Born on August 26, 1962, and raised on the north side of Chicago, Bernero became married at seventeen, and spent the first three years of that marriage as an Air Force family in the Philippines (two of his three children were born there). Bernero became a Chicago Police officer in 1986, and he worked mostly in the 20th District (Foster Avenue), mainly midnights and wrote during the day, for ten years. His last day on the force was August 15, 1996.