Snapping Point||Book 1

37.

Romano De Rossi

Gina was by the window, cradling Mia, when I strolled into the mansion. They appeared to be having a conversation, though Mia's contributions were limited to baby babble. The house smelled of food, unusual for the hour. Ma's breakfast routine was usually set in stone, but today, something must've thrown a wrench in the works. It was way past the hour.

"Ah, Mia, your favorite uncle," Gina said as she caught sight of me approaching. Mia only had me as an uncle, as far as anyone knew. I couldn't fathom why I was the 'favorite.' Claudio was no different from only child, with a brother he hadn't seen in years, so my plight was justified.

After planting a kiss on Gina and Mia's foreheads, I made my way further into the house. My father, the last person I wanted to encounter, sat oddly on a parlor couch, his voice so rusty as he conversed on the phone. It was peculiar; usually, he'd be cooped up in his study or out and about.

Memories gushed back of my teenage years, sneaking past him to avoid yet another lecture on my incompetence. I didn't need to sneak around as much these days; suddenly, I was brown and competent. But believe me, when it came to Rossi, there was no hope for redemption.

I strolled past and headed straight for the dining area. After exchanging greetings with my mother and Bianca, who were sitting close enough to suggest they were gossiping about someone, I decided to serve myself a drink.

Claudio intercepted me on my way to the pantry. Since his return home, from my wedding to every other event in recent weeks, Claudio had maintained his distance and boundaries with me and his bottle of liquor.

Although he trailed me to the drink stand, I didn't need to remind him that it was either too early or too late to indulge. Back when I struggled with alcohol, drowning myself in drink until my father's fists would jolt me from his prized parlor chair, causing me to stagger for the next available room that could hide my shame, and my mother's tearful pleas would momentarily halt my descent into a new bottle, I didn't have a brother-in-law to clear the drink stand and compel me to pull myself together at gunpoint.

So, call it whatever it was, I'd played my role in aiding Claudio, and it seemed to be paying off. If he still drank, I didn't know — but he wasn't doing it in open sight anymore, and I hadn't seen newly retained scars on Bianca's face as a result of his drunken aggression.

Back in my day, it had been a solitary battle to reclaim a fragment of myself. I remained a heavy drinker, but I'd learned when to say when, how to vacate my drinking chair, and how to rein in the poison coursing through my veins. Yes, poison. It was nothing more than that.

When I poured myself a cup and drank, Claudio turned around and faced me.

"You'd stare the words out of my mouth?" I said harshly between gulps. "Hovering me like a ghost isn't a form of communication."

"You know what? You're absolutely right." He pushed aside his shock for a moment, taking a seat at the table's edge. "Just realized it's been over a decade, and me and you, as brother in-laws, have really never gotten along for shit."

That's because he hadn't been shit for the most part of the relationship with my sister. If he couldn't treat her like the woman she was, his wife, why should I treat him like a brother in-law?

My own marriage had my head spinning like a roulette wheel, forcing me to drown the chaos in alcohol. Bianca and Claudio's union was more of a shotgun wedding, but I couldn't exactly label it as a full-blown arranged affair. From what I gathered, they had some genuine affection between them, which I witnessed firsthand. Even if they didn't, I couldn't stand by and watch him mistreat her. Not that I was a saint to my own wife, mind you.