The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(45)

Jack was different. In a way, I thought, Wolf.com was inevitable with him. He had always been a gutter fighter. He would always do anything to win, especially if he was competing with me. One time he’d stolen the start of my science project, and when I complained to my father, he said, “You should have done a better job hiding it.”

So nothing had changed, not really. He was still willing to do anything to try to take me down. And when he’d gotten me down, as he’d at least temporarily done today, he was still looking to give me one more good kick to the head.

All in all, Thomas was more right than he knew about wounded wolves.

“Where’d you get the money for this website?” I asked. “I know you’re opposed on religious grounds to laying out money of your own.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is that it’s here. I’d originally seen this as being a spin-off from the Tribune. So now it’s a competitor instead.” He shrugged again, more theatrically than before. “And even though you think everything’s about you, you had to see that there’s a lot more going on on the site than just you and our baby brother.”

He glanced at one of those underwater watches that looked as if it could do everything for you except check your cholesterol.

“What’s your endgame here, Jack? It can’t just be getting the newspaper back.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly back and forth.

“There’s no end to this game, at least not for you.”

“And no bottom for you.”

“And in case you haven’t noticed by now,” Jack said, “this really isn’t a game with me.”

I looked past him, out at the water. There were still so many boats out there at twilight, set off against the last of the setting sun, the whole scene beautiful and peaceful, reminding me of a painting.

Things were peaceful everywhere except here, with Jack and me. Neither one of us willing to back up or back down.

“By the way?” he said. “If either one of you really is thinking about suing me, you ought to keep in mind that for the ones who are doing the suing, discovery can be a bitch.”

He stood up now.

“Bitch,” he added.

With that I took a step forward and punched him as hard as I could in the face, knocking him into the water.

As soon as I did, I heard a voice I recognized behind me, saying, “Smile.”

I turned and saw Seth Dowd pointing his phone at me.

“Still rolling,” he said.





Fifty-Three



BY THE TIME I got home and went online, I already had the home page of Wolf.com all to myself—the sequence of shots that showed me throwing the right-hander that put Jack in the water running right below the headline:





SUCKER PUNCH





I was beginning to think I should be starting a screenshot scrapbook.

The photos were accompanied by Seth Dowd’s breathless first-person account of what had transpired on the dock, somehow making an argument between siblings read like the crime of the century.

I was also the lead story on the Tribune’s site. I knew that one was coming because Megan had called to give me a heads-up. I was surprised I hadn’t heard from her on the ride home from Redwood City.

“If we’re going to maintain our credibility,” she said, “I can’t give you a pass on something like this.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to. Do what you have to do. I told you the ground rules when I hired you. I’m a big girl.”

“With a pretty good right hand,” she said. “Reminded me of Ali’s daughter when she was still fighting.”

“Thanks. I hope you know that means a lot.”

“This isn’t going to make you feel any better,” Megan said, “but you are once again the number one trending topic for the entire city of San Francisco.”

Then she asked if I had any comment for the story about Jack and me that would run in the print edition.

“Just one. Here goes: ‘My only regret was when I discovered that I hadn’t broken my brother’s nose.’”

Megan’s call had been followed, almost immediately, by one from Thomas.

“I know what you’re going to say,” I said.

“No, you don’t.”

“Try me.”

“We can’t go on like this, Jenny,” he said. “And this is coming from someone on your side.”

I told him he was right, but we’d talk in the morning. I was talked out for now. “Don’t you mean punched out?” he said. Then he asked if I could manage to stay out of any more fights until then. I told him I’d try my hardest and was about to turn off my phone when Ryan Morrissey weighed in, as if the three of them had slotted their calls.

But Ryan actually got a smile out of me.

“We’re now in a pretty exclusive club,” he said. “Members of the Wolves football organization with first-round knockouts.”

“I should have known better.”

“Wait,” Ryan said, “you mean I shouldn’t have known better?”

He asked if I wanted him to stop by or meet him somewhere for a beer.

I told him I’d had quite enough photo ops for one night, thank you.