“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.
CHAPTER 2
JOAQUIN
Ikiss the top of Pilar’s head and softly promise that she’s in good hands, that Miguel will take her back to my place and I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m not sure whether she is coherent enough to understand, and I don’t have time to reiterate the promise. Once Miguel slides next to me and gets a grip on Pilar, I rise to my feet. Realizing my efforts not to stain my clothes with Pablo’s blood are wasted, I cringe and glance at the vomit clinging to my slacks.
I can’t greet Victor looking like this and I need to warn Rocco that his uncle is here before the shit hits the fan. Muttering a string of curses, I jab my finger against the button to the service elevator. Omar moves to stand beside me, curling his lip at the stench that radiates from me.
“She going to be okay?” he asks as the doors open and we both step onto the elevator. Pushing the button for the main floor, I turn my attention toward him.
“You wanna tell me why we let a guy like Pablo Rodriguez past the door?” I growl, taking a step closer to him. It doesn’t matter that I’ve delivered Pablo to Hell, my fingers still itch to wrap around Omar’s throat for allowing him into the club.
“He was on the list,” Omar says, wiping the sweat from his brow.
