What the Cat Knew

The chlorine stung Elena's eyes as she watched Marcus from across the pool. Company retreats were never really about team building—they were about watching. And Marcus was worth watching lately. The way he'd started leaving meetings early to take calls in the stairwell. The encrypted external drive she'd spotted in his bag last Tuesday.

Elena adjusted her wide-brimmed hat, grateful for the shadow it cast over her face. Her colleagues thought she was just being careful about sun exposure, but really, she needed cover for how often she found herself staring at Marcus these days, trying to reconcile the man she'd worked alongside for three years with the person she feared he'd become.

"Earth to Elena."

She jumped. Sarah from accounting stood beside her lounge chair, holding two margaritas. "You've been staring at Marcus all afternoon. If you want to fuck him, just go for it. We're all adults here."

"It's not that."

"Then what? Because honestly? The sexual tension is getting uncomfortable."

Elena considered telling her everything—the late-night file transfers she'd noticed in the system logs, the proprietary algorithms that had ended up in a competitor's product two months ago, the way Marcus's apartment was somehow always empty when she drove past at 3 AM. But she didn't. Instead, she accepted the margarita and said, "You're imagining things."

Her cat, Buster, would have known better. Animals sensed deception. Marcus had come over for dinner once, back when Elena still trusted him, and Buster had spent the entire evening crouched under the sofa, ears flattened, yellow eyes fixed on Marcus with a suspicion that now seemed prophetic. Elena had laughed it off then—Buster hated everyone—but the memory gnawed at her now.

Marcus emerged from the pool, water streaming down his torso. He caught Elena watching him and smiled. Something tightened in her chest—not desire, but something like grief, heavy and suffocating. She'd started this job with him. They'd celebrated their promotions together. And now she was almost certain he was selling their work to the highest bidder.

"You coming in?" he called. "Water's perfect."

"In a bit," she said.

"You sure? You look like you need to cool off."

Elena forced a smile. Marcus's swimsuit was the same blue he always wore, his easy charm the same as ever. That was the thing about spies—or whatever he was—they hid in plain sight. In the reflection of his sunglasses, she saw herself: a woman who once loved a man she might have to destroy.

She took a sip of her margarita. The salt rim stung her lip. "Yeah," she said. "I will."

But she didn't move. Sometimes the hardest thing wasn't discovering the betrayal. It was deciding what to do with it.