Defending Hearts

by Rebecca Crowley

  When his best friend, Glynn, had texted that his address was on a Citizens First website, he’d laughed. Then he’d put his phone in his locker and spent the next several hours training with Skyline. When he picked up his phone again it had flashed with missed calls and panicked messages from a slew of friends and relatives. Although it had been removed within an hour, news of the list had found its way onto a lunchtime segment on one of the major broadcasters and taken off from there.

  Suddenly his publicist was fielding calls from reporters asking how it felt to be outed as Muslim, whether he’d received any death threats, and vying to be the first to get his exclusive interview.

  “You can’t out someone for something that was never a secret,” he’d told her over the phone in the hallway outside the locker room, still wearing his training kit. “And I’m happy to be interviewed on the subject of American professional soccer, since none of them seem to care enough to cover it on a regular basis, but my personal life is off-limits.”

  Except the messages kept coming. Hundreds of Islamophobic comments littered his social-media pages, punctuated by racist images and hideous language, each one worse than the last.

  Oz took advantage of a red stoplight to scrub his palm over his eyes as comment after remembered comment flashed behind his eyes.

  Get ready to die, filthy haji. We’re coming for all you sand rats. Run back to the desert while your head is still attached to your shoulders.

  But the one that scared him the most—the one that still sent a chill down his spine whenever it popped up—was by a user whose comments were always the same. Several times each day, across all the social-media platforms Oz used, a brand-new commenter appeared with a random jumble of numbers as a username. No amount of blocking seemed able to stop the phrase that posted over and over again: Ausonius 70.

  Ausonius was a reference to a serial killer who’d shot immigrants in Stockholm in the late 1990s. Seventy was Oz’s house number.

  Oz exhaled a wave of anxiety as he turned into his neighborhood, forcibly shoving his thoughts in a different direction. Hateful though the comments were, he still wasn’t convinced hiring a security company was the answer. And their erstwhile account manager, Kate Mitchell, hadn’t done much to convince him.

  He didn’t like her, that much was clear. That she took Roland’s side didn’t exactly set them up to be best friends, but his distaste didn’t end there.

  He didn’t like her accent, for a start, that deep country drawl that he heard most often from fat white men calling him queer through the windows of pickup trucks. As a pacifist he disliked her military record on principle, and her subsequent move to an oil company was even worse.

  Of course, his opinion was based entirely on ideology. It had nothing to do with the way she’d utterly failed to respond to his provocation, or buy into his lofty objections, or laugh at his jokes…

  He couldn’t stop his smile. Okay, maybe she wasn’t all that bad.

  She wasn’t bad-looking, either, if he was honest. Chin-length brown hair, blue eyes, a tall, athletic build. Nothing like his type, though. Not the sophisticated, erudite, professional woman he could count on to see him through what would inevitably be his short-lived soccer career to his life beyond. In fact, she reminded him a lot of his uncle’s ex-wife—the woman who’d divorced him after an injury brought his uncle’s high-flying soccer days to a screeching halt, whose abandonment sent his uncle into the depressive spiral that ultimately killed him.

  He shook his head. No way was he falling into the same trap. He had The Plan.

  Still, maybe they could at least—

  Oz slammed on his brakes, the seatbelt digging into his neck as the car jerked to a halt a few feet from his driveway. He checked his mirrors, glanced out both windows, twisted in his seat to confirm the road was empty. Then he picked up his phone, found Kate’s business card in his pocket and dialed her number.

  She answered on the second ring.

  “Kate? It’s Oz Terim. I was just in your office.”

  “Of course, what can I do for you, Oz?”

  “I think I might have a problem,” he replied, studying the crude symbol spray-painted on his mailbox. The handiwork wasn’t great, but the intention was clear.

  A swastika. Bright, white, and so fresh the paint was still dripping.

  Chapter 2

  “Can we put it here?” Kate indicated a space beside the back door.

  Oz shook his head. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to have to look at it every time I go into the backyard.”

  “Can we put it over there, next to the fridge?”

  “Won’t work.”

  “Why?”

  “It’ll ruin the backsplash.”

  She swallowed an exasperated sigh as she propped her hands on her hips, surveying his enormous, white-glass-tiled kitchen and the even larger, even whiter dining and sitting rooms beyond it.

  “I like the open concept, Oz, but it doesn’t give us many walls to work with. And this alarm-system panel has to go somewhere.”

  He crossed his arms, brows furrowed in thought as he gazed across the space. Kate resisted the urge to roll her eyes for what must’ve been the thousandth time that morning.

  On one hand, she had to give him credit. She’d prepared herself for non-stop conflict when she arrived with her crew, resolved not to leave Oz’s house until she was satisfied with his security upgrades. Maybe she’d overestimated the force of his will, or more likely, underestimated the extent to which yesterday’s graffiti had shaken him, because he was surprisingly receptive to her reasoning and suggestions.

  On the other hand, he was decidedly not receptive when it came to practical issues like the placement and installation of infrared beams, motion-activated lights and alarm-system control panels. As much as she was grateful for his acceptance of the big picture, the constant back-and-forth about the details grated on her nerves.

  Not that she blamed him. Much. If she owned a multi-million-dollar pile like his, she’d also be picky about what went where.

  Thankfully she was at very little risk of ever having that problem.

  “I can’t see it,” he said finally, shaking his head. “Let’s stick with just one control panel on this floor, next to the front door.”

  Kate drew a steadying breath. “But as we discussed, you normally come into the house through the garage, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And you don’t want a control panel in the garage because you’re still deciding where to install shelving in there.”

  “Right.”

  “But you also don’t want a panel next to the back door, because you rarely use it to access the house, preferring to go through the garage to get to the backyard.”

  “Right.”

  “And we can’t put a panel anywhere else in the kitchen because it’ll mess up the tiling.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So.” She exhaled. “You’re about to go out. You turn on the alarm on the panel by the front door, and it gives you fifteen seconds to get into the garage before you set off the interior motion sensors. How far do you think it is from the front door to the garage?”

  He squinted, calculating. “Well, the whole house is seven thousand square feet, so I guess you halve that to get the bottom floor. It’s a pretty straight shot except for the slight curve around the kitchen island, which—”

  “It’s far,” she interrupted. “Too far for fifteen seconds.”

  “I don’t know,” he countered, thoughtful and maybe, just maybe, a little bit playful. “My highest burst speed on the pitch was clocked at twenty miles an hour.”

  Lord, give me strength.

  “You need a second panel on the ground floor,” she informed him sternly. “Garage or backdoor. Pick.”

  He huffed a
sigh, but she could swear she saw a hint of bemusement on that handsome face. “Fine. Garage.”

  “Great. Let’s choose the location for the one in the bedroom.”

  She followed Oz up the stairs, which—like the banister and landing—were sealed instead of painted so the dark wood stood out against the white walls.

  “This house is stunning,” she told him truthfully. “All this white—how do you keep it clean?”

  “I pay an extremely talented and thorough housekeeper. Also”—he paused on the landing, peered at a place on the wall, pulled one of those reusable cleaning pads from his pocket and scrubbed the nearly imperceptible mark until it disappeared—“I’m obsessive.”

  As if on cue, the sound of a drill whined from the direction of the kitchen. Oz leaned over the banister to have a look, but Kate ushered him up the stairs before he saw what she could: a fine spray of white dust as one of her workmen drilled holes to install the new panel.

  “Well, it’s worth it, because this place is amazing.” She nodded for him to precede her to the second floor. “When was it built, originally?”

  “Nineteen twenty-five. It had been totally modernized when I bought it—too modernized, in fact—and I wanted to strip everything back to a simple, minimal, Scandinavian style.” Distracted by what was clearly one of his favorite subjects, Oz’s posture eased as he led her down a carpeted corridor to the master bedroom. “The previous owners gutted it so the interior is all brand new, but at least it still has the gabled windows, the mature trees, and the carriage house out back.”

  She joined him inside the master bedroom, refusing to hesitate at the intimacy of the space, and then biting back a surprisingly affectionate smile as she took in her surroundings. The light gray carpet, pristine white walls and teak furniture were in line with what she’d seen downstairs, but this room actually looked vaguely lived-in. The bed was made, but not immaculately. A towel hung on the back of a chair. One of the dresser drawers was slightly ajar.

  She cast a sidelong glance at her frosty new client. Maybe he was human after all.

  “I don’t know where we can put a panel in here. I like to sleep in pitch-black darkness. Those curtains are custom-made from special light-exclusion fabric. I can’t have that little green light from the alarm glowing all night long.”

  Okay, half-human.

  After twenty minutes of what Kate thought was impeccable patience on her part, they agreed to install the panel just inside the door to the en-suite bathroom. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than nothing, and she dashed downstairs to inform the installer so he could start work before Oz changed his mind.

  When she returned to the master bedroom she found Oz staring thoughtfully at the place they’d agreed on, and she quickly directed him into the hallway before he could object.

  “Ideally I’d like to put one more panel on the second floor. Is there another room up here you use a lot?”

  “The study,” he answered promptly.

  “Perfect. Let’s have a look.”

  The study was at the opposite end of the house from the bedroom. Oz pushed open the door and she almost burst out laughing the instant she glanced inside.

  “So this is how you keep the house clean,” she remarked. “You hide the clutter in here.”

  “You could say that,” he admitted. And then, to her astonishment, he smiled.

  After their meeting the day before Kate spent a couple of hours trawling Oz’s social-media sites, trying to understand what had provoked Citizens First’s ire. His Twitter feed was inoffensive, active only once or twice a week as he wished a teammate happy birthday or made a comment about Skyline’s wins or losses on the soccer field (or “pitch” as Lorraine’s binder belatedly informed her it was called). He was more prolific on Instagram, where every couple of days he uploaded a photo.

  She’d flicked through them methodically, building a concept of her new client. Oz with his friends. Oz in the gym with his teammates. Oz at an awards ceremony. Oz at the beach without a shirt—maybe she’d lingered a little longer on that one.

  Click after click, photo after photo, a theme emerged: Oz never smiled.

  He clenched his fist and shouted in triumph on the pitch. He narrowed those big eyes and stared broodingly in professional shoots. He arched a brow or glanced haughtily at the camera in casual shots with friends.

  But the smile she’d caught as they walked into the study was rare.

  Which was a shame, because it was delightful. His chiseled features warmed, the corners of his eyes creased, and for a split second he looked younger. More fun. Much less serious.

  Then it disappeared. Back to the task at hand.

  She put her hands on her hips, surveying the study. In the rest of the house, where everything was vacant, she had to fight Oz to make an addition. In this room, she wasn’t sure where they’d carve out space amidst all the clutter.

  What he called the study was so big, she suspected it was actually a bedroom he’d turned into a man cave. A huge television occupied one end with an extremely comfortable-looking sectional positioned in front of it, easily big enough for six people. Built-in shelves overflowed with DVDs, comic books, and video games, and flags and posters covered the walls, including several variations on the same red-and-orange logo.

  “What does this mean?” she asked, wondering if it was an Islamic affiliation she wasn’t familiar with that could’ve contributed to the Citizens First attack.

  “Galatasaray.” At her blank stare he elaborated, “Soccer team in Istanbul. My uncle used to play for them.”

  “Oh. Right.” Her face heated as she turned to scan the walls beside the entrance. At times Oz’s dry, flat tone made her feel so stupid. She had to get over that. Immediately.

  “This should be easy.” She nodded to the wall left of the doorframe. “How about we move the Swedish flag up three inches, the Gala-whatever—”

  “Galatasaray,” he repeated.

  “We move that one down three inches, and put the panel in between.”

  “Fine.”

  “Good. That’s the last one. I’ll tell Darryl.”

  She was on her way down the hall when Oz grabbed her arm. She pivoted, lungs tight, breaths rasping, not because of what he might say but because his loose touch seared through her polyester suit jacket, heating her arm from fingertips to shoulder blade.

  Her jaw slackened as she sought the dark depths of his eyes, looking for some sign that he felt that, too.

  She found none.

  Her ears heated as his hand dropped, his expression impassive. What was wrong with her? He wasn’t her type at all. He was too skinny, too brainy, and if the contents of the study were any indication, too nerdy to ever pique her interest.

  She snapped mental fingers to halt her wandering thoughts. The complication of romantic interest was the last thing she needed. Laster than last, even. So far down her list of priorities for her newish, old-ish, ex-Army life, it wasn’t even in the same notebook. She couldn’t start crossing things off until she took care of the first item at the very top: Figure out who you are.

  And right below it: Decide who you want to be.

  Neither one ended in: with a man at your side. That was the whole point. She wasn’t Kate the Soldier anymore, she was sick of being Kate the One-Night Stand or Kate the Fuck Buddy and she’d never even met Kate the Girlfriend.

  She was done hiding behind versions of herself that gave other people control—her commanding officers, her erstwhile lovers. She had to answer these questions on her own, make her own decisions, finally pick her own path and sprint all the way down it.

  “So?” Oz prompted, ripping her out of her thoughts. “Anything?”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Yesterday you said you’d look through my social-media stuff to see if anything jumped out as a credible threat. What did you
think?”

  “Sure, yeah, I had a look last night.” She exhaled. “I’ll be honest, my expertise is physical security—alarms, response teams, bodyguards. I won’t pretend to know anything about the psychology of stalking or cyber bullying. In general you seem to have a lot of admirers, and most of what I read was really positive. Then there’s the streak of stupid, over-the-top racism that seems to be just part of the Internet, which I wouldn’t consider credibly threatening. On the other hand, there was one comment that kept appearing—”

  “Ausonius seventy,” he filled in.

  “Exactly. What is that?”

  “John Ausonius was a Swedish gunman. In the early nineties he targeted immigrants in Stockholm, shooting them using a laser sight. Luckily he was a terrible shot, so most of them survived.”

  “Charming. And seventy?”

  “My house number.”

  Kate paused, digesting this information, careful not to let the shrill warning siren whining behind her eyes show in her expression. “Well, that’s creepy.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Maybe we should price out bulletproof glass,” she murmured, foolishly thinking out loud.

  That set him off, shattering the accord she’d worked so hard to build over the last two hours.

  “Stop.” He held up his palms, speaking quickly and forcefully, his clipped accent becoming more pronounced as his agitation grew. “Let me make something absolutely clear. I agreed to basic security measures. Basic. An alarm system, beams in the yard, a couple of motion lights. Not ideal, but I’ll live with it. Anything else is a step too far, an admission of fear that I’m not willing to make. First, there’s no way you’re replacing the glass in this house. Second, I don’t want any visible changes to the outside. I’m not building a fence, or stringing barbed wire, or installing bars on the windows—”

  “Of course not, bars won’t stop a bullet.”

  That shut him up.

  “I’m not trying to scare you,” she told him, keeping her voice calm and reasonable. “Probably someone’s just being provocative, throwing in Ausonius’s name. Your job is to shrug it off and keep living your life. My job, though, is to be overcautious and paranoid and respond to the slightest perceived threat. We won’t make any additional changes today, but I have to think about the best way to respond to the mention of a long-range gunman.”