A Shared Alibi

How do you hide three ounces of fresh blood from a man who measures doorway clearances by eye?

You do not back up. You step into his reach before his gaze has time to drop.

Tuomas stood framed in the service doorway under the white halogen floodlight, immaculate in his charcoal wool overcoat and dark tie. His sharp gray eyes took in the gravel apron, the idling generator fifty yards off, and my face. He had that calm, infuriatingly rigid posture he always assumed before delivering bad news about catering schedules.

"You left the subbasement corridor," he said. His voice was smooth, quiet, and entirely level. "The pier tender arrives at eleven-thirty. Satu expects us at the south dock."

"I needed air," I said.

"The air in the freight corridor is six degrees," he replied, taking a measured step onto the wet gravel. "The courtyard is three. That is an inefficient temperature exchange."

He looked at my face, but his chin dipped two inches. He was about to scan my posture. If his gaze dropped six inches lower, he would see the black silk sleeve of my blazer hanging in ragged ribbons from wrist to elbow. He would see the raw meat of my scraped knuckles and the slow red drip hitting the pale stones at my feet.

I did not have twenty seconds to fabricate a story about broken glass.

I closed the three paces between us before he could finish his step.

My clean left hand shot up, grabbing the heavy lapel of his overcoat. I yanked him hard into the shadow of the doorframe, forcing him backward against the concrete jamb. At the same time, I tucked my right arm behind his hip, driving my torn, bloody sleeve flush against the dark wool of his side where the fabric would swallow the stain.

Tuomas stiffened. His posture went completely rigid against mine.

"Eevi—"

I pulled his head down and pressed my mouth directly over his.

It was supposed to be a blunt tactical distraction. In my head, it was a three-second maneuver to blind his field of vision, buy myself five feet of clearance, and scramble his forensic instincts.

The plan failed instantly.

For half a second, he stayed perfectly still, shocked by the impact. His lips were cold from the courtyard air, smelling faintly of cedar and black coffee. Then his right hand came up, wrapping around the curve of my waist with enough force to lift my boots off the gravel. He pulled me hard against his body, eliminating every fraction of an inch between us.

The kiss changed from a collision into an invasion.

Tuomas did not ask for permission, and he did not ease into the rhythm. His mouth opened over mine with a fierce, demanding precision that knocked the breath clean out of my lungs. His fingers dug through the silk at my back, anchoring me in place. The sudden warmth stripped away the courtyard chill.

My left hand tangled in the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer when I should have pushed him away. Every clean calculation in my head disintegrated into static. I had spent six weeks treating this man like a dangerous obstacle on a logistics sheet. Now his tongue grazed my lower lip, tasting of mint and unbending intent, leaving my thoughts completely scrambled.

He was ruthless. He kissed the way he inspected freight manifests—thorough, deliberate, refusing to leave a single detail unexamined.

When he finally broke the seal of our mouths, neither of us was breathing right.

He did not let go of my waist. He held me pinned against the doorway, his forehead resting lightly against mine, his dark lashes lowered. His chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow hitches against my ribs.

"Was that in the event schedule?" he murmured. His voice had lost its formal polish, rough around the edges and noticeably lower.

"Ten-forty-eight," I whispered, fighting to keep my voice steady against the sudden tightness in my throat. "A brief operational adjustment."

"You did not submit a change order."

"I prefer verbal confirmations."

A faint twitch stirred the corner of his mouth, the closest he ever came to an actual smile. His gaze traveled over my face—my mouth, my cheekbones, my eyes. He was searching for something. For once in his life, the man who noticed everything had completely missed the cargo theft, the unconscious courier in the van, and the forty kilos of contraband sitting behind the compressor units thirty feet away.

"You are shaking," he said quietly.

"It is three degrees outside, Tuomas."

"Your pulse is elevated." His thumb pressed into the soft hollow just above my hipbone, testing the rhythm through my shirt. "Significantly."

"You are remarkably confident for a man pinned against a doorframe."

"I am not the one who initiated the contact."

"A tactical necessity."

"Explain the tactic."

"You were about to lecture me on logistics," I said, tilting my chin up. "I found the prospect exhausting."

Tuomas looked down at me for three silent beats, stripped of the polite corporate mask we wore in front of Satu Koivisto. His hand lingered on my waist for another second, his fingers warm through the fabric, before he reluctantly stepped back.

The cool air rushed between us, sharp and sobering.

I instantly shifted my weight, turning my right shoulder away from the floodlight to keep my mangled sleeve buried in the shadows of the masonry. I jammed my bloodied right hand deep into the pocket of my slacks, praying the white cotton lining would soak up the remainder before it dripped through to the wool.

Tuomas adjusted his collar with a single, crisp pull of his fingers. The professional armor slid back into place, though his eyes remained darker than usual.

"The Lindholm catering crew is running late," he said, glancing toward the courtyard where the white delivery van sat silent in the fog. "I do not see their driver."

"He stepped off to take a call," I lied without missing a beat. "I told him to stay clear of the loading bay until the tender is docked."

Tuomas nodded once, accepting the explanation. He turned toward the wall-mounted security panel beside the door. "Good. We cannot afford unauthorized movement near the perimeter during an unmanifested intake."

He slid his master security badge across the digital reader. The pad beeped three times in rapid succession. Tuomas keyed a six-digit administrative sequence into the keypad, his fingers moving with routine efficiency.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Enforcing protocol," he replied. "Satu authorized a level-two perimeter isolation until the eighty-kilo harvest is safely locked in the vault."

A heavy pneumatic hiss echoed along the steel lintel above our heads. The magnetic deadbolts engaged with a muted thud, followed by the steady descent of the exterior roll-up gate across the delivery bay.

The red security beacon above the panel settled into a solid crimson glow.

Tuomas turned back to me, holding the service door open toward the brightly lit interior corridor. "The exterior perimeter is secured. We have twenty-seven minutes before the tender docks at the pier."

His dark collar remained slightly askew where my fingers had caught the wool. His breathing had returned to its measured pace, but his gaze stayed fixed on mine, patient and watchful.

Outside in the freezing fog, forty kilograms of unmanifested blooms rested in the dark beside the compressor. Inside, there was only the warm corridor and the man who had just rewritten every rule between us.

I stepped past him into the light and let the heavy door click shut.