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Butter nodded reluctantly and glanced at Rosalía in question.
“‘Volver’?” she asked.
He nodded again and instantly pulled out the melancholy first chords of the tango, which was about a man returning after twenty years and looking for his long-lost love.
Enzo clapped to the beat as Rosalía stood with the jacket he’d found for her around her shoulders. The boat’s swaying made it hard to stand, so she sat on a small table across from where Camden stood, turned her face up to the open sky, and belted out the first verses of the song.
“Tengo miedo de las noches, que pobladas de recuerdos, encadenan mis sueños.”
Her voice was crystalline and powerful, and it carried the emotion of the words so beautifully that Enzo’s chest tightened. The air seemed to stop as she swept them away in the story of a man who mourned the sweet memories chained around his soul. When she finally finished, they all seemed to draw a collective stunned breath before Enzo, Butter, and Rolly broke into raucous applause.
Rosalía wasn’t just good—she sang like an angel. She deserved to be on a stage with people adoring her. Enzo would be damned if he didn’t make sure that happened. It was dark by then, but the lanterns illuminated them enough that Enzo could see Cam’s confused scowl. He looked like a surly wolf.
With his attention still on the broody captain, Enzo walked to Rosalía and kissed her on the cheek.
“Que hermoso cantas,” he told her honestly, and she smiled beatifically up at him. “Sing me another one, belleza.”
“Abelardo knows ‘Linda Quisqueya,’” she said happily, the dark clouds that Cam had put there earlier cleared away now that she could sing. “It’s a song Antonio Mesa wrote about the Dominican Republic. Quisqueya means ‘mother of all lands’ in Taino,” she explained, and Butter, who was apparently Dominican, grinned with approval.
Enzo made his way to Cam’s side as she sang the love song to her country. The song was faster and happier than the tango. Probably the merengue Dominicans were known for.
“She might be too good for your club,” he taunted Cam the moment he was within earshot of the captain.
Cam, of course, responded with a deepening scowl, his hands firmly gripping the wheel. “I don’t know what gave you the indication that you can tell me anything about my club.”
“The fact you’re a hardheaded bastard and would fuck yourself over just to be contrary,” Enzo whispered, then quieted when Rosalía’s voice hit a particularly beautiful note. “Only a fool would land ass first near a talent like that and not scoop it up.” That got him a clenched jaw, but he didn’t miss the way Cam was looking at her. They both knew what they were seeing. What they were hearing.
Enzo sighed and decided to let it go for the moment. “Suit yourself, but if you don’t get her to New York, I will.”
Cam sent him a murderous look.
“Maybe I’ll open my own club. She’s good enough to draw clientele.”
“You’re truly trying to make me chuck you overboard.”
Enzo didn’t think the threat was an empty one, so he shuffled back to Rosalía. She sang a few more songs, including his favorite, “El Dia Que Me Quieras.” Cam didn’t say a word the entire time. Finally, she claimed to be exhausted and after Enzo convinced her that she wouldn’t get any sleep if she stayed on the deck, she finally agreed to go down to the cabin. Butter and Rolly went to bed as well, leaving Cam and Enzo alone.
“Are we really not going to talk about this?” Enzo asked.
“What is there to talk about?” Camden retorted angrily.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that if we don’t find some bottles for Big Joe, we’re both screwed. Or maybe that we both fucked Rosalía today.” Enzo pulled hard on a tuft of hair, which Cam observed seemingly unmoved. But he was not fooling Enzo; he’d seen the captain’s face, heard the grunts and the sighs that had come out of him in that room. “She could save our ass with the rum and be a godsend for your club, and you are being a complete asshole about all of it.”
“For the last time, Enzo,” Cam said through a clenched jaw, “my club is not your business. And the sex between us and Rosalía was a one-time thing. I don’t know what came over me.”
Enzo watched the big man for a second. He was so damned bullheaded. “See, I don’t agree with that. I know you need help running the club. You can’t do everything on your own, Camden.”
“You don’t know a fucking thing about my life,” the captain roared, furious, but Enzo knew better. Knew that Cam, like him, felt things for Rosalía. Cam had worked relentlessly to make a go of his club, and he was too smart not to know he’d need people with him.
Enzo almost laughed. Camden really thought that because he was a tight-lipped, sulking bastard, Big Joe wouldn’t know what he was up to? It wasn’t like the man was building some back-alley speakeasy in a Lower East Side basement. Camden McCollough had bought a whole building in Harlem and was poised to give the Cotton Club a run for its money. Everyone in town was talking about it.
Enzo could help him, could be his right-hand man.
“I know that Big Joe won’t be happy when he finds out you’ve been keeping this club business from him, that you will need someone to run interference with the wise guys and the rest of the lowlifes who control the city.”
Cam glared at him, but he was finally listening.
“You don’t want any part of getting your hands dirty, but to run a club, you’ll need someone who will. I can do that,” Enzo offered, coming closer, and even in the darkness of the open sea, he saw Cam’s shoulders relax a fraction. “I also know you haven’t stopped thinking about the way it felt to have her like that. That this afternoon was just a taste, and you want more, because that’s exactly how I feel.”
