Zane wiped the sweat from his face with the handkerchief that Clive gave him. They had been searing over everything for the last thirty minutes and there was no trace of the missing bag of drugs.
The only thing that they could confirm was there were indeed only 239 bags instead of the 240 that had been promised.
Bruce didn't have anything on him and neither did any of the men he had brought with him. The cars were empty, the warehouse was bare as well aside from what was in front of them.
There was no proof that could be found as to what happened to it or who had it. It seemed almost as though it had vanished into thin air without so much as a trace.
Bruce at this point was left kneeling on the floor, his head bowed as he dared not look up at anyone who was around him least he get struck again. He hadn't even tried to wipe off the dried blood that was caked on his face. His hands were trembling more and more with each passing second as the fear of what his fate would be continued to build up the longer they went without finding the missing goods.
"I am honestly supposed to believe that you have no idea as to when it would have disappeared or who might have taken it?" Zane turned his attention to the man on the floor who simply nodded.
"Give me words Bruce. I want to hear from your mouth itself what I am supposed to exactly understand here!" He snapped causing the man on the floor as well as those around him to flinch.
"You know that I have a lot of other things to do than being stuck here cleaning up this mess that you created?" He walked over to the man and stopped when he was standing directly in front of him.
"You had one job to do and up until this point you have been doing it rather well. Always on time and never anything missing. One of the best we've had in a while. Then this had to happen." Bruce had become almost as stiff as a board as the young mafioso continued his rant while standing in front of him.
"Well, what are you going to say?" He demanded as he used the toe of his black boot to lift up Bruce's chin.
The man tried to avoid making eye contact with him with his one good eye. His other, the right one was swollen shut from the beating that he had gone through earlier.
His lips trembled as he tried to figure out what exactly he should be saying that would please the devil standing in front of him. His throat was dry however and the words were avoiding him.
"I- I can give you the names of everyone that I have wo-worked with until now and you can go through th-them yourself." Bruce finally managed to stutter out. They didn't seem to be the right words though to please the other man who continued to stare down at him as though he was nothing more than scum that had gotten stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
"Fo-for the drugs, I-i can get them replaced in t-two days." He offered hoping that it would be enough to appease the other.
"Replacing doesn't make up for what was lost, you should know that Bruce." Zane sighed as he shook his head.
"Someone has to pay for what was stolen. The question just comes down to who exactly that person who is going to be should be." He shifted his foot away from the other man as he finished speaking.
Rather than moving fully away from him, he ended up kicking him in the face with the sole of his shoe. The was an audible 'crunch' sound as his heel made contact with the man's already injured nose.
Bruce let out a pitiful howl of pain as he fell back clutching his nose with both hands as a fresh stream of blood began to drip from it.
What a pitiful sight it was. Zane was too pissed to care though. He usually had a little more pity for the people the first time that they had made mistakes.
This time though, he knew that he couldn't afford to offer pity as this was a mistake on a much larger scale than had been made. Drugs were not cheap and easy to come by. Even the loss of one bag could create a decrease in revenue that had a rippling effect on the family.
Two days was a quick turnaround to replace what was lost. The problem with that however was the fact that it would simply result in a shortage somewhere else down the pipeline.
"Sir, I am sorry to bother you when you're already busy with something else, but your brother is on the phone and needs to speak with you." Clive approached the pissed-off young man to whisper in his ear before holding the phone out to him.
"What is it?" He almost spat into the phone. His rather venomous reaction caused Julius to laugh on the other end of the phone.
"I was told that you were in a bad mood, I didn't realize though that it was quite that bad." He remarked causing Zane to scowl as he glanced over at the person responsible for his poor mood.
"You probably wouldn't be in that great of a mood either if someone screwed up an important order that needed to be finished today." He retorted as he ran a hand through his hair.
"Touche. That is exactly why I called you. I didn't think that it would be quite so helpful until Clive explained the current situation to me. I think though that you will find the information that I have for you to be quite useful though." Zane hated it when his brother sounded so smug in situations like this.
Julius wasn't one to wipe his mistakes but he also wouldn't refrain from gloating when he managed to get the upper hand and find out something important before his older brother did.
"You might want to spit it out then before I decide to have a bullet put into the head of this fool here with me." Bruce let out an audible whimper as Zane spoke loud enough for him to hear the words.
The rest of the men in the room had been wisely sticking to the back and hadn't even thought to try and leave in consideration of the current situation. It would only make them seem more suspicious to the young mafioso who was almost to the point where he was looking for an excuse to be able to shoot someone.
"Come now, I don't think that even if you're upset that the right answer would be to kill Bruce. He has done a rather good job until now and these types of mistakes are hardly his fault." He chided his older brother who simply grumbled and rolled his eyes.
"I will give you to the count of ten to tell me what it is you have before I am hanging up and you can make your way over here to speak with me if it is that important." Zane warned as he began to count down from ten before even giving his brother a chance to pick what he was going to do.
"Someone has been double-dealing, that's what I wanted to tell you." Julius informed the other by the time that he had reached the number five. He was about to extend his hand to request Clive give him his gun before his brother said this.
"And I can tell you by the information that we have managed to gather that it isn't Bruce. I think that I have an idea of who it is but perhaps not enough evidence to bust him for it."
"Quit wasting time and tell me then? If I have to stay here for five minutes longer, I swear that I will kill everyone here just to be done with it and get out of this stuffy place." Zane grumbled as he loosened the tie that was around his neck. It hardly did anything to help with how warm he was feeling but it allowed him to feel as though he could breath easier.
"I need two days before I can tell you anything for sure. There is one other reason why I wanted to call you. Something that I thought you would want to hear from me first before father got a chance to say anything to you first."
Zane could feel the room suddenly got five degrees warmer as his temper rose at the mention of the older man's name.
"How about we talk about that later when we can discuss it in person. I don't think that right here is the best place and time. I will call you later so just give me the information once you get it and I will have it looked into." Julius hardly had a chance to confirm with the other before the older brother hung up.
"Well, it would seem that for right now it is everyone's lucky day. You all can get away with leaving here with your lives still intact. don't think that this means you're fully off the hook though." He informed them and warned them all in the same breath.
"You can all leave here for now but we will be in contact with you shortly should anything come up that implicates that anyone of you here is behind what has happened. I recommend leaving quickly before I change my mind." The last part was a threat that everyone was quick to heed. Even Bruce who was still nursing his injured nose was quick to scramble up and onto his feet so that he could rush out of the room before anything else could happen.
Zane needed to take a moment to breathe before he left. His mind had shifted from the current issue at hand to whatever it was that his brother wanted to tell him about his father.
That one more thing was slowly causing the iceberg to tip towards putting him in a full out bad mood.