The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(18)

“When’s the vote?” Gallo said.

“Next month.”

“You can’t move it up?”

“The dates for the meetings are locked in,” he said. “And even though this is an emergency for all of us, it’s not for them. We don’t want to look as if we’re panicking here.”

Gallo turned back to Danny.

“You tell me you will get something on her that we can use.”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Danny said. “We’re going to throw everything at her we can.”

Gallo turned his attention back to the commissioner. “You have far more resources than he does. Just so you’re ready the next time one of your players gets arrested for a gun or drugs or a wife.”

“On it, Mr. Gallo,” Joel Abrams said.

“Mr.” Gallo, Danny thought.

As deferential as if John Gallo were the commissioner.

“Your brother Jack has skin in this game, too,” Gallo said to Danny Wolf. “Do I need to have another conversation with him? He knows what everybody in this room knows, about how much money I am willing to invest in this process and the control I exert over the board of supervisors.”

“Jack is highly motivated, trust me. We all know what the stakes are, for everyone involved.”

Gallo looked at him. Or through him. Danny started to say something. Gallo gave a slight shake of his head.

“I didn’t get to where I am—or accumulate the kind of wealth and power I have—playing by somebody else’s rules. And here is rule number one: I am always the last one in the room.”

They only know what I want them to know, Gallo thought. They have no idea how much is riding on this for me.

“Everybody always talks about throwing everything except the kitchen sink. You throw that at her, too.”

He smiled.

“Or drop one on the poor girl,” John Gallo said. “I frankly don’t care. Just stop her.”

He slammed his hand down, making both Danny Wolf and the commissioner of the National Football League jump.

“Now.”





Nineteen



THOMAS WOLF’S SECRETARY TOLD Ben Cantor that Thomas was on his way to the yacht club and might be planning to spend the night on The Sea Wolf.

Cantor had released the boat back to the family by then, after having gone over it again, still finding no evidence that someone had been on it that night with Joe Wolf. Cantor had no idea whether the youngest son had inherited it or just grabbed it for himself, being a Wolf. Frankly, Cantor didn’t care. He had just decided it was time to make a more serious run at the boy prince, put him in the same barrel he’d put his sister in the other day.

After just one conversation with Thomas Wolf at the stadium, Cantor had already gotten the idea that you had to Taser him to shut him up once he picked up a good head of steam.

Thomas was on the top deck when Cantor came walking up the dock.

“Permission to come aboard,” Cantor called out, grinning up at him.

“I was hopeful that my only company tonight would be my date,” Thomas said. “Blair. Or maybe it’s Blaine.”

“This shouldn’t take long,” Cantor said.

“Bullshit.”

They ended up in the stateroom. Thomas Wolf had a bottle of Heineken Zero in his hand. Nonalcoholic, Cantor knew. He’d heard the guy had been on the wagon for a while, but who the hell ever knew for sure?

“Should I have a lawyer present?” Thomas said.

“Do you need one?”

Everybody talked about Thomas Wolf as if he were an aging frat boy. Cantor thought it was a pose, especially after the first time they’d spoken. There was intelligence in his eyes, an almost cool sort of irony to his general attitude, as if the joke was on you. Cantor had already decided he would not make the mistake of underestimating him.

Or believing him.

“Is this where you ask if Daddy loved me?” Thomas said. “Spoiler alert—he didn’t. One night I overheard him and a friend getting sloshed in the study. And the friend wanted to know how many sons Joe Wolf had wanted.

“‘Two’ was his answer.”

“Something like that would sure piss the hell out of me.”

“You mean, enough to throw him over the side?” Thomas shook his head. “Nah. As much fun as it sounds like, and as many times as I thought about it, I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t do well in prison.”

“Hardly anybody does.”

“So what do you want to talk about, really?”

“Your brothers and your sister.”

Thomas grinned. “Oh. You want me to throw them over the side.”

He likes having an audience. Cantor imagined him as the kid at the family dinner table who didn’t get to talk and had been making up for lost time ever since.

“Things certainly worked out great for Jenny. She just turned into the wealthiest and most powerful schoolteacher in America.”

“Smartest, too. She asked me to be her right-hand man with the Wolves.”

“Sounds like more responsibility than your father ever gave you with the team,” Cantor said.

“He didn’t want me to have any real responsibility. Behind my back, he told his friends he just needed me to have an office to go to. He didn’t believe I’d turned my life around even when I had.”