email: "Forwarded message from Marcus Wright."

Elena's stomach dropped. She opened it.

The email was dated six months ago, before she'd even joined the company. It was from Marcus to a competitor, attaching client lists. But that wasn't what made her blood run cold.

"I know what you're doing," the email began. "Your husband hired me to expose the corporate spying operation. He's been working with the FBI for two years. This was supposed to be his case, but then you got assigned to it."

Elena stared at the screen. David wasn't calling because he was worried about her working late. He was calling because his informant had just sent him proof that his own wife was the spy he'd been hunting.

She ate the rest of the orange slowly, methodically, as if the routine could ground her in a world that had just tilted sideways. The corporate spy, spied upon by her own husband. The woman who'd spent three months lying to a man who'd been lying to his wife about lying to his colleagues about lying to everyone.

Her phone buzzed again. David's name lit up the screen.

Elena let it ring.