The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(8)

Danny opened his mouth and closed it.

“What your father is saying,” the lawyer continued, “is that the control of both the football team and the newspaper now belongs to your sister.”

Danny was the one who stood now, nearly knocking over his chair as he did.

“This is bullshit.”

I was about to tell him that line was already taken, but he was already gone.





Ten



“I NEED TO GET with my team,” I said to my mother. Just the two of us were left in Harris Crawford’s office.

“Don’t you think it’s a little premature to address the Wolves?” she said.

“I meant the Hunters Point Bears, Mother.”

“Your little high school team?”

“It’s nice to see that you understand me as well as you ever did.”

I’d already canceled my afternoon class that day because of the reading of Dad’s will. But I hadn’t canceled practice. By now I knew full well what a good place, and even a safe place, those two hours were for my players every day after school. I had no idea that it would be a safe place for me, too, now that Joe Wolf thought he could run my life from the grave.

He’d always told us when we were growing up that winners would do anything to win the fight, even when the other guy was already out of the room. Now he was the one out of the room but still trying to win the fight between us, which had been going on for most of my life.

Thinking about it that way made me smile as I sat in my car in the parking lot a half hour before practice was scheduled to begin.

Once a controlling SOB, I thought, always a controlling SOB.

So this is the way he thought he could win the argument about my having a role in the running of the Wolves.

You want to know how the world really works? he’d always said. Here’s how: kill or be killed.

I stopped home briefly to change into a hoodie and jeans and sneakers. As I was coming out of my house in Bayview, I saw a television truck making the turn at the corner and heading in my direction.

News travels fast in the modern world. This time the news was about me. I got into my Prius and headed the other way.

So it begins.

I drove around aimlessly for a while, trying to clear my head, trying to wrap my mind around what had just happened to me, the family, the team, the newspaper. In the space of a few minutes, I’d gone from a high school coach and teacher to chairman of the board of my father’s business empire.

And I knew it was more than sudden change that was making my head spin. If I accepted my new role, with the football team especially, I would be claiming the identity I had most come to hate.

Being a Wolf.

By the time I made it to the school parking lot, I’d shut off my phone, having discovered that the only media outlet that didn’t seem to have my cell number was Pravda. Before I did turn off my phone, though, I’d gotten a call from my next-door neighbor and friend, Rashida McCoy, who ran a small day-care center in Bayview.

“You rob a bank, girl?” she asked, then told me about the two TV trucks parked in front of our houses.

“In a manner of speaking.” I told her what had happened.

“I haven’t checked Twitter or any of the other feeds lately!” she yelled into the phone. “Girl, you must be trippin’!”

“I feel like I am.”

The players already knew by the time we were all on the field together.

“Do we still call you Coach?” linebacker Carlos Quintera said. “Or Madame President?”

“Or Your Highness?” Deuce Stiles, our best safety, said.

“Have your fun. But it’s going to cost all you great wits when we start practice.”

“Wait,” quarterback Chris Tinelli said. “Aren’t you hanging with the wrong team?”

“Nope. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

I smiled. They had no idea how happy I was to see them today. The only place I really did feel safe—feel normal, at least for the time being—was right here.

Davontae Lillis, star wide receiver, maybe the funniest kid on the team, stepped forward now.

“Okay, who should we fire first, the coach or the quarterback?”

“As you know, D, it would be a little complicated with this particular quarterback.”

“Straight up? Not if you want to win.”

He was right, but I didn’t tell him that.

“Hey, let’s pump the brakes here. I haven’t even decided if I want to do this.”

Carlos started banging his palm against the side of his helmet, as if he hadn’t heard correctly.

“Say what? Are you the only person in America who doesn’t want to run their own NFL team?”

“Coach,” Chris said, “do you know how few women have ever run an NFL franchise?”

“Actually, I do.”

Davontae said, “You got to do this.”

“I don’t got to do anything I don’t want to.”

“You’re saying you don’t want to do this?” Deuce asked.

“What I’m saying is that I got a blind-side hit on this a couple of hours ago. I need a little time to make up my mind.”

“Let us make it up for you,” Carlos said. “Of course you’re doing this!”