The Padel Court

The bull of a man stood across the net, his wedding band glinting as he served. Elena had been watching him for three weeks, a freelance gig tracking corporate espionage, though the agency never called it spying. They preferred 'competitive intelligence.' Whatever. The check cleared either way.

Padel had become their arena—Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the club where money changed hands as easily as backhands. Marcus played like he lived: aggressive, careless, always pushing the envelope. His baseball background showed in the way he tracked the ball, the practiced swing that belonged on a diamond, not a court enclosed in glass.

'You're distracted tonight,' he said, crushing the ball into the corner.

Elena lunged, her racket connecting at the wrong angle. The ball ricocheted wild. 'Long day.'

'The Petrov deal?'

She hesitated. Marcus wasn't supposed to know about Petrov. Unless he was the leak they'd hired her to find. The cable from her handler had been explicit: confirm the source, extract what you can, don't get burned.

'Tell me about it,' she said, keeping her voice light. 'You seem tense too.'

Marcus laughed, bitter. 'My wife thinks I'm having an affair.' He served again, harder this time. 'She hired someone to follow me.'

Elena's stomach dropped. 'Oh?'

'Yeah. Some woman. Always watching.' His eyes met hers across the net, something unreadable in his expression. 'I told her: if I were going to throw everything away, I'd pick someone less obvious.'

The glass walls felt suddenly transparent. 'What did she say to that?'

'She asked why I didn't just file the divorce papers already.' He bounced the ball, considering his serve. 'She wasn't wrong.'

'Why haven't you?'

Marcus looked at his hands, then at Elena. 'Fear, maybe. Habit. The way a bull keeps charging at things that can't hurt it because it doesn't know what else to do.'

Elena thought of her own apartment, the bed she hadn't made in weeks, the surveillance photos scattered across her kitchen table. She thought of the corporate email she'd sent yesterday: SUBJECT CONFIRMED. RECOMMEND EXTRACTION.

'Serve,' she said.

He did. This time, she didn't try to return it. She let it bounce past, watching it come to rest against the glass.

'Game,' Marcus said, walking to the net. 'Same time Thursday?'

Elena looked at him—at the exhaustion in his shoulders, the hope in his eyes. She thought of her deadline, the extraction team waiting in the wings, the report she'd file tonight.

'I don't think so,' she said, and walked off the court without looking back.