I look over at Mason. “They’re mine.”
Ghost comes over and grabs the lid from me. He checks the numbers too.
“Let me run the numbers. I’ll see which shipment they came from and who you sold them to,” he says, replacing the lid and walking off with his phone in his hand.
“Who the fuck are you doing business with that would supply that many guns to a low-level dealer?”
Mason asked a valid question. I distribute crates only to a small number of people in the US. My three gun runners being one, a few private organizations like the Royal Crown and the Church, and then a hand full of high-powered crime syndicates. Only the runners sell the merchandise; the others keep every crate they buy for their own personal arsenal.
“No one,” I say, shaking my head. “Rome, Kingston, and Thiago have been running guns for me for years. They’d never do anything this stupid.”
“He’s right.” Salv plops down beside Kaz. “Kingston and the DV move drugs for me through their gang. He moves like us,cautiously and with precision. He wouldn’t risk something like this.”
I agree. Rome, who is president of the Outlaw Brotherhood, Kingston, the leader of the Den of Vipers gang, nor Thiago—the head of the Mexican gang, Concrete Kings—wouldn’t be stupid enough to sell this number of guns to a street dealer.
The issue with this is that small-time criminals are more likely to get picked up by the cops. And despite what everyone says, when they’re facing jail time, they sing like fucking pop divas. And getting caught with one or two unregistered guns could get you at the most, ten years. But a crate full of military-grade weapons that have no serial numbers will land you with FED charges. And muthafuckers talk quick when faced with those numbers.
“Someone put these on the street,” Mason says. “I don’t like holes in my organization, and this is a got damn crater.”
Fuck. I run my hand through my hair.
“Boss,” Ghost calls out to me. The look on his face tells me I’m not going to like what he’s about to tell me. “Those guns, they weren’t given to any of your runners.” I felt confident about that. “They are part of the missing shipping container.”
This changes things. When my guns were lost in the fucking ocean and burned up, I assumed the missing guns were part of the same scheme. I believed that whoever was attacking my guns was only coming for my pockets. But this isn’t the same MO.
“Fuck,” I shout, turning away from him, I run my hands through my hair and pace.
“How many crates did you say they found?” Kaz asks.
“Two.” Mason’s dry tone belies his frustration.
“That means there are 398 crates still missing,” I say.
“Someone is trying to take your spot.”
I cut my eyes at Kazimir before turning back to Mason. “I want to talk to the guy that got raided.”
He shakes his head. “He’s too hot. The DEA has been trying to crack down on the rise of fentanyl for almost a year. Any interference with that will be risky.”
That makes sense. Getting anywhere close to that investigation isn’t smart. Especially since my brother is the man they’re really looking for, if they knew he existed. However, talking to him would be the only lead to finding out who stole my guns. As of now, we haven’t been lucky. We still can’t locate the damn captain of that ship.
“Don’t worry,” Salv says. “I’ll have some of my guys check into that house. I promise you, if a muthafucker bought that many guns, he talked about the shit. Someone knows something.”
“Alright.” Mason leans forward in his seat. “Salv and Kaz, I want you two to find someone connected to that house. If we can talk to them, maybe we can figure out who sold the crate to him.”
“We got you,” Salv says with a nod.
“Nic, I want you to reach out to your runners, see if you can have them ask around in the streets. If someone is undermining you, they for damn sure are cutting into their pockets as well.”
“I’ll call them as soon as I leave and set something up.”
Just like when dealing with my brothers, conversations like this aren’t dealt with over the phone. We need to meet face-to-face.
He nods, leaning back. “Let’s stay vigilant. Someone is coming for our empire. We don’t let that shit fly.”
We went our separate ways shortly after. Ghost and I climb into the back of the SUV. Roc pulls away from the curb and heads to my warehouse.
“The fuck is going on?” I snarl.
