KNOW YOUR PLACE BY SHELLY ELLIS
Success
didn't come easy for three best friends from the streets. And now dangerous
choices and reckless desire will push their bond to lethal limits.
A stint at the
Branch Avenue Boys' Youth Institute taught Ricky, Derrick, and Jamal to unite
when the going got tough. But fallout from their very different adult lives is
making loyalty something they can't afford--and igniting drama they never saw
coming . . .
Arrested during a city-wide raid, Ricky must inform on D.C's drug king pin, Dolla Dolla--and find the woman who loved and betrayed him. But revenge is a slippery slope that's putting a target on his back . . .
Institute head Derrick hopes reuniting with his fiancée will keep his secret affair with a colleague in the past. Unfortunately, one of his students is hiding Dolla Dolla's major stash--and Derrick's attempt to do the right thing will have shattering consequences . . .
Jamal's backroom deal with D.C.'s corrupt mayor is giving him everything he thought he wanted: money, power, and women. But murder and the unexpected return of the woman he's always loved is getting him in way over his head. His attempts to manage the damage will put him and his friends at killer odds to be the last man standing . . .
Arrested during a city-wide raid, Ricky must inform on D.C's drug king pin, Dolla Dolla--and find the woman who loved and betrayed him. But revenge is a slippery slope that's putting a target on his back . . .
Institute head Derrick hopes reuniting with his fiancée will keep his secret affair with a colleague in the past. Unfortunately, one of his students is hiding Dolla Dolla's major stash--and Derrick's attempt to do the right thing will have shattering consequences . . .
Jamal's backroom deal with D.C.'s corrupt mayor is giving him everything he thought he wanted: money, power, and women. But murder and the unexpected return of the woman he's always loved is getting him in way over his head. His attempts to manage the damage will put him and his friends at killer odds to be the last man standing . . .
AVAILABLE ON:
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | INDIEBOUND | POWELLS | TARGET
CHAPTER 1
Derrick Miller
stared down at the two open suitcases in front of him, closed his eyes for a
few seconds, and slowly opened them again.
It was insane
but, in the back of his mind, he had hoped they would disappear. Maybe the
suitcases—one filled with multiple stacks of hundred-dollar bills bound neatly
with multicolored rubber bands, the other stuffed with packs of white powder
that was more than likely cocaine—were figments of his imagination, mini
mirages right here at the Branch Avenue Boys’ Youth Institute dormitories.
But of course,
they weren’t; the suitcases didn’t shimmer then disappear like a waterfall
floating in the desert. They were still there with their lids yawning open, and
what they contained was bared for all the world to see.
This was real,
too real for Derrick’s liking.
“Come on, man!
We gonna be late,” someone shouted in the hallway, shaking Derrick out of his
stupor.
His eyes
darted to the dormitory’s open door as two boys jogged by, probably on their
way to their morning classes. Derrick’s eyes snapped back to the suitcases. He
couldn’t leave them here. He certainly couldn’t let any of the boys at the
Institute see them. He didn’t know whom they belonged to, but he suspected
Cole, the student who was assigned to the bunk where he’d found the suitcases,
knew who the owner was. He’d talk to Cole later, but his first mission was to
find a place to hide these damn things.
Derrick
quickly flipped both of the lids closed, zipping each of them with shaking
hands. He grabbed the handles and yanked them off the bed. They landed on the
linoleum floor with a thud. They had to weigh about a hundred pounds each.
Derrick
gritted his teeth as he lifted the suitcases and lugged them to the door, one
in each hand. He walked straight down the hall to the stairwell. A few students
eyed him curiously. Several boys had a questioning look on their faces,
probably wondering what the Institute’s director was doing, carrying luggage
down the hall in the middle of the day like he was heading to Ronald Reagan
Washington National Airport fifteen miles up the road.
“Hey, Mr.
Derrick!” one of the boys—dark skinned and stocky—called out as he held open
the stainless steel door for him. His dark eyes dropped to the suitcases.
“Damn, those look heavy! You need some h—”
“No!” Derrick
barked between bursts of breath.
The boy’s
ready smile disappeared.
“I mean . . .
I mean, no. I-I got it. Th-thanks for asking though,” Derrick stuttered with a
slight grimace.
The boy nodded
just as Derrick disappeared into the stairwell and made the slow trek down the
stairs to the floor below. With each step, the suitcases felt heavier and
heavier. Sweat erupted on his forehead and rolled down the bridge of his nose.
The short bursts of breath came out faster, making a faint whistle between his
clenched teeth. The tendons and muscles in his arms started to jitter. His
heart was beating fast from the stress and the strain. When he finally pushed
the steel door open and reached his office, he didn’t lower the suitcases to
the floor as much as hurl them.
He shut his
office door behind him, locked it, and looked around frantically for a place to
hide the suitcases. The office didn’t have a storage closet and the suitcases
certainly wouldn’t fit in any of his cabinets or shelves. The only spot where
they could possibly fit was a corner beside his file cabinet. He shoved them
both into the dusty, dark space.
By now, not
only was his brow sweaty, but pools of sweat had also formed under his armpits.
His palms were slick with it. Sweat even dripped down his back and the crack of
his ass.
When Derrick
finally finished shoving the suitcases into the hiding space, he dragged across
the floor a potted fiddle-leaf fig tree his fiancée, Melissa, had given him for
his birthday to add a little softness to his sterile office. He set it in front
of the suitcases. He then stood back and surveyed his handiwork.
It was a
questionable hiding job—the plant barely provided any coverage—but it would
have to do for now.
He flopped
back into his rolling chair and let out a slow, long exhale. It took another
ten minutes for his heart to finally return to its normal pace, for his hands
to stop shaking.
How the hell
did those things even get here?
How had the
boys managed to smuggle something so heavy and massive into the dorms, right
under the noses of the instructors and security guards? When had they done it?
It must have been recently because the suitcases certainly would have been
noticed during their weekly inspections of the boys’ bunks and lockers. Had
someone else brought them?
Cole knows all
the answers, he thought, staring at the fig tree. And that boy better tell me
the damn truth!
CLICK TO ADD ON GOODREADS
ABOUT SHELLY ELLIS
Shelly Ellis is a NAACP Image
Award-nominated women's fiction/romance author and creator of the Gibbons Gold
Digger and Chesterton Scandal series. Her fiction writing career began when she
became one of four finalists in a First-Time Writers Contest when she was 19
years old. The prize was a publishing contract and having her first short-story
romance appear in an anthology. She has since published several novels and was
a finalist for 2015 NAACP Image Award in the Literary Fiction Category, a
three-time finalist for the African American Literary Award in the romance
category (2012, 2016, and 2017), and a finalist for the 2015 RT Reviewers'
Choice Award in Multicultural Romance category.
She is married and lives in Prince George's County, Maryland with her husband and their daughter. Visit her at her web site www.shellyellisbooks.com.
She is married and lives in Prince George's County, Maryland with her husband and their daughter. Visit her at her web site www.shellyellisbooks.com.
