From Bullets To Billions

Chapter 116: The Reason Behind Chad Stern

Max stared through the glass at Dipter.

His face, his knuckles, and his arms were marked with scratches and bruises, some old, some fresh. It was obvious he’d been fighting.

Made sense. Juvie wasn’t full of scared kids. It was full of people like Dipter, territorial, violent, eager to prove something. Fights were inevitable.

Max knew that world. He’d been there once himself. But someone got him out.

Now, he was sitting on the other side of the glass, face to face with a ghost from that world.

And the first words out of Dipter’s mouth confirmed what Max had come to suspect.

Dipter didn’t just know him as Max Smith.

He knew him as Max Stern.

”I saw the look on your face,” Max said, calm but direct. ”You figured it out. And now I know I was right.”

His eyes narrowed. ”You knew all along. You knew I was a member of the Stern family. Just like the client you were working for.”

Dipter let out a snorting laugh. It started small, then spiraled.

”I can’t believe what fools we were!” he said, shaking his head, his voice cracking as the laughter took over. ”We were being used. Just pieces in some rich family’s game!”

He slammed his fist on the small table beside him. ”All that time, we were beating you down, and you said nothing. Then, when you finally made your move... You didn’t just beat us. You ended it.”

He grinned wildly. ”Gotta give it to you. You played it better than that idiot Chad ever could.”

Dipter was unraveling. The calm, calculated version of him was gone. Juvie hadn’t broken him physically, but mentally, the cracks were spreading.

Max watched in silence. Letting him burn out.

Then finally, he asked, ”So tell me, how did you figure it out? That I was a Stern? Chad didn’t tell you.”

Dipter narrowed his eyes.

”So that’s why you’re here,” he said. ”You want information.”

He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms.

”Guess that makes sense. You made it pretty clear when you dumped me in here that we weren’t friends.”

He stood halfway from his seat.

”You can rot in whatever mess you’re in. I’m not telling you a damn thing.”

”Come on,” Max said calmly, leaning in slightly. ”You’re smarter than that.”

His voice was steady, cutting through the tension.

”I’m the one who got you in here. And you know just as well as I do, those charges? Most of them weren’t even linked to you. You’re here because I made it happen.”

He held Dipter’s gaze.

”And now that you know who I really am... you should also know I’m the only one who can get you out.”

Max let that hang in the air.

”Life’s not as easy in here, huh? Not when you’re not at the top.”

Dipter didn’t answer right away. Instead, he slowly sank back into his chair. His eyes dropped to the table, and the fight in his expression dimmed.

The bruises on his face, the cuts on his knuckles, they said enough. He wasn’t running this place. Not in here. For once, he was the one on the receiving end of the daily beatdowns.

His voice was lower now, quieter.

”When this whole thing started,” Dipter said, ”I had no idea you, or Chad, were part of the Stern family.”

The wild laughter from earlier was gone. What was left was something closer to the real Dipter. Raw. Worn down.

”I climbed to the top of the school. Took control. Gathered the strongest students under me. We were ready to take on the other schools. Same old system, just under my rule. I thought that was the only thing that mattered.”

He paused, jaw tight. ”Then Chad showed up.”

Max stayed silent, listening.

”He’d heard I ran the school. Said he had a small job. Deal with a transfer student... and a girl who went to our school.”

Max didn’t flinch. He already knew who the targets were.

”In exchange,” Dipter continued, ”he offered money. Stupid amounts of it. Stuff no high school kid should ever get. It didn’t make sense, but I didn’t care. I didn’t ask why.”

He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers slowly.

”The two of you, whatever beef Chad had, it wasn’t my business. The money was real. And once the first job was done, he pulled us into something bigger. He needed help with other things.”

He glanced back up, eyes cold again, but not angry. Just tired.

”We called it ’The Weekend Deliveries.’ I used the money to strengthen my hold. Hired loyal students. Turned the school into a fortress.”

Then he leaned back.

”And whatever was happening with you and your girlfriend? That became nothing more than a side mission.”

”I had no idea what was in those briefcases,” Dipter continued, his voice level. ”But I knew who we were delivering them to. Local street gangs, mostly. We were just transporters.”

He paused, rubbing a thumb across one of the scabs on his knuckle.

”But the thing about jobs like that... whatever was inside those packages? Other people wanted them too. That meant sometimes, we got hit.”

His eyes darkened.

”One time, we were attacked by another street crew. I handled it personally. Made the delivery anyway.”

He looked up, lips curling into something between a smile and a sneer.

”After that, this guy approaches me. Said he saw what we did. Said he was impressed. Then he makes a suggestion, why don’t we cut Chad out of the picture entirely?”

Max didn’t react, but inside, he was listening harder now.

”That conversation got me thinking,” Dipter said. ”I started making plans, plans for what the school could become without Chad pulling the strings. How much more we could make. How we could run things on our own.”

He leaned forward.

”But there was one problem, our original client. Chad.”

His fingers tapped the table, slow and steady.

”He was dangerous. We knew that. And there were always people around him, watching. We couldn’t just cut ties without consequences.”

Dipter looked off to the side, remembering.

”Then one day, I was getting instructions from Chad, same as usual, and his guard slipped up. Called him a Stern.”

He paused.

”That name didn’t mean anything to me at the time. But I looked it up.”

His eyes met Max’s, steady.

”And I couldn’t believe what I saw. Your family. Plastered across the internet. Lavish houses. Flashy cars. The Stern empire, one of the biggest names around.”

Max kept his expression flat, but in the back of his mind, he made a mental note:

Remind Aron to keep quiet. The guy talked too much, and it was only a matter of time before he said something that gave it all away.

Still, none of this answered the bigger question. Dipter found out Chad was a Stern. But how did he figure Max was one? And more importantly...

Who were the people that attacked the gym? What did they want, and who were they really working for?

The puzzle pieces were here. But they still weren’t fitting together.

”At first, I was scared,” Dipter admitted, his tone shifting again, less mocking, more calculated. ”I couldn’t figure out why that guy would even suggest something like that. I mean, they clearly knew who our client was.”

He leaned in slightly, eyes narrowing.

”The Stern family might not be a gang, but they’ve got stupid, ridiculous amounts of money. Enough to make people disappear. Enough to make something like this”, he motioned to the glass between them, ”look like child’s play. Right, Max?”

Max gave a quiet nod, but didn’t say a word. He just wanted Dipter to keep talking.

And he did.

”But then I thought about it,” Dipter went on. ”Why would someone from the Stern family be dealing with us? With street kids, with school punks running delivery routes? That’s pocket change to people like you.”

He paused, letting it hang.

”The answer... is how I figured everything out.”

He looked Max dead in the eye.

”Because Chad Stern doesn’t have a single cent to his name.”