The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(22)

“Let’s just say his life didn’t turn out the way he’d hoped it might after sitting next to Jenny in class,” Jack said. “He’s living in Vegas now, in what appears to be a constant state of debt. He said he hated doing this to her.”

“But he took the money.”

“Like the whore that he is.”

Danny grinned. “Imagine such a thing in a family paper.”

“Well, it is our family.”

“How does she keep her job at the high school?” Danny said.

“I’m already thinking about tomorrow’s front page after they fire her ass. No pun intended.”

“She deserves it, just for firing Kopka and Sawchuck,” Danny said.

“You were going to do the same damn thing when the season was over.”

“Hey, try to remember that we’re in this together.”

How could I ever forget such a thing?

They were at their usual corner table, no one close to them, plenty of privacy.

“The pictures just kind of fell into my lap,” Jack said. “We’re going to run a couple every day.” He smiled. “But you have to say that the timing of all this couldn’t have worked out better. As a circulation booster, our sister is the gift that just keeps on giving.”

There was, they both agreed, no possible way now that the other owners would give her the votes she needed to keep control of the team.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, eating the last of their breakfasts. It was Danny who finally spoke.

“Now we have to figure out how to deal with Thomas. I still can’t believe he turned around and better-dealed me.”

“I’ll deal with Thomas when the time comes,” Jack said as he waved for the check.

He handed the waiter his credit card. When the kid was gone, Jack leaned across the table, smiling again, and said in a soft voice, “Don’t you sometimes wish we could just kill them both?”





Twenty-Four



“YOU CAN’T HIDE UP here forever,” Thomas said to me.

We were in what had been our father’s suite in the late morning. Thomas had picked me up at the back door to my house and sent his assistant back to get my car. The field below us was empty, practice not starting for another hour or so.

“I’m not hiding,” I said, and managed to smile. “My life is pretty much an open book at this point.”

“Everybody was young and stupid once,” Thomas said. “Holy hell, I sure was. And when I got older, I was still stupid, until I went off and got what Dad still called ‘the cure.’”

“You know what else Dad said.”

“Dad said a lot of things.”

“Ignorance isn’t an excuse,” I said.

Now Thomas smiled. “At least there are no pictures of my you-know-what out there. Not that I know about, anyway.”

“Is that what passes for good news today?”

“Either way,” Thomas said, “you were going to get crushed.”

“When I saw the paper, I thought about quitting, no lie. Just to put myself out of my misery. Like a mercy killing.”

He pulled his sneakers off the railing in front of us and turned to face me. Somehow, no matter how much older Thomas got, I still saw him as the charming little boy he used to be.

“You can’t quit,” he said. “Not when I’m going good.”

“Josh Bauer,” I said. “I hadn’t even thought of him in years. But I was right about one thing, even when I was young and stupid: he turned out to have all of the qualities of a dog except loyalty.”

“You want me to find him and beat him up? That’s how we would have handled it when we were kids.”

“If anybody’s going to do that, it will be me.”

“So what do we do about our present circumstances?” Thomas said.

“You mean me going viral?”

“Yeah. That. And in the flesh.”

I thanked him for that.

“The first thing I have to do is head over to Hunters Point and quit there before they fire me. They don’t deserve this.”

Thomas said. “The one who doesn’t deserve any of this is you, Sis.”

I looked down at the field. A couple of players were out early, jogging up and down the sidelines. Then I noticed the photographer behind the Wolves’ bench pointing his camera directly at Thomas and me. I fought the impulse to turn around and moon him, just to keep with the theme of the day.

We got up from the terrace seats and went back inside.

“I certainly made things easy for all those old dude owners who act like old ladies,” I said.

Thomas laughed.

“Are you joking? How about the one who got caught with the hooker a couple of years ago? This isn’t even a misdemeanor compared to that.”

“Danny and Jack are just going to keep coming if I don’t quit. With everything they’ve got.”

“You let me worry about our brothers,” Thomas said. “Danny told me that everybody’s got a past. Well, guess what? That includes them.”

“They don’t seem to have much interest in fighting fair,” I said.

“Now I don’t, either,” Thomas said.