Don't Ever Tell by Brandon Massey Read Free Book Online Page A

the house,” Dexter said. “In a floor safe in the
kitchen. It’s all gone.”
“Fuck.” Javier made a grunt of disgust.
When Dexter had gotten convicted, Javier had offered to
store the money for him until he either was released, or broke
out. I’ve got it under control, Dexter had told him. Besides,
if IAD had opened an investigation into their narc squad activities—always a possibility—not even Javier, as trustworthy
and cunning as he was, could have guaranteed the safety of
Dexter’s savings. The floor safe had served perfectly for a
decade.
“She took it,” Dexter said. “Probably hired a locksmith to
crack the lock, paid him by sucking his dick.”
“You told her about it?”
“Use your motherfuckin’ head, man. I didn’t tell her shit.” “I didn’t think you did. She musta peeped it some kinda
way, took it when you got sent downstate. How fucked up.
Jesus.”
Dexter clenched his gloved hand into a fist. It was worse
than fucked up. It was, as the saying went, FUBAR—fucked
up beyond all recognition.
The secret stash that he’d built represented ten years of
backbreaking, dirty police work. Bribes from suspects. Underthe-table payments from hip-hop stars who toured in the city
and wanted dependable security from an off-duty cop. Loot
he and the other narc cops scored from shaking down drug
dealers. Money they earned from stealing cocaine from evidence rooms, replacing it with Bisquick, and reselling the
product on the street to the highest bidder.
His rationale for accumulating the money was simple:
The system was rife with corruption, from the courts all the
way down to the beat cop on the corner, and he was going to
get his, by any means necessary. His long-dead dad, a smalltime hustler and pimp in his day, had lectured him about how
to acquire anything you desired. You couldn’t just do your
job and expect that because you were a nice, honest guy,
you’d get the raise you deserved. No, if you wanted something—money, women, power, anything—you had to do
what real men had been doing since time immemorial. You had to take it.
It was why he’d become a cop, and not a hood like his old
    DON’T EVER TELL 59
    man. Dad had always been running from the law, always coughing up payments to cops so he could stay in business. Dexter didn’t want to be the guy on the run paying bribes. He wanted to be on the receiving end of all those sweet fringe benefits—using his badge and any amount of force necessary to take whatever he wanted.
    Turned out he was damned good at it. Thanks to his leadership, Javier and the other members of the old team would retire from the CPD with a helluva lot more to fall back on than a cop’s pension. With incarceration jamming up his own retirement plans, he’d intended, upon his escape, to use the money to fund his exodus overseas. Many African nations lacked an extradition treaty with the United States, and in such a country, the sum he had earned would have allowed him to live like a sultan.
    But once again, the bitch was going to try to rob him of his freedom. He didn’t doubt that she, and not someone else, had discovered the money. She’d never been loyal to him, and where there was smoke, there was fire.
    “I was going to track her down anyway before I left,” Dexter said. “Now she’s given me all the more reason to find her ass.”
    “Explains how she vanished into thin air like she did,”
    Javier said. “She had your loot backing her.”
“With one point seven mil, I’d say the bitch could go just
about anywhere she fucking well pleases.”
“One point seven? That much?” Javier whistled. “You
need any funds in the interim, man? Something to tide you
over?”
“No more favors. I’ll handle it.”
“What’s your plan then?”
“Everyone who helped her get away...everyone she
loves,” Dexter said, “I’m going to fucking kill them. It’s a
simple matter of respect, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah, man.” Javier paused. “But what about