The Private Eye

Elena's fingers trembled as she scrolled through her husband's iPhone at 3 AM. The blue light illuminated the dark bedroom, casting shadows on her face and the strands of blonde hair falling across her eyes. She'd suspected something for weeks—the way Marcus hid his screen during dinner, the sudden late-night meetings, the vitamin supplements he'd started taking that he'd always mocked before.

She wasn't prepared for what she found.

The messages weren't from another woman. They were more systematic, more coldly professional. Marcus wasn't having an affair. He was a spy—not in the romantic sense, but in the corporate espionage kind. His targets: her colleagues at the tech firm where they both worked. Their pillow talk had been reconnaissance. Her casual complaints about office drama were intelligence.

The vitamin bottle in the bathroom cabinet suddenly made sense. The supplements were the same brand her boss swore by—Marcus had been positioning himself as the perfect insider.

Elena remembered the company dinner last month, how Marcus had charmed the VP while she'd watched, proud of her social-climbing husband. Now she understood he'd been gathering information on the upcoming merger her team was developing. He'd been sleeping with the enemy while pretending to be her partner.

She continued scrolling. The latest message read: Phase complete. Final extraction tomorrow night.

Tomorrow was their fifth anniversary.

Elena set the phone back exactly as she'd found it, her heart hammering against her ribs. She returned to bed, careful not to disturb Marcus's rhythmic breathing. As she lay there, listening to the man she'd trusted completely, she realized the surveillance state had invaded her own bedroom. The NSA had nothing on marriage.

She closed her eyes and began planning her own counterintelligence operation. Five years of intimacy meant she had ammunition too—his passwords, his fears, the way he always left his phone unlocked when he showered.

The vitamin supplements on his nightstand caught the moonlight. She'd be replacing them with something else tomorrow. Corporate espionage was a game two could play.