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“Make yourself useful, Vincenzo, and shut her up,” the captain ordered viciously.
“I’m not your fucking gofer, Camden,” the other man responded.
In her distress, it took Rosalía a moment to register the name. But once she did, she had to bite her tongue not to start sobbing. There was only one Camden she knew of who could be involved in a caper like this. Could this really be the infamous Camden McCollough, the Rogue of Rum Row? The man had a reputation for being ruthless and for taking no prisoners. The stories she’d heard about him likened him to one of those notorious pirates from the seventeenth century.
She was in a world of trouble.
Instead of answering the shorter man’s, Vincenzo’s, dismissive taunt, Camden closed the distance between them and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt before effortlessly lifting him off his feet.
“I don’t give a fuck who your uncle is,” Camden practically spat in Vincenzo’s face. “I am in charge here, and you do what I say, or I will slit your throat.”
Rosalía’s knees almost gave out from sheer fright, but Vincenzo seemed unbothered by the threat. Just looking at the man’s crooked smile and hooded eyes, one would not think he was being threatened with imminent death.
“You want to hurt me, Cap?” he asked lazily, and Camden huffed like a raging bull. She was standing to the side and could see both men’s profiles. Vincenzo’s slimmer form pressed firmly to Camden’s larger, wider body. It could’ve been a lover’s embrace but for the captain’s murderous expression.
“Don’t play with me, boy,” he warned through gritted teeth, pulling Vincenzo even closer. The two men’s faces were barely inches away. Vincenzo’s nostrils flared, that defiant smirk still pulling up his lips. A frisson of awareness passed through Rosalía at the way the two men were looking at each other. Even now, when she was in absolute peril, her body reacted to all that volatile animosity. What would it be like to be caught in that crossfire?
Unbidden, a gasp escaped her lips, catching Vincenzo’s attention. When his gaze landed on her, his eyes widened as though he were looking at her for the first time. Rolly’s hands were still on her, his acrid smell making her gag. But she kept her attention on the blond man.
Help me, she told him with her eyes. I’ll do anything. She scored her bottom lip with her teeth, eliciting a heated look from Vincenzo. It was likely not the smartest thing in the world to lead this man on. But the blond was a much more appealing choice than nasty-smelling Rolly or the terrifying Camden. Vincenzo looked away from her to refocus on Camden, placed both palms on the bigger man’s chest, and shoved.
“Fine, I’ll deal with her,” Vincenzo told the captain, and the larger man released him. “But I’m not leaving her on this rig. You may be a heartless bastard, but I’m not.”
Relief at Vincenzo’s words made her knees weak. Meanwhile, Camden’s chest puffed up. He was clearly angry at the smaller man’s reproach. He stepped up to Vincenzo menacingly, but before they could go at it again, one of the other men in Camden’s gang popped his head up from the hatch.
“Cap.”
Camden immediately whipped around. Only then did Rosalía notice they were yet to haul up a single crate of rum.
“We can’t find it.” The man’s voice shook.
“What do you mean?” Cam growled.
At the same time, Vincenzo threw his hands up with a frustrated “for fuck’s sake.”
Rolly, whose hands had been on Rosalía, suddenly let her go, and when she turned around, she noticed he was backing away from a furious-looking Camden.
“Rolly, what the hell did you do?”
“They told me Valverde had it, Cap, I swear,” Rolly cried, his face blanched with terror.
Rosalía used the opportunity to get closer to Vincenzo, who had been standing a few feet away. The man sent her a questioning look but didn’t protest when she got close enough to brush against his arm. Like the others, he was distracted by the news about the seemingly missing loot.
“There’s rum down here,” the hand informed them, “but the Reserva Oro isn’t, from what I can see.”
“It could be hidden in the crates,” Vincenzo suggested.
Camden sent him a dirty look, but after a moment, he nodded. “We don’t have time to look inside all those crates. We’ll haul them out and take them to the Delilah, and then we’ll see what the situation is.”
The hand nodded and scurried back down.
“Go help them,” Camden barked at Rolly, then pointed a finger in the man’s face. “You better pray that rum is there, or you’ll be wishing she’d stabbed you in the neck, you hopeless moron.”
“What’s your name, doll?” Vincenzo asked, his eyes on Rosalía. Now that they were only inches apart, he watched her with naked interest. Her cap was gone, so her curls cascaded around her shoulders.
She blinked innocently at Vincenzo. “Rosalía,” she told him in a seductive voice. For extra effect, she widened her eyes and bit her lip. “Please don’t leave me here,” she begged, pushing her chest forward. In the struggle with Rolly, two of the buttons had torn off her shirt, revealing some of her ample bosom.
The hard, fiery looks he’d sent to Camden were replaced with sultry ones. He made no effort to mask his desire. Rosalía’s body responded to the attention. It had been so long since she’d had a man between her thighs.
