The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(52)

“Should I have another place set?” he said.

In front of him were a small bowl of olives and a basket that Jack knew was filled with fresh bread made just for Gallo. He also knew that the glass of Chianti in front of John Gallo came from a bottle that cost two hundred dollars—at least.

Gallo motioned for Jack to sit next to him.

“Would you care for a glass of wine?” Gallo said.

“I won’t be staying long,” Jack said.

“You’ll drink.”

“As you wish.”

“How’s my friend Danny taking all this?” Gallo said. “He seems so fragile sometimes.”

“I was just with him,” Jack said. “He’s doing about as well as any of us are.”

“Brotherly love,” Gallo said. “Such a beautiful thing to behold.”

A waiter appeared with another wineglass, set it down in front of Jack, and poured. When the waiter was gone, Gallo raised a glass.

“To Thomas,” Gallo said. “Gone far too soon.”

He drank. Jack reluctantly drank along with him.

“You heard what my sister said at the church the other day,” Jack said to him. “She believes he was murdered.”

“She is a stubborn and headstrong woman,” Gallo said, “allowed to believe what she wants to believe.”

Jack looked at him.

“Did you have anything to do with his death?” he said to Gallo.

Gallo didn’t hesitate.

“Did you?” he asked Jack.

“That’s a bullshit question, and you know it.”

“I’m not sure I appreciate your tone,” Gallo said.

“I don’t appreciate the idea that somebody might have thrown my kid brother out a goddamn window.”

“If somebody threw him out a window,” Gallo said, “I can swear on my own children that I had nothing to do with it.”

They stared at each other.

“None of this was ever supposed to go this far,” Jack said.

Gallo smiled, sipped more wine, then picked up his napkin and dabbed at the corners of his mouth. When he put his glass down, he leaned across the table so that his face was only a foot or so from Jack’s.

His voice was suddenly harsh, as if made of razor blades.

“As if you worried about what might or might not happen to your youngest brother when he was alive, you pretentious shit,” Gallo said. “As if you expect me to believe those crocodile tears you shed at the church.”

“You were the one who told me to run the story about Thomas and the dead player and the drugs,” Jack said.

“And what’s worse, Jack, if you don’t mind me asking?” Gallo said. “My wanting that, or your running a story that made your own brother look like some kind of pusher?”

“As if I had a choice.”

“There are always choices,” Gallo said. “You made a stupid one when you began an affair with your father’s second wife.”

Jack looked at him.

“You know about that?”

“A better question,” Gallo said, “is what don’t I know about you.” Gallo shook his head, an almost pitying look on his face. “I don’t care why you started up with her in the first place. But you need to end it.”

“I thought I might be able to use her somehow,” Jack said. “I think she looked at me the same way.”

“The scandals are supposed to be about your sister, not you,” Gallo said. “Don’t give her something she might use against you by acting like a horny adolescent.”

He leaned back.

“I understand,” Jack said. “This is all supposed to be about Jenny. It was never supposed to be about Thomas.”

“Keep it that way,” Gallo said.

The waiter poked his head in at the other end of the room. Gallo shook his head. The door closed.

“Perhaps,” Gallo said, “and I’m only speaking theoretically, of course, Thomas ended up getting in the way of something much bigger than he was. And interfering with business that was not his own.”

Gallo made a helpless gesture with his hands, a slight shrug of his shoulders. Jack didn’t feel as if he were seeing him for the first time as he really was. Jack had always known who, and what, Gallo really was, the way he had always known those same things about himself. And about his father before him.

But the difference between him and his father, Jack knew, was that his father would never have gotten into bed with John Gallo, no matter what the stakes or possible rewards.

So Jack wasn’t seeing Gallo for the first time. Just more in focus than ever before. As if the real alpha wolf was sitting across the table from him.

“Do you know anything about how Thomas died?”

“You really came here to ask me that?” Gallo said.

“Do you?”

Gallo paused.

“I’m no good and can prove it,” he said. “And I have done many things of which I am not proud. But I am not a murderer.”

Jack started to say something. Gallo put up a hand to stop him.

“I probably should be insulted by your accusation,” he said. “But I am not. Most likely it is your grief about your brother talking. But what I will tell you now is that I want you to leave this room before you insult me further and say something that will only get you into much deeper trouble with me than you already are.”