68. Rico
Rico
Anger. Disgust. Remorse.
Three fucking emotions.
In case we’re keeping track, that’s three more than I’m equipped to handle.
She did this to me.
Despite my meticulous efforts, my wife has done the unthinkable. She’s infected me with feelings.
Worse? None of them are aimed at her. No, I’m the target. A one-man firing squad executing my sanity.
I’m angry at myself for being angry. And then I’m angry that I don’t know how to process the first two layers of anger, which creates an endless cycle of bullshit I refuse to dissect.
Therefore, proving emotions are useless. You get caught in a loop, obsessing over the same feeling you felt in the first place, and suddenly, you’re spiraling in a psychological blender without an off switch.
Still, doesn’t change the fact that they’re here.
Festering.
Clawing through me like they’ve been caged for too long and finally found a crack in my perfectly built walls.
I want to hit her with them. Not physically—despite my monstrous tendencies, I’m not that kind of piece of shit.
No, I want to slam these feelings right into her, make her carry the unrelenting weight of them.
I want her to suffocate under the same unbearable pressure, feel her own ribs crack under the strain of caring too much.
But she already does.
That’s the problem.
Even after what I said—after I all but carved her open and left her bleeding on the floor—she still fucking loves me.
And that makes me disgusted with myself.
So, what do I do? I lash out. Because that’s what monsters do. They don’t reflect. They don’t acknowledge. They don’t fix. They destroy.
I took my time in the shower, scrubbing myself raw, as if I could scrape off the filth of my own existence. It didn’t work. Neither did standing under the scalding spray until my skin felt like it was melting off. If I thought the look on her face two nights ago was bad—this one? This new one?
It’s burned into my brain.
A permanent stain on whatever semblance of a soul I have left.
So I stalled.
I shaved with deliberate precision, dragging the blade over my skin like it was some kind of ritualistic punishment. Took my time drying off, dressing, straightening things that weren’t out of place. Anything to delay what I knew I needed to do.
Go upstairs.
Tell her the truth.
Tell her that, yes, I saw a therapist today. But not the therapist I blatantly suggested I'd seen because I have the emotional capacity of a four-year-old and lashed out instead of dealing with these newly found feelings from hell.
No, my therapist doesn't even have tits. I went to see a nerdy, bug-eyed intellectual who wore a tweed jacket, crossed his legs like he was settling in for afternoon tea, and—just to top off the irony—took notes on an iPad which was the only thing that seemed to be from this decade.
The office was a time capsule from the seventies, like he decorated it with the explicit goal of making people more depressed. The entire thing reeked of self-righteous academia, and yet—I made another appointment.
Not weekly.
Three times a week.
Apparently, I’m more fucked up than I realized.
Turns out, trauma doesn’t just go away when you shove it under the rug. No, it festers, rotting beneath the surface until it forces its way back up.
And guess what?
It’s here.
It’s in her eyes. In the way she looks at me like I’m someone worth saving.
It’s in me, in the way I don’t fucking know how to tell her I don’t hate her.
In fact, I hate myself more than I ever have for making her believe I even dislike her.
I was so pissed that I actually stepped into a therapist’s office today. So furious that I let her get inside my head, crack open things I’ve kept locked up for years.
And now?
Now I want to throw it in her face.
Tell her that because of her, my neatly organized, perfectly functional, emotionless life is a wreckage of shattered pieces.
And the worst part?
Now I have to pick them up. One by one.
When I’m in my sweats, I glance at the nightstand where a clock sits. A clock she bought just to piss me off.
At least this one doesn’t tick.
It’s been two hours. Two hours since I dropped the therapist bomb on her and walked away like the emotionally stunted asshole I am.
Two hours since I realized—against my will—that I should probably go upstairs, tell her what I actually meant instead of what I insinuated, and smooth this over before it festers into something even worse.
I trudge up the stairs, an unfamiliar route considering I’ve had zero reasons to be up here since giving her the grand tour months ago. Her door is open, so I knock once before pushing it wider.
She’s not in bed.
It’s made, pristine, untouched. The bathroom door is wide open, the lights off.
But the closet light is on. I step inside, expecting to find her fussing with something, maybe clutching a pillow to beat me over the head with the moment I walk in.
A pointy heel to stab me with when I least expect it. All deserved.
She’s not there.
Neither are half her clothes.
My stomach tightens. Not sickly way. More like an immediate you fucked up way. The kind that comes right before you realize you don’t have control anymore.
I yank my phone out of my pocket and check the security feed.
Fifteen minutes ago.
Fifteen fucking minutes ago, the SUV pulled out of the garage.
Twenty minutes ago, she handed suitcases—plural—to Vinnie. Vinnie, who hugged her while she wiped tears from her eyes.
And then they drove off.
My chest constricts, my brain goes static, and for the first time in my entire life, I understand why people punch walls. I have punched walls, that's not foreign. But what is, is the understanding of why. The fucking feelings again.
I pull up her contact. Stare at the thread. The endless list of blue-bubbled texts from her. The silence from me. The texts I never answered.
She didn’t even check where I was when I disappeared for two days.
That shouldn’t bother me.
It does.
And that jab—childish and unnecessary—delivers the final shove.
I hit call.
Declined.
I hit call again.
Straight to voicemail.
Pulling up our text thread, I type my second-ever message to my wife in five months.
Yeah. Karma is a bitch, and she’s currently sinking her claws into me with pure, unrelenting spite.
Rico: I know you’re pissed. We need to talk.
Read. No response.
My stomach churns.
Is this what it felt like for her? To see me read and ignore?
Rico: I know you saw the message. Come home. We need to talk.
Read again.
No response.
Fuck. Me.
I don't send another. Instead, I think.
Where would she go?
If she went to either of my brothers’ houses, they’d be here any minute to shove their uninvited opinions down my throat.
I don’t care. If she’s at one of their places, I don’t have to chase her through half of Manhattan.
I can knock on the door, explain that there was a misunderstanding, acknowledge that I’m an asshole for saying it, and move on.
We can live in this house. Keep our separate spaces.
We can make it work.
Only when I get into my car and drive past both of my brothers’ places, the SUV is nowhere in sight.
I call again.
Voicemail.
I grit my teeth, flex my hands on the steering wheel, and let out a slow, measured breath.
“We need to talk, Allie. I don’t play these games.”
Only I do, because here I am, calling and texting like a madman, as if I haven’t been treating my phone like a glorified paperweight for months.
She could be anywhere. A hotel. Her parents’. My cousin’s.
Or—
Kai's.
As if I didn’t see the way he looks at her. The way he tracks her across the room.
My jaw clenches so tight it might crack.
And I can’t ignore the hypocrisy.
I just insinuated I cheated on her, and yet here I am, jealous as fuck over a man who has never once laid a hand on her. A man I’m fully aware has spent the past five months watching her the way I do—only I have the right to.
Shit. Had the right…
The phone rings.
I glance at the screen, hands tightening around the wheel.
Marco.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
I push the button on the steering wheel, answering through the car’s Bluetooth.
“What.”
“Want to explain to me the call I just got from Vinnie?”
So she didn’t snitch. Vinnie did.
I take a slow, measured breath. Even with all my training, I’d rather not take on that fight. Not because I don’t think I could land a few hits, but because then his brother, Antonio, would step in. And Antonio? Antonio doesn’t stop until you’re unrecognizable. Hard pass.
“No clue.”
A lie.
Not sure how much Vinnie told him, and I’m not about to serve myself up to the grand and powerful Marco for a lecture.
Also, since when did Marco give a shit? The man avoids family drama like it’s contagious. He usually leaves the meddling to my parents, my brothers, and their nosy-as-hell wives.
“You fucking idiot.”
His voice is a low growl, and I grip the steering wheel harder.
“Therapist, Rico? Your fucking therapist?” He scoffs, and I can practically hear him pacing. “I knew you had issues, but are you kidding me? Your hot-as-fuck wife wasn’t enough?”
I don’t respond.
“I knew you were an asshole,” he continues, “but if I’d known you’d stoop this low, I never would have pushed her to marry you.”
Click.
He hangs up before I can explain. Before I can tell him that yes, it was an actual therapist. Licensed and everything. That I actually sought someone who specializes in childhood trauma and emotional repression—because apparently, I need that shit.
But no. He doesn’t want an explanation.
Because in his mind, I just admitted to seeing a therapist for cheating on my wife, and it's my fault. I did, in fact, tell my wife that — truth or not.
I let out a sharp breath.
Marco owns multiple houses. He rotates them randomly as a precaution. Only his bodyguard and Uncle Tony know where he actually is on any given day.
Which means asking Uncle Tony for a favor.
And I’d rather be disemboweled.
That man would relish making me grovel for information. Then he’d warn Marco, so he could skip town, leaving me empty-handed and in his debt. After all, this is the man that spawned the creature known as my cousin. He's got more nuts and bolts missing than a junkyard car.
No thanks.
Which means I have one other option.
I need to turn to my brothers. Again.
This is getting real old, real fast.