The Last Watch

The streetlight outside my hotel room flickered like a dying heartbeat. Three years I'd spent running corporate espionage for Parallax Solutions, and tonight was supposed to be my final extraction. But something had changed.

My contact was late. The **cat** I'd seen earlier—that scrawny, one-eyed thing that patrolled the hotel courtyard like it owned the place—seemed to know something I didn't. It watched me from the windowsill, yellow eyes unblinking.

I checked my phone again. Still nothing from headquarters. The **pyramid**-shaped headquarters of Orion Corp rose across the Nile, its glass façade reflecting moonlight like a black monolith. Tomorrow morning, Orion's CEO would announce the merger that would make Parallax the dominant player in North African tech. I'd made it possible, trading secrets I'd stolen over expensive whiskeys and whispered conversations in hotel bars.

But the merger wasn't the story anymore.

Three hours ago, I'd received an encrypted file from an anonymous source. It contained photographs of my wife—my ex-wife, technically—with Orion's head of security. Dates, locations, intimate conversations. She wasn't just sleeping with the enemy. She'd been his source inside Parallax for two years.

Every lead I'd chased, every secret I'd uncovered, she'd been feeding to Orion first. I was the **spy**, but I'd been the one played.

The **sphinx** of Giza had stared at me with that same inscrutable smile when I'd visited last week, as if mocking my foolishness. Ancient riddles, modern betrayals.

My phone buzzed. Not Parallax. An unknown number.

"'Leave now,'" the message read. "'They're coming for you.'"

My contact had sold me out too. Of course. The merger didn't need a loose end who knew too much about how it had been arranged.

I grabbed my go-bag, checked the safety on my pistol, and slipped out the fire exit. Somewhere in this city, my ex-wife was probably celebrating. Let her. Tomorrow, I'd disappear like smoke.

The cat watched me go, indifferent, as I melted into the Cairo night, running toward my own future—uncertain, dangerous, and finally, entirely my own.