The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(36)

“He’s not after you,” I said. “He’s after me.”

“It’s why I still think I need to walk away,” he said. “Don’t put the team through this; don’t put you through this.”

“What about you?”

“I’ve had practice at getting kicked out of football, remember?” Ryan said.

“It won’t matter. If I’m not the one who walks away, he’ll give you up to the media anyway without a second thought.”

We both did have a lot to drink, starting with wine and then switching to Irish whiskey. We knew we weren’t going to solve anything last night. So we drank, and kept drinking, until I made up the couch for him and went to bed alone.

But there really had been a point, right before that, one of those sliding-door moments, when I wasn’t sure that’s how the night would end.

“Thanks for letting me stay,” he said.

“Nobody who ever slept on that particular piece of furniture ever thanked me before.”

I poured us both more coffee.

Ryan said, “He gave me until tomorrow to give him an answer.”

“What a guy.”

He stared at me now across the table. He’d been looking at me just as intently about two this morning, from a much closer distance, after we’d run out of things to say to each other.

“I’ll figure it out while you get to work,” I said.

“How?”

“Because I’m Joe Wolf’s daughter, that’s how.”





Forty-Two



I DROVE TO MY office right after I waved goodbye to Ryan and didn’t leave my desk until it was time for practice at Hunters Point, which I shortened so I could get right back to my office at Wolves Stadium. I had told Thomas what was going on and how I was trying to fix things, and I told him I would let him know when it was resolved.

If I could get it resolved to my satisfaction.

“Two can play this game,” I said to Thomas.

“Which one is that?”

“Well, not a game, exactly. More like a knife fight.”

Ryan Morrissey had done the same thing I’d done today: coached his team. There had been a couple of times when I’d been tempted to go down to Danny’s office and tell him what I thought about what he was trying to do. But there was no point. He already knew what I thought about him and what a gutter move this really was. Let him wonder what I would do next—if I could find a way out of this particular jam. He had to know that I would come at him with everything I had. He was the one who used to call dinner at the house on Jones Street—an occasion when Joe Wolf would find increasingly creative ways to pit us all against one another—a blood sport.

Now I felt like it was a blood sport against my two older brothers every single day. And Danny, with Jack’s blessing, I was sure, had brought Ryan Morrissey into it. Get at me through him.

I remember a dinner one night when we were kids. Jack had talked back to my father about something—all these years later I can’t remember what. At which point my father reached over from where he always sat at the head of the table and slapped Danny on the shoulder, hard enough so it sounded like a whip being snapped. And hard enough to make Danny cry.

“What did I do?” Danny wailed.

Joe Wolf shrugged.

“I couldn’t reach Jack,” he said.

Now they were willing to hit Ryan, even though they were taking another swing at me.

I was still trying to go about my business, reading through the file of clippings from around the league that Andy Chen put on my desk every afternoon, along with injury reports and the previous day’s player transactions. But I kept staring at my cell phone, waiting to hear the old-fashioned ringtone and see a familiar name pop up on the screen.

First I got a text from Ryan.

Anything?

I texted him right back, knowing that he was as anxious as I was.

Not yet

The phone finally rang a few minutes after seven o’clock. Uncle on the screen.

I took a deep breath and picked it up.

“It’s been handled,” the familiar gravelly voice said.

No greeting. No preamble. There never was. Then he told me how it had been handled.

“I’m still working on the other.”

“Believe me,” I said, “this will do fine for now. Thank you so much.”

“You don’t have to thank me. It’s what family does.”

“I love you,” I said.

“Ti amo anch’io.”

I love you, too.

There was a pause.

“Check your email,” he said.

I did.

Then I walked down the hall to Danny’s office, folder in my hand, hoping that he was still there and that I wouldn’t have to drive over to his house to have the face-to-face with him for which I was very much spoiling.

His assistant, Molly, was at her desk.

“He in?” I said.

“Let me tell him you’re here,” she said, reaching for the phone on her desk.

“No,” I said, and went through the door.

“Now I’ve got a proposition for you,” I said to my brother.





Forty-Three



THEY SAT AT A window table at the Top of the Mark bar, at what was now officially known as the InterContinental Mark Hopkins.