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Read the opening of Billy Houston: Rags to Riches

Prologue

Republic of Sundara — Forty-Five Years Later — 2019

Cell 12B, Sundara Federal Penitentiary

Midnight. Forty-five years after Santa Monica—after Tommy, after the first broken deal.

Most nights, the cell was silent. I stared through the hole in the wall they called a window and thought about 1974.

It all started in Santa Monica, with five boys and a dream. We thought we were kings.

 I didn’t know it then, but that was the last time I’d ever feel truly free.
The rest? You’re about to read it. The rise, the ruin, and everything in between.
I lay back on the thin mattress, staring at the cracked ceiling. The fan squeaked uselessly in the humid air. Somewhere down the corridor, a brass prayer bell tinkled. A guard’s boots scuffed past—his radio blaring, his mutter always the same: scum.

What still haunts me isn’t the cell. It’s that night.

 The crash.

 The funeral I never attended.

 The rager that ended it all before it even began.

Tommy’s voice still cuts through the silence—sharp, close, impossible. “You only live once, Billy!” Then the splash. The laugh. That grin I’d kill to see one more time…..

Chapter 1

Sundara — The Day It All Ended

May 16th, 2019

The white linen tunic clung to my back like a second skin. They called it a symbol of truth. To me, it felt like a uniform for the condemned.

By design, I sat lower than the judge. In Sundara, defendants always looked up to power.

Sweat pooled at the base of my neck. The room smelled of mold, nerves, and wet stone.

Marcus Davenport, my lawyer, leaned in. Calm. Precise. Native Sundaran. One of the best.

 “We’ll appeal,” he whispered. “Whatever he throws at us.”

I didn’t blink, but my eyes scanned the gallery.

Chook stood ramrod straight, fists clenched, grief simmering just beneath the surface.

Boonsri didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. She stared like a lighthouse refusing to dim, no matter the storm.

Johnny Kean—back row, wild shirt, blonde hair messy as hell.

He caught my eye, held up his phone, and tapped the screen.

WE’RE NOT DONE.
Then he grinned—like he’d just bluffed the house—and vanished through the back exit.
And Pat…

Alone in the far corner. Arms crossed. Jaw locked.
When our eyes met—nothing. Not anger. Not pity. Just the weight of forty-five years collapsing into silence….

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