The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(79)
“Why were you at the boat?” Jack said.
I told him. Told him the drunken things Joe Wolf had said to me before he told me that he loved me.
“You’re shitting me!” Jack said. “He told you he loved you and you believed him? Him?”
“I’m telling you what happened, and why it happened. I felt bad that I hadn’t said anything back to him.”
“Why would you have?”
His phone buzzed. He ignored it.
“I think back now, and it was almost like he’d had some premonition that he was going to die soon.”
“He didn’t tell you that he was leaving the team and the paper to you?”
“No.”
“And that was it,” Jack said.
“That was it. I left. I was sitting in my car when I saw you nearly running up the dock.”
He didn’t respond right away.
“Did he tell you I’d just left?”
Jack shook his head.
I said, “So what were you doing there that night?”
He blew out some air.
“You want to know the truth?”
“Not one of your strong suits. But give it a shot.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” he said.
“Help me out.”
“I didn’t go there to kill him that night,” Jack Wolf said to me. “I went there to try to save him.”
Ninety-Four
AN HOUR AFTER LEAVING Wolf.com, I was back in my own office at Wolves Stadium.
John Gallo was seated across my desk from me.
I had asked him to the stadium for a conversation, just the two of us, about the possible sale of the Wolves. I didn’t tell him what Jack had told me, his version of why he’d gone to the boat that night—to bring him John Gallo’s final, take-it-or-leave-it offer to buy the Wolves. It turned out they had been negotiating for months. Not only had Gallo’s patience finally run out, he had also indicated to Jack that he was under pressure to close the deal sooner rather than later.
“What did Dad say?” I asked Jack.
“He said he’d give Gallo his answer in the morning.”
Thomas had always talked about throwing the money on the table. We were about to do that now. Maybe just not the way John Gallo thought.
“I have to admit I was quite surprised to get your call, Ms. Wolf,” he said.
“It seemed like a practical matter to me. And I know what a practical man you are.”
He wore a light gray suit that matched the color of his hair, a white shirt, and a blood-red tie. And a smug look on his face.
“Even my brothers tell me they don’t fully understand why you seem to want my football team as badly as you do,” I said. “They also don’t understand the methods you’ve used to try to get it.”
“Your brothers know as much about my business as they need to know,” Gallo said. “And considering how useless your brother Danny turned out to be, it’s probably for the best that he came running back to you like a little boy running to his mommy.”
I smiled.
“Considering what I know about Danny Wolf, I thought he exhibited surprisingly good taste in making this particular choice.”
I got up then and went to stand at the window and look down at the Wolves’ practice. Kept my back to him for over a minute before turning around.
“So why do you want my team so badly? The Denver Broncos were for sale last year, and you didn’t go anywhere near them.”
“The Wolves were supposed to be mine about ten years ago, but your father reneged on a deal we’d agreed to, one that I thought was overly generous at the time,” Gallo said. “The details of his screwing me over the way he did and acting as dishonorably as he did no longer matter. He’s gone now. And here the two of us are, and it’s time for me to put an offer on the table.”
“What are you willing to offer?” I said.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Three billion dollars,” he said.
The Carolina Panthers, I knew, had been sold a few years ago for $2.3 billion. The Broncos had gone for $2.5 billion, the highest sale price in league history at that point. He was now willing to top that by half a billion dollars.
“That’s serious money.”
“When I want something, Ms. Wolf,” he said, “I’m not just willing to pay. I’m also willing to overpay. And frankly? I feel as if I have waited long enough to conclude business with your family that should have been concluded long ago.”
“No.”
Gallo looked confused, as if I’d suddenly spoken to him in French.
“No? Meaning no, you don’t think my business with your father should have been concluded years ago?”
From down below, I could hear the sound of a whistle being blown on the field.
“What I meant was no, I am not going to sell my team to you for three billion dollars.”
“Three point five,” he said, almost before the words were out of my mouth.
Gallo smiled then, looking almost happy even though I’d just turned him down again. He was on familiar ground here. He was John Gallo, the dealmaker. John Gallo the closer. Negotiating for something he really did want was probably like a narcotic with him.