The Riddle at Sunset

Maya smoothed her orange silk blouse, the color of warning signs and construction barriers, appropriate attire for what she was about to do. The corporate gala at the Egyptian Museum felt less like a networking event and more like a carefully staged heist—except she was the only one who knew it was a heist.

She'd spent six months as a corporate spy embedded in Helios Corp, feeding competitor intel to their rivals. Six months of dinner parties and strategy meetings and pretending to care about quarterly projections. She'd become whatever they needed her to be: a sphinx offering riddles she'd already solved, revealing only what served her purpose.

The job had taken something from her. She'd stopped recognizing her own reflection somewhere around month four. The ethical gymnastics required to sleep at night—these were good people, mostly, and she was dismantling their livelihoods for a payout—had worn grooves into her psyche.

Then she met David.

David from accounting, who brought her fresh oranges from his tree every Tuesday. David, who asked about her weekend and actually waited for the answer. David, whose apartment she'd stayed in last night instead of gathering intel on the merger that would destroy his department.

The riddle had changed. The sphinx had begun to believe her own lies.

Maya's phone buzzed—her handler. *You have the encryption key?*

She watched David across the room, laughing at something his boss said, completely unaware that Maya held his future in her pocket. The encryption key on her phone would gut the company. Not just corporate restructuring—lives dismantled, mortgages defaulted, dreams deferred.

The sphinx's riddle: What do you lose when you finally find something worth keeping?

The orange silk suddenly felt like a costume she couldn't wait to shed. Maya pressed delete on the encrypted message, then blocked her handler's number. Some riddles you answer by walking away.

She crossed the room toward David, leaving the sphinx behind, stepping into something that might be real.