The Final Play Read online

  Also by Shelly Ellis

  The Branch Ave Boys

  Know Your Place

  In These Streets

  Chesterton Scandal series

  To Love & Betray

  Lust & Loyalty

  Best Kept Secrets

  Bed of Lies

  Gibbons Gold Digger series

  Can’t Stand the Heat

  The Player & the Game

  Another Woman’s Man

  The Best She Ever Had

  Published by Dafina Books

  THE FINAL PLAY

  A Branch Ave Boys Novel

  SHELLY ELLIS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1 - Derrick

  Chapter 2 - Jamal

  Chapter 3 - Ricky

  Chapter 4 - Derrick

  Chapter 5 - Ricky

  Chapter 6 - Jamal

  Chapter 7 - Derrick

  Chapter 8 - Derrick

  Chapter 9 - Jamal

  Chapter 10 - Ricky

  Chapter 11 - Ricky

  Chapter 12 - Derrick

  Chapter 13 - Jamal

  Chapter 14 - Ricky

  Chapter 15 - Derrick

  Chapter 16 - Jamal

  Chapter 17 - Ricky

  Chapter 18 - Derrick

  Chapter 19 - Jamal

  Chapter 20 - Ricky

  Chapter 21 - Derrick

  Chapter 22 - Jamal

  Chapter 23 - Ricky

  Chapter 24 - Derrick

  Chapter 25 - Jamal

  Chapter 26 - Ricky

  Chapter 27 - Derrick

  Chapter 28 - Jamal

  Chapter 29 - Ricky

  Chapter 30 - Derrick

  Chapter 31 - Jamal

  Chapter 32 - Jamal

  Chapter 33 - Ricky

  Chapter 34 - Derrick

  Chapter 35 - Ricky

  Chapter 36 - Derrick

  Chapter 37 - Jamal

  Chapter 38 - Jamal

  Chapter 39 - Ricky

  Teaser chapter

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  DAFINA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2019 by Shelly Ellis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Dafina and the Dafina logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-2467-0

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2468-7 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-2468-2 (ebook)

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: November 2019

  To Andrew and Chloe,

  to Mom and Dad, and

  to Aunt Rachel and Greatgrandma,

  you’re always there in some shape or form in my heart.

  Thanks for being who you were and who you are.

  You will always be important to me.

  Acknowledgments

  I say it all the time . . . Even though splashy debuts get a lot of attention in our industry, I wish there was more praise for authors who have staying power. Climbing the summit and publishing your first book is hard. No doubt about that. There’s a lot of focus on how to break into the industry, from books to blogs to podcasts. But few will tell you that staying on that summit you just climbed or continuing to have a viable career as an author can be even more challenging. There isn’t much “how-to” advice in that area—just lots of trial and error.

  I marvel at the authors who have written dozens and dozens of books and still keep their audiences or grow them. I’m amazed at how they manage to come up with amazingly creative story lines and memorable characters. I remember looking at my parents’ bookshelves when I was younger, seeing paperback after paperback with names like Nora Roberts, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Francis Ray, and Terri McMillan on the covers and along the spines. I would think, “Man, I wish I could do that! I hope that’s me someday.” I’m not a Roberts, King, or McMillan, but I’m proud of my little sumthin’ sumthin’ I’ve done with my writing. I know it hasn’t been an easy journey and I’ve gotten help and lots of encouragement along the way.

  The Final Play marks the release my fifteenth full-length novel. (I’ve written eleven full-length novels under Shelly Ellis, two under Shelly Stratton, and two under L.S. Childers.) It’s also the closure of my fourth series. I couldn’t have gotten this one done without the support of my husband, Andrew, and our daughter, Chloe, who played quietly to herself or on her Kindle to give me time to create. I also couldn’t have done it without my lifelong cheerleaders—Mom and Dad. I also want to thank my wordsmith and editor, Esi Sogah, and my agent and counselor, Barbara Poelle. And thanks to an unsung hero, Rebecca Cremonese, production editor at Kensington Books. Rebecca and I have worked together on numerous novels. She handles all my page proofs. She’s the last line of defense to keep my writing from looking crazy and I appreciate all the work she does.

  I have a long list of writer friends and readers (though frankly, I think every reader is a potential writer at heart) who I commiserate with daily. If I missed one of their names, I’d feel guilty so I will say to the writers, “You know who you are. I love you. Thanks for sharing in the joy and misery that is being a writer. You’re all talented and I wish you the best and most success.” And to the readers who have supported me in the past and continue to support me: Thank you, thank you, thank you! You complete the circle and make me feel like a rock star.

  Chapter 1

  Derrick

  “Hey! Hey!” someone shouted, making Derrick Miller lurch awake.

  He opened his eyes and squinted against the bright morning light. He dazedly looked around him, wondering why he had fallen asleep in his car and not his bed. He looked down at himself. And why was he still wearing his tuxedo?

  The pounding in his head wasn’t helping him focus. It was like a jackhammer was trying to beat a hole through his skull. His mouth was dry, too. His neck, back, and shoulders ached after sitting up in the driver’s seat for he had no idea how long.

  “Look, man, you can’t be sleepin’ here! This ain’t no damn hotel!” a muffled voice shouted at him.

  Derrick turned slightly in his seat to find a security guard standing at the driver’s-side door, rapping his knuckles on the glass. The guard—a squat, fat, elderly man in a too-tight uniform—was scowling at him and sending spittle flying at the window.

  As Derrick stared back at him, he finally realized where he was. He had fallen asleep in his Nissan in the same parking garage he had parked in last night. After he had left the education gala, after his girlfriend, Morgan, had walked out on him—probably for good—he had decided to lick his wounds and stay huddled up in his car. Derrick had been too drunk to drive home. He hadn’t wanted to make his bad evening worse with a car accident or getting pulled over by Metro Police for a DUI.

  He had already dodged being sent to jail last night. There was no need to take the chance again.

  “I’m tellin’ you, man. If you don’t move this car, I’m callin’ the cops!” the guard shouted. “I’m not playin’!”

  Derrick held up his hands and nodded groggily. “I’m leavin’. I’m . . . I’m leavin’.
Just . . . just give me a second to get . . . get myself together. Okay?”

  He tiredly scrubbed his hands over his face and turned on the engine. He threw the car into reverse and pressed the accelerator, making the car heave back and the guard jump out of the way to keep from getting hit or his toes run over.

  “Damn! Watch it! You tryin’ to kill somebody?” the guard yelled.

  Derrick didn’t answer him. Instead, he continued to back out of the parking space, though he did so more carefully this time. He looked up and followed the EXIT signs, pointing his car in the same direction as the yellow arrows overhead until he finally reached the gate that would take him out of the garage onto a Northwest D.C. street that was already teeming with morning traffic.

  As Derrick made the slow drive back to his apartment building, the events of last night came rushing back to him in lurid detail. The more he remembered, the more he cringed.

  In one night, he had not only managed to lose the opportunity to get badly needed funding for the Branch Avenue Boys’ Youth Institute where he was executive director, but he’d also lost his girl . . . his love, Morgan. And he had done it all because of misguided jealousy and fury—all because he had found out his ex, Melissa, was now dating his former best friend, Jamal.

  Now sober, Derrick realized how insane he must have looked last night to everyone in that ballroom as he yelled and cursed. He could still hear the echoes of the screams from the crowd around them as he punched Jamal in the face in a fit of rage near the hotel’s elevators.

  Did he regret what he’d done? He certainly regretted the aftermath. He did love Morgan and hadn’t wanted her to think otherwise. He had wanted to make a good impression on John and Eliza Mayhew—the wealthy couple whom Morgan had arranged for him to meet at the gala in the hope that they would donate money to the Institute. Derrick hadn’t wanted to squander either opportunity. But how was he expected not to lash out, to not feel anything about Jamal’s betrayal? He was only human; any red-blooded man in a similar situation probably would have done the same damn thing. Derrick just wished he hadn’t done it so publicly. He wished Morgan hadn’t been there. He shouldn’t have been so reckless or stupid.

  When he arrived at his apartment building twenty minutes later, he pulled into a vacant space, slowly opened his car door, and staggered onto the sidewalk. His head was still pounding. He still felt like he needed sunglasses to keep out the morning sun. A couple of minutes later, he shoved open his front door, revealing an eerily quiet apartment.

  He didn’t expect Morgan to be here, even though she had moved in with him briefly. They were both supposed to move into their new apartment in a few weeks in Brookland, near Gallaudet University. It would’ve been the first place they had gotten together.

  Morgan’s lease at her apartment had ended earlier than his. She had been staying here until their big move.

  Until I fucked that up, he thought morosely as he closed the apartment door behind him.

  Derrick had managed to lose two women and a cat in less than six months. He was certain of it now: He was horrible at relationships.

  He walked down the hall to his bedroom, removing his tie from around his neck and his jacket along the way. After he’d stripped off all of his clothes, he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, pulling back his dreads and securing them with a rubber. Derrick hadn’t been the one hit last night but his eyes were puffy, probably from the lack of a good night’s sleep. Fatigue was all over his mahogany-hued face. He flexed his sore hand, climbed into the shower stall, and adjusted the shower head from the last time Morgan had used it, making it accommodate his tall height. He felt the hot blast of the water, hoping to wash away the frustration and shame he felt. Derrick emerged from the bathroom thirty minutes later, having brushed his teeth and taken some aspirin. When he did, he heard a thumping sound in his bedroom. He walked down the hall and found Morgan hunched over one of the drawers, shoving some of her clothes into a duffel bag. She was no longer wearing her gown from last night but a T-shirt and shorts. Her curly hair was in a loose bun atop her head.

  He leaned against the door frame as he watched her. It was obvious she was unaware he was standing there because she went about her task without even giving him a glance.

  He had been through this before when Melissa had packed her things and moved out after she found out he had been cheating with Morgan for months. But watching Morgan go through the same ritual, hurt even more. This was supposed to be the start of something new and fresh. This was supposed to be the relationship he had finally gotten right. There was no tug-of-war with Morgan like what he’d experienced with Melissa even in their best of times because, though they’d loved each other, they were too different at heart. With Morgan, everything fell into place—and he had ruined it.

  His phone rang, snapping her attention, making her turn around to look at his cell that sat on one of the night tables. When she did, her eyes landed on Derrick and she held up her free hand.

  “I don’t wanna talk,” she said as the phone rang again. She returned her attention to her packing. “I just wanna get some of my shit and get the hell out of here. I’ll come back for the rest later. Okay?”

  “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “You weren’t supposed to,” she muttered.

  “Where are you staying?”

  She didn’t answer him. Instead, she continued to pack.

  “Morgan, don’t do this, baby! Look, I know what I did last night was fucked up,” he began, tightening the towel around his waist and walking toward her. “But I want you to know . . . I need you to understand that it wasn’t because I want to get back with Melissa. I know that’s over between us. I just—”

  “The only reason why it’s over between you and Melissa is because she left you, Derrick,” Morgan said icily. “I was the consolation prize—the backup. I always was. I know that now. And the only reason you’re upset I’m leaving is you’ll be alone. But you’ll find another girl. Men like you always do. Another sucker will come along. Don’t worry!”

  “You aren’t a sucker and you weren’t the consolation prize, damn it! I really do lov—”

  “I don’t want to hear it anymore. I’m tired of your bullshit and your lying! You’re wasting your breath!” She glanced at his phone again. “You should probably answer that. It keeps ringing.”

  The ringtone continued to fill the bedroom. He grimly pursed his lips and stepped around her to answer his cell.

  “Yeah?” he said after pressing the green button.

  “Mr. Miller,” Gary, one of the security guards at the Institute answered, “sir, I’m glad I caught you. We’ve got a situation up here.”

  Derrick frowned. “What’s wrong? Did something happen? Is it one of the boys?”

  At those words, Morgan halted. She turned and looked at Derrick.

  In addition to being his girlfriend, Morgan was also an instructor at the Boys’ Institute. She taught woodworking and was one of the favorite teachers of most of the boys enrolled in the rehabilitation program. She had embraced the underprivileged teens, ignoring their troubled pasts and seeing them for who they were at their core. It was one of the things Derrick loved most about her.

  “Something happened?” she whispered, narrowing her green eyes.

  He shrugged helplessly as he listened to Gary on the other end.

  “Yeah, it’s one of the boys. He’s disappeared,” Gary finally explained.

  “Who?”

  “Cole Humphries, sir. We checked the dormitories, all the classrooms, the basketball court . . . everywhere, and we can’t find him. One of the kids said he thinks he saw Cole sneak out last night, but it’s not on any of our security footage. We don’t know where he went.”

  Derrick grimaced.

  Cole was one of his more troubled students. He had been working for one of the biggest drug kingpins in D.C., Dolla Dolla, before one of his crimes had landed him at the Institute. He’d even been holding and transporting drugs and
money for Dolla Dolla at the school, until Derrick and Morgan had confronted him together and put a stop to it. Cole had promised them that he would no longer work for Dolla Dolla, that he would clean up his ways. Now Derrick wondered if he had been telling them the truth.

  “Okay,” he murmured. “I’ll be in soon. I’ll start making phone calls to see if I can track him down.”

  “Okay, sir,” Gary said before hanging up.

  “What’s wrong?” Morgan asked as Derrick lowered his cell phone back to his night table.

  “Cole’s missing.”

  “What? Did he run away?”

  “Looks like it,” he said, yanking his towel from around his waist and tossing it to the floor. He strode to his dresser and began to gather underwear and socks.

  She dazedly shook her head. “But why would he . . . I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t either, but I have to find him before the cops do.” He stepped into his boxer briefs. “He’s going to be in violation of his sentence for leaving the Institute like this. He could get sent to jail.”

  Though the boy had been a thorn in Derrick’s side pretty much since he’d arrived at the Institute, he didn’t want to see Cole go to prison. Putting a young man in a cell with older, hardened criminals who had committed much worse crimes than him would only make Cole worse, not better. And honestly, Derrick saw a little of his young self in Cole—the false bravado, the swagger. Those were the same traits that had landed Derrick at the Institute twenty years ago, before he’d learned the error of his ways.

  “I’ll help you,” Morgan said, making him pause and stare at her in surprise.

  “Huh?”

  “I said I’ll help you find Cole! I’ll talk to some of his friends at the Institute. Maybe they’ll tell me why he would leave . . . where he went. He could be at his mom’s house, but he might not. What if he went back to Dolla? What if something happened and he just had to go, Derrick?”