The Padel Court Saboteur

The vitamin supplements sat on Marcus's desk like a silent accusation. A small orange bottle with his friend's distinctive handwriting on the label—'Take daily, for stress.' Julian had left them there three weeks ago, back when they still met for padel every Thursday evening.

Now Marcus sat in his office at 11 PM, scrolling through the email attachments that had arrived anonymously. Corporate espionage. The documents showed Julian had been feeding product roadmap details to their competitor for eighteen months. The spy in their midst had been the person Marcus had trusted implicitly since business school.

The irony twisted in his gut like a knife. All those padel matches, all those post-game drinks where Julian had complained about management, all the while positioning himself to betray them. Marcus remembered their conversation last month—Julian mocking the company's new baseball-themed marketing campaign, calling it desperate and nostalgic.

'Baseball,' Julian had said, draining his craft beer, 'it's all about manufactured nostalgia. People want to remember something that never really existed.'

Marcus had nodded, not realizing Julian was already planning his exit strategy, already measuring the company's worth in severance packages and NDAs.

He picked up the vitamin bottle. The pills rattled inside—tiny capsules of trust, carefully manufactured and delivered. Had Julian brought him these as some twisted form of compensation? A token of friendship before the final betrayal?

The email from HR would arrive in the morning. Julian's last day was Friday. By then, Marcus would have to pretend everything was normal, would have to show up for their final padel match and play his friend one last time.

He tossed the vitamin bottle into the trash. Some supplements, like some friendships, were better left undigested.