The Signals We Send

Elena's iPhone buzzed against her nightstand at 2:17 AM — the third time this week. Marcus's number. Again.

She sat up in bed, the blue light casting harsh shadows across her face. Their affair had started innocently enough: padel matches after work, sweaty and breathless on the court, then drinks at the bar where conversation turned dangerously personal. Marcus was brilliant, funny, everything her husband David wasn't. Or hadn't been in years.

Now she stared at his latest message: 'They know. The cable modems are compromised.'

Elena's stomach dropped. Marcus worked in cybersecurity for the same conglomerate as David, though in different divisions. They'd joked about corporate espionage over gin martinis, but this wasn't a joke anymore. Her husband — the man who'd grown distant, who'd started working late, who'd password-protected his laptop — what had he been doing?

She padded barefoot to David's home office. His company-issued laptop sat open on his desk. A tangle of ethernet cables snaked behind it, including one she'd never noticed before: a modified splitter, its casing slightly warped.

Her fingers trembled as she traced the cable to the wall. A tap. Not a corporate spy tool, but something cruder, more desperate.

The bedroom door creaked. David stood silhouetted in the hallway, his face unreadable.

'I didn't mean to find it like this,' she said, her voice cracking. 'I thought you were having an affair.'

'No.' David stepped into the room, his exhaustion palpable. 'I've been gathering evidence. The division Marcus works for? They're selling client data to offshore brokers. I've been documenting everything for months.' He paused. 'And I've suspected Marcus was grooming you for information. The padel games, the drinks — Elena, you're his spy.'

She thought of Marcus's late-night texts, his probing questions about her husband's projects. The warmth in her chest turned to ice.

'What do we do now?'

David closed his eyes. 'We finish this. Together.'