The Spinach in Your Teeth

Elena smoothed her skirt as she walked onto the padel court, the afternoon heat already pressing against her skin. The Maestro—Carlos, she reminded herself, never the target—waited at the net, his smile practised and warm. She'd spent six months infiltrating his export business, six months of late nights and forged documents, all to gather enough evidence to dismantle the smuggling operation feeding half the city's fentanyl problem.

"The spin-act first?" Carlos asked, gesturing to the restaurant attached to the club.

Elena's stomach turned. "Spinach," she corrected automatically, then hated herself. The mission. Focus on the mission.

They sat under the restaurant's pergola, shade dappled across white tablecloths. Carlos ordered spinach salad for both of them, explaining how his mother grew it in their family garden. Elena watched his hands—tanned, elegant, capable of anything. Including murder, if the dossier was right.

"You have something," Carlos said gently, reaching across the table.

Her pulse spiked. Had he seen the transmitter? The backup drive taped to her inner thigh?

"There. Spinach in your teeth." He smiled, no trickery, just kindness. "Your lipstick, it's... you have lovely smile lines when you laugh. I've noticed."

Elena's breath caught. She was thirty-two, a field operative, and this mark—this criminal—was the first person in three years to really see her. Not as an asset, not as a threat, but as a woman with laugh lines.

"Your contact," Carlos said softly, still smiling, "has been compromised. That's why I ordered the spinach—it wilts fast, like a blown operation. I'm not your target, Elena. I'm Intelligence. Counter-espionage."

The padel court behind them echoed with players' shouts. Elena's handler had been compromised. Carlos wasn't a smuggler. He was a handler.

"Six months," she whispered.

"Six months to earn your trust," Carlos said. "Now finish your salad. We have extraction to plan."

The spinach tasted like betrayal, like second chances, like the first honest meal she'd had since she took this assignment.