The Orange Juice Incident

Marcus stood by the break room window, watching the rain sheet down the glass of the forty-third floor. His iPhone buzzed on the counter—her again. Three missed calls, two texts that read like accusations though they only contained question marks.

'You're avoiding me,' she'd said last night, her voice raw. 'I can feel it.'

He was, of course. He'd been avoiding everything since the audit started.

The bull market had carried them all for three years—bonuses, promotions, the heady certainty that they were building something revolutionary. Now the SEC investigation threatened to expose it all as something else entirely. Marcus's colleagues had started using the term 'bullshit' in hushed tones after meetings, as if saying it aloud might make it true.

He took a sip of orange juice, trying to focus on anything besides the secure drop-off location in his pocket. The evidence—enough to bring down the entire C-suite—weighed almost nothing physically but everything else.

'You gonna tell me what's going on?' Elena's voice behind him made him jump. She leaned against the doorframe, her dog waiting obediently in the hallway. She'd started bringing Barnaby to work lately, claiming his presence calmed clients. Marcus suspected it was more about the comfort of having something loyal nearby.

'The SEC expanded their inquiry,' he said. 'They're looking at individual traders now.'

Elena's expression shifted. She'd helped Marcus understand the firm's creative accounting practices when he'd first joined. She'd explained how the offshore vehicles worked, how the SPVs weren't really vehicles but something more like mirrors reflecting value that wasn't there.

'They think someone's cooperating,' she said. 'A spy.' She didn't phrase it as a question.

Marcus's iPhone buzzed again—a text from the prosecutors. 'Tonight. Same location.'

'I need to run some errands,' he said, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. 'I'll see you at the deposition tomorrow.'

He grabbed his coat, the orange juice still sitting on the counter. As he stepped into the elevator, he realized Elena had drunk from his glass. The bull, the spy, the orange juice, the dog, the iPhone—every piece of his double life converging in this moment, and he had never felt more alone.