Blind Spots

If Tuomas Aalto stepped into an open grave, he would measure the corners before he complained about the dirt.

We were standing in the center of the Grand Ballroom at the Koivisto estate, exactly ninety minutes after Satu Koivisto had excused herself to oversee the family's maritime holdings. Outside, sea mist rolled across the granite terrace, but inside, the ballroom was a canyon of pale limestone, gilded cornices, and ninety-six acoustic panels that Tuomas had already touched twice with the flat of his palm.

I wanted two things immediately.

First, a scalpel to scrape the smug calculation off my co-planner’s jawline.

Second, a clear mental blueprint of every surveillance camera mounted along the ceiling vaults.

The wedding was seventy-two hours away. The four hundred Luoto blooms I planned to extract were scheduled to arrive at the south loading dock at four in the morning on Saturday. I had sole authority over that dock door, but the approved floral crew was packed with Joona Laaksonen’s harbor enforcers. If I couldn't move the crates from the south dock into the cellar vaults without crossing their path, those enforcers would hijack the flowers before my courier could even sign the thermal transfer receipt.

To bypass them, I needed a dead zone. A path with zero lens coverage.

"You're drifting to the left, Rantanen," Tuomas said.

He didn't look up from his digital slate.

"I'm assessing the guest flow," I replied.

"You're standing four feet off the centerline. The primary procession enters through the double oak doors at the south arch. If you position the orchestra on the north mezzanine, the brass section will blow out the eardrums of table fourteen."

"Table fourteen is Satu's third cousins from Turku," I said, checking my paper schematic. "They sued her brother over timber rights in ninety-eight. Deafening them during the vows is a diplomatic courtesy."

Tuomas paused. His stylus hovered over the glass screen.

For a second, the corner of his mouth twitched upward by half a millimeter. It was a terrifying sign of life in an otherwise granite face.

"Acoustics are non-negotiable," he said, the flatness slamming back into place. "The Koivisto name does not tolerate muffled speeches or squeaking microphones. We seat the cousins near the east alcove behind the sound-dampening drapery."

"Fine. East alcove. Now tell me about the west gallery."

Tuomas raised his head. His gray eyes were entirely too perceptive.

"What about it?" he asked.

"The head table," I said smoothly, tapping the blueprint. "If Satu wants eighty banquet rounds of ten, the west gallery becomes the primary service artery for the catering team. We need continuous clearance."

"The west gallery is twenty-four feet wide," Tuomas said. "You have ample clearance for carts, servers, and your oversized floral pedestals."

"My pedestals are standard five-foot Roman fluted columns," I shot back. "And they're structural."

"They're a fire hazard."

"They're five thousand euros each, Tuomas. Satu signed off on the mockups. If you want to tell a woman who owns three cargo terminals that her favorite white hydrangeas look cheap on wire stands, be my guest. I'll film it for training purposes."

Tuomas stared at me. He was wearing a charcoal wool suit that fit his wide shoulders with infuriating precision. The collar of his white shirt was stiff and immaculate, unbothered by the damp Baltic air that had already turned my dark hair into a riot of curls.

He stepped toward me. One stride. Two.

He stopped eighteen inches away.

The scent of cedarwood, cold rain, and clean cotton hit me square in the chest.

I did not step back. Stepping back in an argument with Tuomas Aalto was the tactical equivalent of baring your throat to a wolf with a clipboard.

"The columns stay," he said softly. "On one condition."

"I don't accept conditions from men who color-code their highlighters."

"You will on this one," he murmured. "Because if those columns obstruct the emergency egress routes along the west corridor, the municipal fire marshal will shut this reception down at six in the evening. And neither of us gets paid."

His voice was low, resonant, and entirely too steady.

"Where do you want them, then?" I asked.

"Show me the floor," he said.

He gestured toward the glass double doors leading into the Grand Conservatory.

The conservatory was an iron-and-glass rotunda that jutted out over the rocky sea cliffs. It was breathtaking, cavernous, and an absolute logistical slaughterhouse. Over two thousand square meters of polished limestone tile sat beneath a soaring glass dome, surrounded by tiers of winter-dormant camellias and ficus trees.

More importantly, the iron ribs of the dome were lined with high-resolution dome cameras.

I counted four as we crossed the threshold.

Two mounted above the entrance arches, sweeping a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc. One mounted above the catering service portal. One anchored directly to the central iron chandelier hoist.

"Notice the temperature differential," Tuomas said, his shoes clicking sharply against the tile. "The radiant floor heating is set to twenty-one degrees Celsius. But the dome glass bleeds thermal energy at thirty watts per square meter. At night, the upper canopy drops to fourteen degrees."

"Which causes cold air drafts to plunge straight onto the bridal party," I finished.

"Precisely."

He didn't sound arrogant. He sounded like a man stating an immutable law of physics.

"We install localized ceramic infrared heaters behind the perimeter ficus tubs," I said, pacing along the west curved wall. "Angle them upward at thirty-five degrees to create a thermal curtain against the glass."

Tuomas watched my feet as I moved.

"Thirty-five degrees is too steep," he noted. "You'll scorch the ficus leaves."

"Thirty-two degrees, then. Don't be pedantic."

"Pedantry is why my roofs don't collapse under snow loads, Rantanen."

"You plan weddings, Tuomas. You don't build bridges."

"The principles of structural integrity remain identical," he countered.

I kept moving, taking deliberate, measured three-foot strides along the edge of the limestone terrace.

I wasn't just measuring space for ficus tubs. I was pacing out the blind spots of the center chandelier camera.

The central dome unit was a commercial PTZ turret. It rotated on a sixteen-second oscillation cycle. At the apex of its eastward swing, its line of sight was entirely clipped by the ornamental wrought-iron arch above the west service door.

Four seconds of dead space.

If a courier moved quickly along the outer limestone rim, shielded by the five-foot hydrangeas on their Roman pedestals, they would be invisible to the main estate monitor bank.

I stopped near the service door, pretending to inspect a brass floor vent.

"The west plinths belong here," I said, planting my boot on a marble seam. "Three meters from the door frame, aligned with the iron support column."

Tuomas walked over, his slate tucked under his arm.

He stepped directly into my space, leaning down to sight along the trajectory of the imaginary aisle. His shoulder brushed against mine.

The contact was solid, heavy, and hot through the fabric of my jacket.

My heart gave an involuntary, traitorous thump against my ribs.

I stared straight ahead at the iron filigree. He was close enough that I could see the faint shadow of morning stubble along his jawline and the tiny, pale scar cutting through his left eyebrow.

He didn't pull away. Neither did I.

"If you place the pedestal here," he said, his voice dropping into a quiet rumble near my ear, "the line of sight from the north entrance is completely blocked."

"That's the point," I said, keeping my breathing even. "The service door remains hidden from the dining area. Guests don't need to see waitstaff wheeling dirty soup bowls into the scullery."

"Or anything else."

I snapped my head toward him.

His gray eyes were fixed on mine, steady and unnervingly clear.

"What else would they be wheeling, Tuomas?" I asked coolly.

He held my gaze for three beats. The silence between us stretched tight, humming like a plucked wire.

"Champagne buckets," he said smoothly. "Ice melts fast under thirty-two-degree thermal curtains."

He straightened up.

Without a word, he reached past my shoulder, took hold of the brass window latch beside my head, and adjusted the louvers downward by three inches. The blinding glare of morning sunlight reflecting off the sea vanished instantly from my face.

I blinked in the sudden shade.

I hadn't even realized I was squinting against the light.

He didn't mention it. He just turned back to his tablet and made a rapid notation with his stylus.

"The pedestal location is acceptable," he said. "Mark it on the master layout."

"Already marked," I said, tapping my pencil against my notebook.

I had my camera blind spot. The route along the west conservatory wall was clean for four seconds every sweep cycle.

Now I needed the subterranean connection.

The Koivisto estate had been built in the late nineteenth century as a private coastal manor before undergoing heavy modern fortifications. The original blueprints on file with the Helsinki building registry showed a direct utility corridor connecting the south carriage house—now the loading bay—to the basement wine cellars beneath the ballroom.

If that corridor was open and unmonitored, Matti and I could transfer the Luoto blooms directly into the cold vaults without setting foot in the main freight elevator where Joona's thugs would be stationed.

"I need to check the cellar hoist," I announced, stepping away from the glass wall.

Tuomas didn't look up from his screen. "The wine cellar is off-limits until tomorrow's inventory audit."

"I'm not checking the wine," I said. "I'm checking the electrical distribution boxes. If Satu's lighting designer plugs four hundred LED uplights into the old circuitry, the main breaker will trip during the first dance. And I refuse to let eight hundred aristocrats sit in the dark while you look for a flashlight."

"The electrical panels were upgraded in November," Tuomas said.

"By whom?"

"Koivisto Technical Services."

"Private contractors hired by an octogenarian matriarch," I scoffed. "Forgive me if I don't trust their grounding wires. I'm doing a visual inspection."

"I'll come with you," he said.

"No need. Try not to miss me while I'm gone."

I turned on my heel and slipped through the west service door before he could argue.

The service hallway behind the conservatory was narrow, utilitarian, and smelled faintly of floor wax and sea damp. The walls here were plain poured concrete, stripped of the ballroom's opulent gilt and limestone. Fluorescent strip lighting hummed overhead.

I moved quickly, following the downward slope of the floor toward the service stairs.

My boots made no sound against the rubberized floor runner. Smuggling in high-end venues had taught me two invaluable life skills: never wear heels to a site walk-through, and never hesitate at an unmarked door.

At the bottom of the stairwell, the modern concrete gave way to heavy granite foundation blocks.

I paused on the lower landing for three minutes, cross-referencing the breaker sub-panel against my schematic to ensure the caterers wouldn't blow the south circuit. Once I verified the breaker loads, I stepped around the corner.

The air grew cold.

The smell of aged oak, damp stone, and mineral salt hit my nose. I was beneath the main hall.

To the right lay the primary wine cellar, behind a heavy iron-banded door secured with an electronic keypad lock. To the left, tucked into the shadow of a massive structural archway, was an unpainted metal door with no handle, only a standard push bar.

According to the 1904 architectural survey I had memorized two nights ago, that door led to the subterranean coal chute.

The chute had been decommissioned sixty years ago. But in modern estates, old coal chutes became utility raceways for fiber optic cables, chilled water lines, and ventilation ducts.

I pushed down on the bar.

The latch clicked softly. The heavy metal swung outward without a squeak.

Fresh grease on the hinges.

Someone had oiled them recently.

I slipped inside and pulled the door almost shut behind me, leaving it cracked a fraction of an inch to let in a sliver of hallway light.

I pulled a small penlight from my jacket pocket and clicked it on.

The narrow beam sliced through the darkness.

The passage was barely four feet wide. Exposed conduits and insulated copper refrigerant pipes ran along the low granite ceiling. The floor was smooth poured cement, sloping gently upward toward the south wing.

It was completely empty.

No security cameras. No infrared motion sensors along the conduit runs.

It led straight from the south loading bay directly into the rear of the cold storage vault.

A clean, unmonitored artery.

"Bingo," I whispered under my breath.

With this corridor, we wouldn't need the freight elevator. Matti could roll the climate-controlled floral transport boxes off the truck at four in the morning, duck through the south intake door, and wheel them down this chute directly into the vault before Joona's syndicate enforcers even finished their coffee.

"It's three feet, eight inches wide," a voice said out of the dark.

I froze.

My hand dropped instantly to my waistband, fingers brushing the handle of my steel floral shears before my brain caught up with my ears.

A sharp beam of red light cut through the gloom three inches above my head.

The red dot struck the stone lintel above the doorway, followed by the quiet electronic beep of a digital laser measure.

Tuomas was leaning against the damp granite wall six feet into the darkness, completely hidden by the shadow of the overhead pipes.

While I had stopped at the breaker panel, he had taken the direct staff lift from the conservatory pantry, slipping into the chute minutes before I opened the door. He knew the estate's shortcuts just as well as I did.

"You move quietly for a woman holding six pounds of wedding paperwork," Tuomas said.

He clicked off the laser measure and stepped forward into the narrow sliver of light from the cracked door.

His dark hair was slightly mussed. His tie was loosened by half an inch.

In the confined space of the stone corridor, his presence felt massive.

"You were following me," I said, keeping my voice flat and dangerous.

"I was inspecting the auxiliary route," he countered. "As co-lead coordinator, it is my professional duty to ensure you don't wander into areas where you might hurt yourself."

"I don't get hurt, Tuomas. I cause logistical delays."

"Clearly."

He took a step closer. The corridor was so narrow that our coats brushed.

The air between us felt instantly compressed, dense and heavy with heat.

"What are you doing in the coal chute, Rantanen?" he asked.

"I told you. Checking the cable runs for the lighting rigs."

"The lighting relays are in the north breaker room," he said calmly. "These conduits carry auxiliary refrigerant lines for the estate's private medical vault."

My stomach tightened.

"Medical vault?" I echoed, keeping my tone mildly bored.

"The Luoto blooms require precision cooling," Tuomas said, his gray eyes pinning me against the stone wall. "Three point four degrees Celsius. Not three. Not four. If the temperature fluctuates by half a degree during transit, the sap coagulates and the flowers turn brown within twelve minutes."

He knew the exact botanical specs.

Not just wedding specs. Pharmaceutical preservation specs.

"Good to know," I said, crossing my arms to hide the tension in my fingers. "I'll make sure the florist brings extra ice packs."

"Your florist isn't handling them," Tuomas said softly. "The syndicate crew is."

"Right. The lovely gentlemen from the docks."

Tuomas tilted his head. He was standing less than a foot from me now.

If I reached out, my fingers would land directly on the lapel of his suit.

"You didn't seem surprised when you saw their names on the roster," he said.

"I don't judge people by their criminal records, Tuomas. I judge them by whether their boutonnières stay pinned to the groomsmen's lapels."

"Is that right?"

"That's right."

"Then you wouldn't mind if I asked about Kotka."

The name hit the back of my neck like a bucket of ice water.

Kotka.

The commercial shipping port on the Gulf of Finland. The harbor where I had run maritime freight diversions for three years before moving my operation to Helsinki's elite wedding circuit.

My pulse surged, but my face didn't move a single millimeter.

"Kotka has lovely birch trees," I said evenly. "And very boring seafood."

"And three separate customs seizures between twenty-twenty-two and twenty-twenty-four," Tuomas murmured, his voice smooth as silk. "All involving unmanifested cold-chain crates of rare ornamental flora. All handled through a freight forwarder named Rantanen Logistics."

He had run a full intelligence dossier on me.

Not a standard vendor background check. A deep, classified audit.

"Coincidences happen in maritime logistics," I said.

Tuomas leaned in, his face inches from mine, his gray eyes searching every line of my expression.

"I don't believe in coincidences, Eevi."

"Then you must live a very exhausting life."

"It has its moments."

He reached out.

His fingers didn't grab me. Instead, his knuckles lightly brushed the lapel of my jacket, straightening the twisted fabric near my collar before falling away.

The brief touch burned through the wool like a live wire.

"The corridor is off-limits," Tuomas said quietly. "For everyone. Including you."

He turned on his heel and pushed open the metal door, stepping out into the brightly lit stairwell.

"Let's get back upstairs," he called back over his shoulder. "We have eight hundred table linens to count."

I stood in the cold dark for two seconds, listening to the steady, unhurried rhythm of his footsteps ascending the stone stairs.

My fingers were clenched tight against my palms.

He knew about Kotka.

And he was still letting me walk the floor.

Why?

I took a slow breath, smoothed down my jacket, and followed him toward the light.