The Vitamin Leak

Emma watched the surveillance footage for the third time, her finger hovering over the pause button. There it was—plain as day—Marcus slipping something into her coffee. Not exactly the behavior of a friend.

She'd suspected he was the corporate spy stealing their proprietary research, but the betrayal still stung. They'd known each other since business school, survived two startup failures together, celebrated each other's weddings. Now this.

The morning light caught her graying hair in the monitor's reflection. She'd stopped coloring it six months ago—partly exhaustion, partly a strange kind of surrender. Forty-two and suddenly visible in rooms she'd dominated for decades. The vitamin supplements on her desk mocked her with their promises of renewal, preservation, vitality. All lies.

Marcus had been bringing her coffee every morning for three weeks. "You look tired, Em," he'd say, his forehead creasing with what she'd mistaken for concern. The surveillance showed him crushing small white capsules into her latte with practiced efficiency.

She should report him. Let security handle it. Instead, she found herself at his apartment door at 11 PM.

He opened it, shock registering before he could mask it. Behind him, she could see the familiar framed photo of them at graduation—arms wrapped around each other, drunk on possibility.

"Vitamin B12 deficiency," he said quietly, not meeting her eyes. "I saw your lab work, Em. You left it on your desk. That's why you've been forgetting things, why the headaches won't stop."

Emma stared at him. "You broke into my medical records?"

"I called your sister. She was worried about you." He finally looked at her. "I didn't know how to tell you I knew."

The corporate spy. The thief. The man who'd drugged her daily coffee.

"Why the covert operation?"

"Because you're proud, Emma. You'd rather die than admit you're not okay." His voice cracked. "And because I really am stealing the research."

He stepped aside, gestured to a stack of documents on his table. "Not for a competitor. For the regulators. The trial data is fabricated. People are going to get hurt."

Emma felt something shift inside her—the anger replaced by something heavier, more complicated. She'd been so busy suspecting betrayal that she'd missed the actual betrayal: the company's.

"So what now?"

"Now," he said, "you take your vitamins. And we decide what kind of people we want to be."