Page 3 of Connected

“Joaquin, we’ve got a problem,” Omar barks. His eyes dart from Pilar to Miguel and back to me. “Fuck, what happened to her?”

Gritting my teeth, I glare at him.

“Shouldn’t you be upstairs?”

“Yeah, but I thought it would be wise to give you a heads up . . . ” He looks back at Pilar and scrubs a hand over his face. “Fuck.”

“Spit it out, Omar.”

His eyes find mine.

“Victor just showed up unexpectedly.”

My body goes still.

Lesson number four.

Timing is everything.

Sadly, that’s the lesson that never stuck.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” I growl as Pilar convulses and regurgitates some more. This time it lands on my fucking slacks. “Shit,” I hiss, turning to Miguel. “We need to get her out of here. Take her back to my place and stay with her until I can get there.”

“What about next door?”

“So long as Victor stays upstairs, they’ll be able to get the body out without him seeing it,” I reply, turning back to Omar. “Where is he?”

“I left him at the bar, told him I was going to get Rocco.”

“And where the fuck is Rocco?”

“Last I saw him, he was headed upstairs with two girls.”

Of course, that doesn’t surprise me. Rocco spends more time fucking than he does doing anything else. I’d applaud the son of a bitch if he wasn’t sloppy about it and I didn’t have to clean up all his messes.

But that’s my job.

I’m the loyal friend.

The poor Puerto Rican with no place in this world.

The guy Victor took pity on because Rocco needed someone to watch over him.

A fucking nobody.

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