Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses sexual violence and/or harassment, graphic violence, and sexual content.

Throughout most of the narrative, the male main characters fit within the literary scope of villains: They commit heinous acts like kidnapping and engaging in human trafficking; they take pleasure from exerting unnecessary violence to feel powerful, often on those of lesser means; they carry out criminal activities such as, but not limited to, corruption, blackmail, and extortion. By and large, therefore, Ryder, Garrett, Diesel, and Kenzo are presented as irredeemable figures as they revel within this identity. Their world operates on principles of power and dominance, leaving little room for emotional vulnerability or moral contemplation. K. A. Knight, however, creates a layered emotional understanding of her characters when she showcases how, in spite of this revelry, there exists the possibility of fundamental non-villain needs and desires.

As Diesel comes to realize, their roles as villains do not encapsulate the full breadth of their identity: “What started as a business deal has grown into something much more than we could have ever imagined. A life. A home. Love. The very things none of us knew we needed, including

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