Between The Flames ⚜️Il Paradosso Book Two⚜️

Chapter thirty

Antonio

***

The moonlight shone through the clear windows, casting shadows across the party room that looked out to the brick pool, where my Adriana was swimming about.

After being thoroughly drained by our two very demanding four month olds, she had taken it upon herself to indulge in an evening alone.

But there was no evading the heavy pair of eyes that were following her motions in the glimmering waters.

I sat down in the leather armchair, adjacent to my sulking brother, who held his head tilted to one side—resting the empty glass on his knee cap.

"When are you going to let it go?"
He maintained his posture, ignoring the entirety of my presence.

I sighed, unbuttoning the top of my shirt with a short glance at his limp shoulders and followed his lingering gaze on the woman running her hands over her wet hair.

"I'm going to marry her, Nicco, she will be my wife soon."

His fingers tightened around the glass, the veins popping up as he pressed it into his leg that was bouncing lightly. A nervous reaction that I was awfully familiar with, courtesy of the alcohol seeping into his system.

"They're coming for us," he spoke firmly but kept his attention on the mermaid whose thin bathing suit stuck to her skin, while she pushed herself up on the concrete, exiting the pool.

"Let them come," I replied and he brought the glass up to his mouth, noticing the disappeared remains and brought it back down, smashing it hard onto the table.

"You know nothing, do you?"

I stared at his bloodied hand, unbothered by his sudden outburst. It wasn't the first time Nicco had one of his nervous wreckages and wouldn't be the last.

"What is there more I need to know? Panicking will lead us nowhere in these matters."

His fingers balled into a fist, squeezing blood from his battered hand that fell onto his pants like droplets.

"You think I'm panicking? Is that how you see me―Weak and fragile?"

“I never said you were weak.”

“But you think it.”

“Now you’re telling me how my mind works?”

Niccolo cracked his neck left to right.

“Don’t even fuckin’ think about it,” I said nonchalantly, but I knew what he was about to do. My suit would be ruined and him a broken nose.
His sharp reflexes dodged the edges of the table as it barely scraped his forearm when I picked it up, flipping it backwards, aiming it at his face.

I missed him by a beat but him coming straight at me, gave me full opportunity to grab onto his waist and thighs, body slamming him to the ground.

I was on top of him now, releasing my weight onto his torso. He was wheezing chunks of air as I put pressure onto his jugular with my elbow.

"Snap the fuck out of it before Adriana sees you like this. If you scare her I fuckin' swear—"

My voice was low, calculating her small steps towards the semi-open doors, with the towel now wrapped around her frame.

"Get your shit together, she's coming in," I seethed before taking my elbow off of him but lost my balance and stumbled backwards an inch, meeting the hard blow to my abdomen.

Leaving me no choice, I threw a punch to the left side of his face just as the footsteps pattered through the doorway.

Shit.