Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Tyson took off at a run, veered around Jule’s father’s Mercedes, which was parked in its usual spot behind the house, down the side of the house, and over to the street. He ignored Jule’s demands and questions, yanked the back door of his car open, tossed him inside, and slammed the door shut. Before Jule could get his bearings, they were peeling away from the house.
“Where are we going?” Jule sat up and gripped the front seat. “Where’s Tor?”
“I’m taking you to your house.”
“What? No. Where’s Tor? What’s happening?”
“Shit just went really wrong. Really, really wrong.” Tyson slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “Fuck. Fuck.”
“Turn the car around.”
“No.”
“Ty!”
“Tor said to get you out and that’s what I’m doing.”
Jule would have jumped out of the car but the way Tyson was speeding and swerving through traffic made that impossible. They got to his street in half the time it should have taken, and Tyson slammed the breaks at the end of his block.
“I don’t want cameras picking up my car in front of your house. Get out and go inside now.”
“Not until you tell me what’s happening.”
Tyson turned around and his face was full of fear, something Jule had never seen and hadn’t considered possible. “Tor’s handling it and I’m going back to help him. Your job is to get inside your house and stay there. And you can never, ever tell anyone you were at the house. Ever.”
“Fuck that.” He felt his anger rising. “I need to help Tor. If you won’t take me then—”
“Jule!” Tyson shouted. He had never yelled at Jule before and the shock of it shut him up. “There isn’t time for you to freak out right now. If you want to help Tor, get into your house and keep your mouth closed.”
“Okay.” His stomach twisted but he opened the car door and climbed out. “Tell him to call me.”
Tyson dipped his chin. “Not a single word to anyone. No matter what.”
“Got it.” Jule closed the car door and walked to his house, hoping that whatever happened wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
Chapter 4 – Age 18
“I promise you, we’re working on it,” said Charles Montez, the chief of the Phoenix Police Department.
He was sitting on their living room sofa. Jule’s father had insisted they buy it because it would convey the right message to guests and his mother had argued against it because it was cream and she was sure Jule would spill something on it and destroy twenty thousand dollars in twenty seconds. Jule hadn’t ever spilled anything on that sofa. He probably hadn’t ever sat on it. Unfortunately, Harold Sterling was no longer around to remind Barbara Sterling that he had been right.
“How precisely are you working on it?” his grandmother asked. “It’s been four months and you haven’t arrested the person who murdered my son.”
Jule had never been close to his grandparents, to anyone in his biological family really. But he felt sorry for them. His father’s death had hit them hard. Both of them seemed to have aged dramatically over the past four months. Jule, on the other hand, had been in a holding pattern. He still got up every day, still went to school, still came home, but he didn’t think about any of it, didn’t distinguish one day from the next. He was in a fog. And it wasn’t because his father was dead.
“It’s a very complicated situation,” the chief said.
“I fail to understand how the murder of the sitting attorney general is so complex that your department is unable to handle it, but if I need to make some calls to help you get motivated, I’ll do that.”
“We are handling it, Governor Sterling,” the chief insisted. It was always weird hearing his grandfather referred to that way because Jule hadn’t been alive when he had been in office, but in formal settings, that was what people called him. “We’ve formed a joint task force with the DEA and ATF.”
That announcement surprised everyone in the room, himself included. In reality, he should be the person who had the most information about what happened to his father. After all, unbeknownst to anyone, he had been there that day, and he knew who did it. But that was all he knew because that had been the last time he had heard from Tor, and his brothers insisted that he hadn’t gotten in touch with them either.
Taking the silence as a positive sign, the chief continued talking. “We have evidence that ties a person named John Jones to the murders of Attorney General Sterling and Victoria Dunworthy, but we haven’t been able to apprehend Mr. Jones. We believe he has strong ties to an organization called the Knights. He may be their leader.”
“What are the Knights?” Jule’s mother asked.
“To be completely frank, we’re only now starting to learn about them. They’re a cartel that we believe started as an offshoot from one of the bigger prison gangs and they may still be connected. They’re insular and incredibly well organized, which is how they’ve managed to fly completely under the radar until now, which I assure you is a concern I’ve raised with my staff. The ATF is involved because of their firearms dealings, and the DEA is on board because of their involvement with controlled substances, among other things. Many other things.”