The Leak Upstairs

Maya stood in her kitchen, watching the water stain spread across the ceiling like a bruise. Another Monday, another disaster from the apartment above. The insurance adjuster had given her his card last week—smiled too long, touched her arm when he didn't need to. She'd found him watching her from his car yesterday.

She was good at noticing things now. Being a corporate spy had taught her that—the weight of a gaze, the slight shift in posture when someone lied. She'd left that life three years ago, but the instincts remained, like scar tissue.

"Cable's out again," Liam called from the living room. Her husband, her safe harbor. Except lately he'd been locking his study door. Taking calls in the shower.

Maya's phone buzzed. A message from her old handler: *We know what your husband's doing. Meet us.*

She dropped her phone in the sink. Water pooled around it, screen flickering once, then dark.

Liam appeared in the doorway. "Everything okay?"

"Cable's dead," she said. "And I think there's a leak in the study."

His face went still. That micro-expression she'd seen a thousand times in surveillance footage. The tell.

"Maya—"

"Don't." She pressed him. Not with anger—she didn't have anger left—but with the cold precision she'd used to dismantle companies. "What did they offer you?"

"Information. About who you really were. Before us." His voice cracked. "I just wanted to know my wife."

"You hired someone to follow me?"

"I hired a PI. Once. Last month." He stepped closer. "He gave me the file, and I burned it. I swear."

Water dripped steadily now through the ceiling, splashing onto the linoleum. A rhythm, like a clock counting down.

"The PI," Maya said slowly. "Was he tall? Gray hair? Drove a silver sedan?"

"Yes."

She closed her eyes. "That's the insurance adjuster, Liam. He's not a PI. He's actual intelligence. Someone who's trying to reacquire a former asset."

"What?"

"You didn't hire a spy," she said. "You triggered a counterintelligence operation. By accident." She laughed, a hollow sound. "I spent a decade dodging professionals. My own husband was the one who finally burned me."