CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I arrived at my office later that morning, I could tell from the moment I set foot in the club that it would be a long day. Kesha caught my attention and said she needed to talk with me as soon as possible. I told her to wait while I dropped my things off and checked the office.
Upstairs, I found Riza pacing the floor. This was not a good sign.
"What's up?" I asked as I tried not to let the dread take over.
"Fucking Beck!" she shouted. "That little bastard is going to fuck us all!"
"Hey, hey, hey," I said holding up a hand while I walked over and firmly shut the door. It was unlike Riza to get worked up about anything. In fact, she was the person I counted on to always maintain her calm, cool demeanor. Seeing her like this unsettled me. "Chill out and tell me what happened."
"Your little brother is going to fuck up everything, Dax," she said as she clenched her fists at her sides. "He took the damn boat out and tried to make a drug run from Tijuana to the Marina dock. But he's too fucking stupid to pull shit like that off. He got caught by the Coasties, and now he's in their jail waiting for a hearing."
"So, he fucked up, that's small potatoes compared to what he could have done," I said secretly relieved to learn that Beck wasn't dead.
"You really don't get it do you?" she asked searching my face for a sign that I understood what she was talking about. "You don't get that your brother is knowledgeable enough to sink our entire operation by opening his junkie mouth and singing to the Feds, do you?"
"He's a junkie, who's gonna believe him?" I shrugged.
"Jesus, you are blind as fuck when it comes to that boy," she spat. "I've got an inside informant over there at the Coast Guard and he said that Beck offered to give them all the information they wanted on his brother's club if they'd trade him a fix."
"And they took the whacked out ramblings of a junkie as gospel truth?" I asked. "They're stupider than I thought."
"Dax, stop cutting Beck slack," she said as she put her palms flat on the edge of my desk and looked straight into my eyes. "He's going to ruin all of our hard work and our future. He's in bed with the North side guys and they're using him to try and break you down."
"So, what do you suggest I do, Riza?" I said as I looked at her. There was fury in my eyes because I had a feeling that I knew what she was going to say but I wanted to hear her say it before I said anything.
"You know what I say," she shrugged. "When there's a weak link, you cut it loose and save the rest of the chain."
"You're saying I should off my own brother," I said.
"I'm just saying that you have to decide what's most important, the organization and its future or the junkie who is going to bring it all crashing down around our heads unless he's stopped," she said as she stood up and put her hands on her hips. "I'm just saying, you're gonna have to make a decision, Dax. Sooner or later, you're gonna have to choose."
"Fine, when I get to that bridge, I'll cross it," I said in an irritated voice. I was tired of discussing this with her and it was obvious that we weren't going to agree on how to handle the situation. "Riza, for now, we're going to let Beck sit in jail. I'm going to find him a lawyer to be at his bail hearing and then we'll figure out what to do next, okay?"
"You're so fucked," she said as she turned and stormed out of the room.
A few minutes later, Kesha appeared at the door asking, "Is now a good time to talk, boss?"
"Yeah, come on in, K," I said waving her in. "Let's talk about this inventory situation."
"Boss, it's getting weirder by the day," she said shaking her head. "Yesterday, I found more crates that we hadn't ordered down in the storage area, and when I opened them they were full of product. But it's not our product."
"How do you know?" I asked. "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely sure," she said. "Come downstairs and I'll show you."
I followed Kesha to the basement storage area where we kept the liquor. We had a second storage area where we kept the product, as we called it. Kesha was right, there was something really off about this product. It definitely wasn't ours. The crates were poorly constructed and the product was stored in Ziplock bags, some of which were only half filled. This was a lazy, half-assed job done by hacks, but how had it wound up in our storage area?
"Kesha, how did this get here?" I asked.
"Hand to God, I have no idea," she said and I believed her. Kesha ran the tightest product ship I'd ever seen. She was equally picky about the liquor and never once had failed to come up with an accurate count. I trusted her more than anyone except Riza, and she had no reason to lie to me.
"We have to figure out how the hell this happened," I said. "Let's get the security footage and see who was down here."
"Way ahead of you, boss," she said. "That's the insane thing, there is no footage showing these crates arriving in the storage area. Someone went in and erased the time between the last delivery and the discovery of the crates. It's like they're setting us up or something."
"Can you think of anyone who'd want to set us up?" I asked. "I mean, besides the obvious."
"Not a single person, boss," Kesha said. "Who the hell would do this?"
"I don't know, but you can bet your sweet ass I'm gonna find out," I said as I turned and headed upstairs. First Lydia, then Beck, and now the shipment. It felt like someone was out to destroy me, but I had no idea who that might be.