The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(42)

“I’ve managed to not dignify any of this so far,” I said.

“We’re making an exception on this one,” Thomas said.

So we kept it as simple as we could, without my sounding defensive in any way.

Ryan Morrissey and I are not now, and have never been, in any relationship other than the professional one we now share. Go Wolves.



Jenny Wolf



I had to be talked out of adding one additional sentence.

“But any personal relationship I do have is my business, and anyone who thinks otherwise can kiss my ass.”

“Very powerful imagery, Sis,” Thomas had said when I suggested adding the line. “But for now, let’s keep that one between us.”

Thomas went back to his office then and went to work on a couple of trades we were considering, one of them for another backup quarterback in case Ted couldn’t play against the Broncos. I did the same. I considered watching today’s Wolves’ practice from the field but didn’t want to turn it into another photo op for the masses.

The media gaggle was still in the parking lot when I came out and got into my car to drive over to practice at Hunters Point. They shouted questions. I smiled and waved and ignored them. There were more reporters waiting for me at the high school until the principal came out and told them that if they didn’t leave the school grounds immediately, he was calling the police.

When my players were on the field, they wanted to know if the story about the coach and me was true. I told them it was not. Carlos Quintera couldn’t resist telling me that it was a shame, because he thought we made kind of a cute couple.

I told him that was a very cute remark before making him run five long laps around the entire school property while I started practice without him.

There were no reporters left when I got back into my car. No reporters at the house. No stalkers with phones or cameras in parked cars on the street, at least not that I could see.

But I nearly had a heart attack when I walked through the door and saw Megan Callahan, managing editor of the Tribune, sitting on my couch.

“Sorry to frighten you,” she said. “But your friend Rashida let me in. I told her it was sort of an emergency.”

“Your being here can’t possibly involve good news,” I said, tossing my bag on a chair.

“Or any that’s fit to print.”

It was then that I noticed the laptop on the coffee table. Hers, not mine. She opened it.

“I can’t do this anymore. This is a story I wouldn’t poke with a stick.”

I sat down next to her and began to read Seth Dowd’s piece suggesting that Thomas gave drugs to DeLavarious Harmon the day he’d dropped dead on the field.

When I finished, I closed the screen.

“Who’s seen this?”

“Seth, obviously. And Jack and me. That’s it. Jack wanted to keep the circle tight until he decided to run it.” She leaned back and sighed. “And now he’s going to run it, the day after tomorrow. He wants to give you and the coach having your sleepover one more day of oxygen.”

“Well, that’s not happening.”

“What’s not happening?”

“The San Francisco Tribune running this piece-of-shit story.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to call Dowd and then my brother and tell them that neither one of them has any further legal protection at the paper once Thomas sues them for libel,” I said.

“How do you plan to do that?” Megan Callahan said.

“By firing them, that’s how.”

I turned to her and put out my hand for her to shake.

“Congratulations,” I said. “In addition to retaining your position as managing editor, you’re the new publisher of the San Francisco Tribune.”





Forty-Nine



AFTER MEGAN LEFT, I decided to call Jack myself. I thought about waiting until morning, even going over to the paper myself and doing it in person, giving myself the pleasure of seeing the look on his face when I told him to clean out his office. But I decided to get it over with and not to wait.

Either way, the pleasure would still be all mine.

I remembered a rare family dinner a few months after my father had turned over control of the paper to Jack. They’d both known by then, the newspaper business having just begun to shrink down to the size it is now, that they were going to have to start the process of cutting staff if they wanted to keep the Tribune afloat. First a little and then, if that didn’t save enough money to keep the family newspaper viable, a whole lot more.

Joe Wolf said that he should be the one, as the owner of the paper, to tell people that they were being laid off and explain whatever kind of buyouts they were being offered, even though Jack was in charge.

I remembered Jack smiling that day as he listened to our father talking about people who had given their lives to our paper and to the newspaper business. And I remembered thinking that Jack looked in that moment like a real wolf.

Lowercase.

“No worries,” he said, still smiling. “I’ve got this.”

This was different, of course. My brother would never have to worry about money another day for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t have to work again if he didn’t want to, even though I knew him well enough to know how much he loved, and needed, to be a boss. How much power, and the fear that came with it, mattered to Jack Wolf.