12. Rico
Rico
I think my fiancée is trying to kill me.
Papa insisted we exchange numbers, like this was some real relationship where we’d text goodnight and talk on the phone until one of us fell asleep.
Not happening.
He and the rest of the family are acting like this marriage is a love story, as if I actually got down on one knee and asked this woman to strap herself to my emotional baggage for the rest of her life.
The reality is I sent the ring back with a courier and a note: I accept.
That’s the best she’s getting. Congratulations, sweetheart—our grand proposal story.
Can’t wait to see how Vi spins that into some swoon-worthy moment in one of her books.
I heard she placed a bet on my wedding being the inspiration for another one of her spicy bestsellers.
The woman churns out smut faster than the rest of my siblings produce offspring.
Not a bad thing, but knowing Violet, there's a high probability I'll be the inspiration for her next book.
They need to accept reality. I have.
Everyone knows what this is. Just like they knew about my… therapy. Just like they knew what happened years ago. And just like that incident, they’re pretending it’s something else, turning it into whatever makes them feel better.
Fine. Let them have their delusions. Who am I to stomp on false joy?
Now, I have a woman I’ve been actively avoiding texting me. A lot.
She tried calling a few times before realizing I didn’t answer the phone.
Not just for her—for anyone. Phone calls require talking.
Talking requires effort and time. You can’t nod and grunt over the phone.
That’s time I could spend doing something productive, like staring at lines of code or contemplating my own mortality.
Send me a text? Sure. I’ll probably ignore it. But at least you’ve gotten whatever nonsense you needed off your chest.
Unfortunately, she hasn’t given up. Instead, she’s become relentless.
Cake flavor.
Wedding colors.
Suit preferences.
Do I look like I care?
Peonies or roses? Couldn’t give a shit.
Lemon or raspberry filling? Don’t care. Won’t eat it.
Lilac or blue-violet for the accent color? That’s the same damn color.
She’s sitting with Mama, Nonna, and half the family, planning this circus, and she still insists on dragging me into it. For what? A shared experience?
The only experience we need to share is her ovulation schedule.
She’s wasting her time and stealing precious minutes of mine. If I was going to pretend to be an invested husband, I’d at least have the decency to pretend in person.
The woman’s a thief.
No mask, no gloves, no dark alleyway where she lurks waiting to strike. Just a phone, an arsenal of emojis, and an unholy ability to steal every ounce of my attention. She stole my therapy, three weeks’ worth of it.
So, in the past three weeks, all I’ve had to occupy my thoughts is a woman texting me, the reminder of how she smells, looks, and continually makes my fists clench while I perform breathing exercises that do jack shit.
I should refine my firewall against the hacker who keeps slipping through my system like a cockroach that parades on even after a nuclear fallout. Instead, I’m sitting here, staring at my screen, rereading the last text she sent as if it contains some sort of hidden algorithm I need to crack.
The wedding is in three days.
I have done my part. I sent the ring. I agreed to the terms, and even broke off my weekly arrangement with Em, via text. She wasn’t devastated. There was no dramatic exit or desperate plea to reconsider. Just a quick, Got it. Thanks for the notice.
No emotions. No attachment. No complications.
And yet, I have spent the last three weeks in a living hell of forced socialization.
Allie has traded wedding planning texts for post-nuptial inquiries, each message chiseling away at the safe, structured life I’ve built like a sculptor hacking into marble.
I’ve buried myself in work, the only thing that keeps me from setting my entire life on fire at the moment.
Are we going on a honeymoon?
She can go. Pack her bags, pick a destination, and sip overpriced cocktails on a white sandy beach.
But I’m staying here. I have work to do.
Besides, the agreement states I only have to be present during her ovulation window, and I have no interest in playing tour guide in some overpriced romantic getaway where I pretend to care about scenic views.
Is there furniture in the guest room?
Shit. No. Hadn’t thought of that.
So, at Sunday dinner—because my family is oblivious to my needs and demands for my weekly suffering—I handed her my card, told her to buy whatever she wanted.
“But I haven’t even seen the room.” She blinked at me, as if this was some huge oversight.
What does she need to see? It’s four walls, a door, a closet. She wants to pick out her own furniture? Great. Use my money and do it. Problem solved.
Should we go to dinner before the wedding?
Hard pass.
I’ve already agreed to the absurdity of a weekly date night, but that clause doesn’t activate until after the vows. So, until then, I’m keeping my ass right here in my office.
No candlelit dinners. No long walks through Central Park. No pretending we’re two normal people embarking on a happy little love story.
She wants romance? She can buy that with the same credit card I just gave her.
My office is soundproof. A necessity.
Dom had wanted glass walls for “transparency,” but even he knew better than to suggest that shit for me. I need walls. I need silence. And, most importantly, I need a door that never stays open.
When he took over as CEO, he gutted the entire office space, ripped out the glass walls, and made everything sleek and modern. Whatever. Didn’t matter to me. My space remained exactly as I wanted it—dark, quiet, and uninviting.
Right now, the rhythmic click of my keyboard is the only thing keeping me from losing my mind.
The closer I get to the wedding, the more my panic meter spikes.
I can’t handle people in a normal setting. How the fuck am I supposed to handle a wedding? Just attending my brothers’ weddings required a borderline alcohol-induced coma to numb the itchy feeling of human interaction. Sadly, I can’t be blackout drunk at my own. At least, I don’t think I can.
Maybe Allie wouldn’t mind? A husband with a drinking problem is probably preferable to one who looks like he’d rather get waterboarded than be in the same room with her.
My phone pings.
I don’t have to look at it. I already know who it is.
Allie.
I haven’t, for the record, responded to a single text in the three weeks since Papa handed over my number. Our text thread is nothing but her talking to herself—an eerie preview of what the rest of our marriage will probably look like.
Yet, she keeps texting.
Seventy-four messages deep, and she still thinks today is the day I reply.
Admirable.
Also, infuriating.
“Are you going to ignore your fiancée until the wedding?”
I glance up, spotting Dom standing in my doorway, arms crossed like some moral authority on marriage.
Since this woman bulldozed into my life, my brothers have been interrupting my work more than in all the years we’ve worked together.
I don’t like it. They meddle—sure, they always have—but not with me.
My engagement has apparently given them a free pass to barge into my office like it’s their personal confessional.
I didn’t even hear the door open. That sneaky bastard.
I check my watch.
Five in the morning.
Shit. Did I stay here all night?
Better question: Why is he here? Dom doesn’t stroll in until eight, sometimes nine.
“It’s easier for her if I do.” I mutter, eyes locked on my monitors.
I don’t keep extra chairs in my office—deliberate design choice. No one feels inclined to sit, which means no one overstays their welcome. The only chair is mine.
“How so?”
I keep typing. “Shouldn’t you be at home with your wife?”
“I had emails to get through. I’m off the rest of the week.”
Right. For Sienna’s gallery exhibit. My brother bought his wife an art gallery, which keeps her busy, and when she has an exhibit, he disappears.
Both of my brothers work from home more, take more days off, make more time for their families.
I will not be that kind of husband.
I’ll still be here. Working. Drowning in code. Blissfully unreachable.
Maybe I should buy Allie a restaurant. That way, she’ll be too busy to bother me. She never shuts up about her love of cooking—perfect. Keeps her occupied. Keeps her out of my hair.
Otherwise, what the hell happens after we’re married?
Right now, she’s busy with wedding planning, but what about after? What will my text messages look like then?
A daily interrogation of my whereabouts?
A request for a spreadsheet of my emotions so she can track progress?
A picture of a dog at a shelter with the caption He needs a home, Rico. Let’s be good people?
Or worse…
Hey, babe.
I hadn’t planned that far ahead, too preoccupied with the immediate disaster looming over me.
“Tell Sienna I said good luck,” I offer, just to get him out of my doorway.
Dom ignores the hint. “Did you stay overnight again?”
“Maybe.”
“Rico—”
“Dom—”
He groans.I smile. Internally, of course.
I love how little effort it takes to irritate him.
“I assume you’re not going on a honeymoon?”
I cut him a look. “Do you have to ask?”
Dom shrugs, his shadow stretching across my desk, disrupting my workflow. I don’t stop typing. If I stop, he’ll assume it’s an invitation to keep talking.
“So you’re going to what? Get married, head home, drop her off, and come back to work?”
He says that like it’s a bad thing.
People really don’t respect a strong work ethic these days.
“Rico, what about the wedding night?”
Fuck. Forgot about that.
No. Ignored it. Neatly folded that disaster and shoved it into the mental junk drawer labeled deal with later, which in this case meant never.
I spent an entire day debating how to handle it before concluding the best course of action was simple: postpone, avoid, and hope for a miraculous asteroid impact.
Consummating the marriage isn’t the issue.
Well, it is. A massive, glaring, neon-flashing issue.
But so is the fact that unless she miraculously ovulates on cue, it’ll be a complete waste of time, effort, and—most importantly—a waste of perfectly good sperm, which I hold rather dear considering my current circumstances.
Technically, she only said we have to do it, but luckily for me, she never specified when.
Details, cara mia. Details matter.
I shrug. “I’ll figure it out.”
Dom pushes off the doorframe, hands stuffed in his pockets, wearing that brotherly face that makes me want to throw something at him. “Sienna’s been talking to Allie. She likes her. Hell, I think I’ve spoken to your fiancée more than you have. I like her too.”
“Good,” I snarl. Now you all can keep her entertained while I spend the rest of my life in blissful silence.
“Sienna also mentioned that Allie’s nervous about the wedding,” he continues, undeterred by my general lack of giving a fuck.
“She mentioned that you, unsurprisingly, haven’t spoken to her at all.
Rico, I know you don’t like to talk. The rest of us tolerate it.
But you’re about to marry this woman. You have to come out of your shell, even just an inch.
Be human for a millisecond. Whether she divorces your ass down the road and remarries or not, this is her first wedding.
If she’s crazy enough, it might even be her only wedding. ”
I stop typing.
Divorce?
That particular D word doesn’t exist in the Bennetti vocabulary.
Divorce isn’t an option in our family. Not because of some outdated cultural belief—no, it’s much worse.
It’s because every single one of these assholes is disgustingly, nauseatingly happy.
No one in this family is unhappily married.
Not a single miserable bastard in the bunch.
Except me. And it’s no fun having a pity party for one.
“You really think she’s going to stay married to you if this is how you are?
” Dom shakes his head, looking at me like I’m some wounded dog who still bites the hand trying to feed it.
“Papa’s already told her that if she doesn’t feel it’s working out after a few months, he’ll give her his blessing to divorce you. ”
My fingers freeze on the keyboard. My pulse stutters along with said appendages.
Divorce means freedom. Isn’t that what I wanted?
“She knows that?”
Dom nods. “Papa feels bad. She wanted out of the Cosa Nostra, and this was the only option given to her. He doesn’t want her escaping one miserable life, only to be shackled to another permanently.”
Miserable life.
If only they really knew.
“That’s if she even makes it down the aisle.”
Dom smirks, because he’s a bastard who enjoys getting a rise out of me. I squint at him, waiting for the punchline.
“Yeah, did it occur to you that in the past few weeks of planning her own wedding, only seeing you at Sunday dinner, your fiancée might not be excited about this marriage? I believe her words to Violet were that she’s ‘made a mistake.’” He pauses for dramatic effect, the asshole.
“Wouldn’t be surprised if she runs back home.
A woman opting for the mafia over a life with you, Rico. That’s a new low.”
Leaning back in my chair, I cross my arms and stare him down. “What do you suggest?”
I don’t miss how he practically chokes on his own breath. I don’t ask for advice. I don’t offer it, either. Everyone else can weave in and out of traffic, find their own damn route. I stay in my lane. Only this isn’t something I can research. I tried.
Google was fucking useless.
I typed how to keep a wife happy when you don’t talk to her in the search bar, and the first result was to communicate with your spouse. So much for artificial intelligence. Maybe Alexa has better answers.
This is simple. She needs to show up at the wedding.
That’s the only hurdle right now. Once we say “I do,” I assume her good Catholic values—drilled into her little mafia-princess brain—will make it hard for her to opt for divorce.
Sure, Papa dangled it in front of her, but divorce is still a naughty word in devout Catholicism.
I go to church on Sundays. No offense to the Big Man upstairs, but I don’t believe in religion. I don’t voice that, either, in case that whole smite you where you stand thing is real.
But divorce? That’s the ultimate bad omen.
Once she’s married, she won’t be so easily swayed. She’ll take those vows seriously. Until death, do us part.
Fuck. I hope she doesn’t kill me. I have code to write.
And fine. I can try—and I use that word loosely—not to be a complete asshole for a few days. That’s about all I can offer, though, because I am an asshole, and if this woman is stupid enough to marry me, she needs to accept exactly what I am.
Even if I have to dangle a bit of hope in front of her first. Just enough to get her to chase the carrot.
Until she’s mine.
Legally, at least.