Antonio Fabiani is a somewhat shady character. He is a businessman from Italy who is always trying to strike up business ventures with various investors. Unfortunately some of those business ventures go bad, and his investors lost money, all to Antonio's gain. Antonio craves money and is not above using less than scrupulous means to get it. He first sees Nadja on the night of the masked ball, however it wasn't until they meet again in Italy that Nadja really sees what a scoundrel he is. Antonio's behavior really troubles Nadja until she learns about his past, growing up in Venice. She learns that people are not all good or all bad, and she hopes that Antonio will someday walk a path that is more straight and narrow. Personally I think his scheming ways really come in handy later in the series XD (Taken from ")