Chapter 8 – Age 23
Jule lay on his back gazing up at the night sky.
Tor was perpendicular to him, his head on Jule’s stomach.
December was always beautiful in Phoenix, and as much as he enjoyed the green California landscape, he missed the dryness and peace of the desert.
“I love this time of year,” he said, brushing his fingers through Tor’s soft hair.
“Sure beats July.”
He was home from law school for winter break.
Tor was actually around. And the whole family was celebrating New Year’s Eve by enjoying the fresh air, full moon, and sparkling stars.
They’d loaded everyone into their cars, filled the trunks with cases of Milwaukee’s Best and blankets, and made the short drive to Dreamy Draw Park.
After a meandering hike off trail, they were isolated enough to be surrounded by nothing but agaves, ocotillos, and saguaros.
Now everyone was drinking and dancing along to the music blasting from Tyson’s portable speaker.
“You guys ready for another beer?” Titan called over to them.
“I’ll get them,” Tor said, crunching up.
He tugged on Tor’s hoodie, and when Tor looked down at him, he flicked his gaze to Tor’s mouth.
His expression softened and he lowered and pressed his lips to Jule’s.
“Thanks.” He closed his eyes, letting the rare moment wash over him. He was home with his family, with Tor. He missed these nights so much that sometimes he couldn’t breathe through the pain of it.
“Here you go.” Tor stood above him, a beer in each hand.
Jule sat up and reached for a can when a new song started. “I love this one.”
“Me too.” Tor looked over his shoulder. “Yo, Ty, turn that shit up.” He set the beers on the ground and reached his hand to Jule. “Let’s dance, baby.”
Grinning, he took Tor’s hand and let him haul him up.
When the lyrics started, they belted them out together along with all four of Tor’s brothers.
He and Tor wove their arms around each other’s waists and slotted their legs, so they were pressed together from chest to feet.
He continued singing as he caressed Tor’s back, lowered himself a couple of inches, and then rolled up, dragging himself against Tor’s groin and belly.
Tor sang along while gazing at him, his smile soft and his hands on Jule’s ass.
Trey came over and wrapped his elbows around Tor’s neck from behind. He looked happy and healthy. Sobriety was finally sticking and it showed. He wove his body from side to side, dancing to the music.
Eight-year-old Maggie was bouncing and bopping with her father along with their cousins and their kids. Travis swung Maggie into his arms and beamed at her as he made his way to them.
Titan sidled up beside them, hips swinging. He had a baby on the way with a woman he barely knew and none of them had met. Everyone was a little nervous to see how it would play out.
Tyson stood on their other side, filling out the group. He snaked one arm around Tor and the other around Jule and swayed with them. He kissed his youngest brother’s cheek and ruffled Jule’s hair.
When the song ended, Tor kissed him, deep and long, and then he sat and tugged Jule down beside him.
He dug into his pocket, pulled out his knife, and stabbed it into the side of one can before pressing it to his lips.
He snapped open the tab on top, gulped some beer, and then held it against Jule’s mouth for him to finish the rest. When both cans were empty, their faces wet, and their bodies buzzing, Tor kissed him again, rough and messy and real.
He wanted to roll onto his stomach and pull Tor on top of him.
“Later,” Tor said, voice full of gravel. “When there aren’t a bunch of kids around.”
Of course Tor knew exactly what he was thinking. “I remember fucking out in the desert more than once with kids around,” Jule teased.
“That’s when we were kids.” Tor bumped his shoulder against Jule’s. “And most of them were hooking up too. Remember when Ricky Flores got his ass covered in jumping cholla?”
They had been fourteen, partying in the desert with their friends on a hot summer night. “That was fucking hilarious,” Jule cackled.
“It was an end to fucking is what it was. He was balls deep in Jenny Tang at the time. Never seen anyone pull out that fast.”
“Wonder how long it took him to get all those needles out.”
Shrugging, Tor said, “Could have been worse. At least they didn’t land on his nuts.”
Jule flinched. “Ouch.” He leaned his head against Tor’s shoulder and stretched his legs in front of him.
“Not sure you were ever a kid.” They were the same age, but Tor had always had a preternatural maturity to him, an intense stillness, an uncanny ability to understand every situation, identify all the layers beneath it, and determine the perfect way to handle it.
“I was when we played together.” He rested his head against Jule’s. “Remember the mud obstacle course we built in the backyard?”
He chuckled along with Tor. “I was so fucking dirty. My dad lost his shit until you reminded him that my mom was out of town so she wouldn’t see.
I spent an hour in the tub when we got home, and I never saw those clothes or shoes again.
” He shook his head. “The man was weirdly concerned about hygiene considering all that time he spent in bed with Vickie.” Tor’s mother had never been especially clean or sanitary or sober.
“He loved her,” Tor whispered.
Jule considered that. He hadn’t fully understood his father’s relationship with Vickie when he was young or even as he had gotten older because his father was married to his mother, because Vickie would disappear for long stretches, because his father had other affairs.
But thinking back to how he had always been drawn back to her, how he had tried to stay away his entire life but never managed it, he recognized that it had to have been about more than sex. But love?
He shook his head. “That’s not how you treat someone you love,” Jule said, disgust tainting his voice. “If he wanted her, he should have been with her out in the open instead of spending years sneaking around. He fucked up my mom’s life, your mom’s life, his own life.”
Tor looked at him intently, but he didn’t say anything. They never spoke about their parents, not when they had been alive and not after they were killed.
“He was a fucking coward,” Jule spat. “I hate him for that.”
Tor wove his fingers through the back of Jule’s head and massaged his scalp.
“I miss him,” he rasped.
Tor turned and pressed a kiss to Jule’s temple. “I know.”
The Sonoran Desert stretched in front of them, and in the distance, a coyote howled. “Do you miss her?” Jule asked.
It took Tor several long seconds to answer. “I didn’t really know her. She was gone way more than she was around, and even when she was there, she wasn’t. You know?”
He did. Tor’s mother had been high every time he had seen her. In some ways, it was a wonder she had lived as long as she had. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. I have my brothers. I’m lucky.”
Jule turned his gaze to the men laughing and chatting and singing a few body-lengths away from them. “Yep.”
“Come on.” Tor stood and pulled Jule to his feet. “Let’s go hang with them.”
Jule took Tor’s hand and followed him to be with the rest of their family. It was a perfect night and the only thing Jule wanted in life was more of them.
***
“When you said it would take time, we didn’t think you meant more than five years.” Jule’s grandmother gave the chief of police her most disapproving stare. The woman was tiny and a bit frail, but that expression was well-practiced and efficient.
Chief Montez shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I’ll admit that I didn’t either. We’ve had some struggles.”
“Struggles?” his grandfather repeated.
“Getting entrenched in the Knights organization is more difficult than we anticipated. They are locked down tight and they’re suspicious of outsiders. Most of the officers we’ve sent in haven’t been able to get through the door and those who did weren’t able to rise past the scout level.”
“I assume that’s the lowest level?” his mother asked.
Chief Montez nodded.
“So, what you’re saying is that you’ve gotten nowhere?” Jule said, frustrated.
The first time his family had met with the chief of the Phoenix Police Department about his father’s murder, he had been a teenager in the throes of shock and loss, barely able to hold himself together let alone get his mind wrapped around a criminal investigation.
Now he was an adult with a clear mind and a very good handle on what was at stake.
Not as it related to his father, he had always known that John Jones killed him in a definitely jealous and most likely miscalculated rage.
But what he understood with absolute clarity now was that until Tor’s psychotic father was off the street, he would always be hiding and unable to move on with his life, which meant Jule couldn’t live either. He was sick of it.
“That is not what I said.” The chief’s expression went steely. “I said our undercover operation isn’t as expansive as we’d hoped it would be and that is the reason for the delay, but we have made significant progress.”
“You consider an inability to arrest one man after over five years of effort progress?” Jule scoffed.
His mother gave him a warning look. She didn’t approve of unbecoming or unprofessional conduct, even if Jule wasn’t in a professional setting talking about his dead father’s unsolved murder. Jule didn’t care what she thought so he glared at Chief Montez.
“You’re correct that we haven’t arrested John Jones, but that’s only because once we gained a deeper understanding of him and his organization, we realized that putting him behind bars would make things worse.”
“My son is dead,” Jule’s grandfather said. “What could be worse than that?”
“More deaths,” the chief replied. “John Jones is not your average criminal. He is incredibly intelligent and incredibly ruthless. The Knights have a presence in the prison system that’s in constant communication with their people on the outside.
We know where Jones is and we have enough to prosecute him, but if we do that while leaving the Knights intact, even if we get a conviction, he’ll have no trouble running the organization from the inside and, more than that, he is almost certain to lash out and take revenge. ”
“Revenge on who?” his mother asked.
Tor had been hiding from his father for years. If he was willing to go after his only son, a son that allegedly mattered to him, he’d have no compunction about killing any person he thought stood in his path.
As he predicted, the chief said, “Anyone he perceives wronged him along with their friends and relatives.”
Jule’s mother gasped.
“That’s not where we are now,” the chief was quick to explain, holding both hands out. “I assure you that we are being vigilant in tracking any risks to your family and there are none at this time. But to keep it that way, we need to have a meticulous case.”
“What kind of case?” his mother asked. She was a civil litigator, not a criminal lawyer, but discussing the details of a lawsuit put her in her element, which gave her a sense of control, and that relaxed her.
She’d have lost her mind if she had known what little control she had actually had over Jule when he was a child.
Hell, she’d lose her mind if she actually knew the person he was as an adult.
“When we act, it won’t be against Jones alone. We will arrest him along with all of his first and second tier lieutenants. At that point, we’ll be able to turn his scouts in exchange for deals. The Knights will be eradicated, completely and permanently.”
As aggravated as Jule was about the delays, he could see the wisdom in the chief’s approach. But wisdom didn’t equate to success. “How do you plan to do all of that if you haven’t been able to make any progress on that infiltration you promised us going on six years ago?”
“We haven’t been able to get our people in the door in the volume we’d hoped, but we are imbedded in Jones’s organization.
That is how we’ve gathered the information I mentioned, and it is how we are building an airtight case.
This has been slow moving, but it is progressing.
I’m asking for your trust and patience as we do our jobs. ”
Punching the chief of police wouldn’t do a damn thing to move things along and get Tor home, so Jule ground his teeth together, crossed his arms over his chest, and tried to breathe through his rage.
He was only partly successful. “Trust is earned and we have been plenty patient. Five, going on six, years patient.”
“Julian.” His mother looked decidedly uncomfortable.
Chief Montez, on the other hand, looked amused. “You’re in law school, is that right?”
He didn’t realize his mother or grandparents were in close enough contact with the police chief to share personal information unrelated to the case. “What does that have to do with any of this?”
“Do you plan to follow in your parents’ shoes?” he asked.
His grandparents both beamed and his mother lost her worried expression.
“Yes,” his grandfather said.
“He’s at the top of his class at UCLA,” his grandmother added.
“We’re very proud of him,” his mother said.
“Hell no,” Jule snapped.
His mother put her hand over her mouth and his grandmother gasped.
Unperturbed Chief Montez, asked, “What do you plan to do with your career, son?”
“I am not your son. And I plan to defend the people your office harasses.” The people he had grown up with. His friends. His family.
Chief Montez laughed. “I can see it.”
“Although I may not be able to find a job if you handle all your cases as efficiently as you’re managing this one.”
“Julian Sterling, that is enough,” his mother said.
“Yes, it is.” The entire meeting had been as pointless as the supposed investigation. He pushed his chair back and stormed out of the office, more disheartened and infuriated than he had been when he had walked in.