Den of Vipers

Ryder and Kenzo arrive at a spa whose owner owes them money. Kenzo talks of Ryder’s night with Roxy and insinuates she’s gotten under his skin. When the owner, Sandra, arrives, they isolate her, and Ryder confronts her about her debt and threatens her husband if she defaults on her payment again. Angrily, she writes out a check, and they take spa products home for Roxy. When they call home, they find Garrett bickering with Roxy and realize he, too, is affected by her. They drive around town as bait to the German assassin still tailing them and stop at an expensive department store. Kenzo pushes Ryder to buy Roxy jewelry. Ryder chooses a few snake pieces while he and Kenzo reminisce about their father. Ryder worries about being too much like him, but Kenzo reassures him that he will never let him become their father’s duplicate. Ryder scoffs at the idea that Roxy would willingly remain with them. He believes they need to treat her like a prisoner and not let their feelings confuse them. They park their car in a nondescript parking lot, feigning a phone call, as Kenzo remembers when Ryder killed someone at the age of 13. Their father ordered the kill and made Kenzo do it. Kenzo sees the assassin, and they capture him.

Roxy realizes her dynamic with the Vipers is changing, as she goads Garrett while watching TV together. She asks to be allowed to visit her tattoo artist as one of her tattoos remains unfinished. Garrett refuses, but Diesel offers Garrett’s services instead, as he did all the Vipers’ tattoos. He refuses again, and Roxy confronts him for his aversion to women. He chokes her, then runs away, but Roxy follows him to his room and keeps pushing him for answers. She feels they are similar because she, too, was hurt by someone she loved. She opens up about her father’s abuse and tries to guide him through his own pain. As he admits that his last partner hurt him, he and Roxy broker a truce to be friends, with both promising to tell the other of the pain they’ve survived one day. Ryder and Kenzo return with the assassin in tow. They hand him over to Diesel, and Roxy offers to go with him to his dungeon to make sure he doesn’t kill the assassin too quickly. After her discussion with Garrett, she’s concluded that the Vipers are her future and that they need her.

Diesel and Roxy go to the dungeon where the assassin is bound. Diesel offers him a chance to reveal what he knows, but the assassin refuses. Diesel sets about cutting off his fingers and questioning him, and soon, Roxy intervenes to slow down his torture to extract information. The assassin eventually reveals the Triad hired him, but he goads Diesel, who increases the severity of his torture techniques. As the assassin screams, Roxy redirects Diesel’s attention to her and, after asking if hurting people arouses Diesel, offers to let him cut her. The assassin loses consciousness, and Diesel explains how he intends to cut her during sex. When the assassin reawakens, he confirms the Triad has hired others to kill them, and someone who used to be close to them is supplying the Triad with information. Diesel kills him and has sex with Roxy in the imagined sadistic play he laid out. When she asks, he tells her his real name is Kace, but that the boy who owned that name died in the fire with his mother.

Roxy reflects on what happened between her and Diesel and finds that she feels herself most free with him in the dungeon. Diesel informs the others of what he learned as Kenzo takes care of Roxy. The next morning, Ryder cautions Roxy against abusing her power over Diesel. He and Kenzo then give her the jewelry they bought at the store, and Roxy feels uncomfortable, as no one has ever bought her gifts before. Ryder privately explains, however, that Kenzo loves to give gifts and tries to make people happy through them, especially their mother before she died by suicide. Roxy notices Ryder blames himself for not protecting his mother from his father despite only being a child at the time. Garrett then gifts her a gun and takes her to the shooting range. She briefly tells him about Rich, and Garett grows jealous of their relationship. Roxy admonishes him and asks about the story behind his scars. The question is too intrusive for Garrett, and he lashes out by telling her she’s not one of them and will eventually be thrown away when they grow bored. He storms off. Ryder overhears the conversation and reassures her that Garrett is wrong. He encourages her to keep pushing and making him “hers” like she has the other three Vipers.

With Diesel and Garrett hunting other groups hired by the Triad and Kenzo looking in on their businesses, Ryder is alone with Roxy, who asks him what he needs for a happier life given all the stress he puts himself through. He tells her he only wants his family to be safe and happy. He explains how he and Kenzo met Garrett when he was a professional fighter, and Diesel when he was hunting his mother’s killer: They were all lost but found their way together as a family, as the Vipers. They speak about Rich, and Ryder reveals how abusive his own father was, especially to Kenzo, whom Ryder tried to protect. He tells her he has everything he needs in his life now, silently including her. Ryder comments on how she seems to want to stay with them, but her lack of freedom to voluntarily choose them complicates matters. Later, when Garrett calls and deceptively asks after Roxy’s well-being, Ryder decides to have a meeting with his brothers about Roxy. Roxy comes to visit him in his office and asks if she can help; they have sex as he takes phone calls. That night, Ryder leaves his phone behind for the first time in a long time and spends the evening with her and his brothers.

At breakfast, Diesel shows off the new tattoo over his heart, a bird on top of a snake, as an homage to his nickname for her, “Little Bird.” Touched, Roxy wonders if she is fated to fall in love with all of them. Later, after donning a dress to feel more secure, she finds Kenzo about to leave. She asks to accompany him to a casino where someone knows who is leaking information about them to the Triad. They drive to the rich part of the city, and as they arrive, everyone greets Kenzo. They meet with Danny, the man who owns the casino, at a card table. After Roxy insults anyone who looks at her sideways, Kenzo takes her to a cleaning cupboard where they have sex. Danny eventually finds them there and confirms the leak isn’t an old employee but someone who knew them more intimately.

Kenzo lovingly watches as Roxy wins at gambling tables, and her scathing assessment of the city’s richest people makes him laugh—a first in the context of his work. They play at a private table and reiterate their first bet, and Roxy loses again. When they leave, he understands that her attitude toward the casino’s patrons was meant to protect him and his brothers from their condescension. He brings her to his mother’s grave and explains her story—how she’d lived on the streets, how his father had found her, and how his father eventually abused her. Kenzo confesses to Roxy that he is falling in love with her. Roxy, however, fears love, but he reassures her and asks her to try and love them back anyway.

Garrett watches Kenzo and Roxy return and deems Kenzo a lovesick fool. He tries to sleep but has a nightmare of his former lover carving out his chest with a knife. Roxy finds him after overhearing his moans and screams from the nightmare, but he tells her to leave. After some prompting, he confesses he believes himself ruined by all his scars, but Roxy tells him she loves them, that he helps her accept her own scars from the abuse she faced. He struggles with wanting to be with her, and she opens up about her own struggles with intimacy because of her father. He eventually kisses her, and after negotiating ways to navigate the triggers of his trauma, Garrett realizes that Roxy truly wants him, scars and all, and they have sex. He thanks her at the end.