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Chapter 25-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide features depictions of sexual violence, rape, dubious consent, sexually explicit content, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Kai, Present”
Kai sits alone in his house, frustrated and unsure of why he acted as he did during the wedding. Banks arrives and exhibits quiet anger, behaving as though she is reluctant to be there. Her scowls and the presence of her guards both convince Kai that she does indeed wish she were elsewhere. She claims that the guards now work for her because they disobeyed Gabriel’s orders.
Kai urges Banks to eat and teaches her to use chopsticks. He then pulls her onto his lap and tells her how much he desires her; he says that the only real reason he married her was to have her. He promises not to hurt Damon and tells her that he doesn’t care who her father is. His reassurances convince Banks to forgive him and to have sex with him.
The next morning, Kai gets a phone call from Damon, who tells Kai that he plans to reclaim Banks for himself. The threat makes Kai realize that he really does love Banks. He demands to know where Damon is, but Damon won’t reveal his secret and hangs up. Kai tells Banks’s guard to keep watch over her while he goes out. He then orders another guard to pick up Will and Rika and bring them back to his house for safety.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Kai, Present”
Kai and Michael meet at the Pope Hotel. Kai suspects that the Torrance family owns another hotel, and Michael realizes that it must be the Delcour: the same building he lives in. He and Kai rush back to the Delcour to find Rika safe and well. They learn from a building manager that there is a service elevator in the basement. Kai and the others take the rickety elevator to the 12th floor, where they find a large penthouse. From the smell of Damon’s cigarettes, it is clear that he has been living here. Will believes that Damon hasn’t left the city because he wants to stay close to his friends. Suddenly, Kai gets a text from Damon, ordering him to come to the Pope Hotel at nine.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Banks, Present”
Banks cooks eggs for herself and her guards, then catches herself smiling at her new life. Kai comes home and tells her what he discovered about the Delcour. He says that they won’t allow Damon to come anywhere near Banks. Kai orders Banks, Rika, and Alex to stay at his house with the guards while he and the other men head to the hotel.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Kai, Present”
Kai and the others marvel at the penthouse on the 12th floor of the Pope Hotel. When they fail to find Damon, they head back down to the lobby. Damon calls Kai, who suddenly realizes that Damon isn’t there at all; Damon has lured Kai and the others away from the women so that he could gain access to them more easily.
Chapter 29 Summary: “Banks, Present”
The woman are carving pumpkins when the power goes out and a storm hits. They hear creaking upstairs and wonder if Damon is here. When someone appears wearing Kai’s mask, Banks assumes that it is Kai and feels relieved, but then two other figures appear, wearing the same style of mask. The first figure is revealed to be Damon, not Kai. Damon threatens Rika, declaring that he hates her because she represents change; he wants everything to be as it used to be.
When Kai arrives, the guards are tied up in the basement, and Rika and Alex are safely through the secret passageway. Banks and Kai confront Damon, who grabs Banks, holding a gun in his hand. Will jumps on Damon and violently beats him, and at first, Damon doesn’t fight back. Afterward, Damon admits that Kai didn’t kill Natalya; he implies that he murdered her himself. When the group discovers that the house is now on fire, they run inside and try to put the fire out. Rika is standing underneath some drapes as they burn and fall, and Damon pulls her out of the way. He tells Kai to call the police on him, but Kai refuses, and Rika tells Damon to leave. Wondering if she will ever see her brother again, Banks asks Damon if he ever loved her. Damon answers, “Love is pain” (465), indicating that this sentiment describes his relationship with Banks.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Banks, Present”
Hours later, Banks and Kai contemplate their future together. Banks feels a strong sense of relief and peace now that Damon is out of her life. She decides to secretly call Will and have him accompany her back to Gabriel’s house one last time so that she can rescue Marina (the cook), Gabriel’s nine dogs, and Damon’s two snakes from the toxic environment. Banks confronts Gabriel and closes that chapter of her life, then returns with Marina and several new pets. These changes shock and irritate Kai, but he has no choice but to accept the situation.
Epilogue Summary
Damon stands at the place where he buried his mother, in the town cemetery on top of another man’s grave. He reflects that everyone sees him as a monster, and he acknowledges that everything he has ever felt has led him nowhere. He no longer feels anything when he stares at the place where he buried his mother, and he takes pleasure in urinating on the grave before heading off into the night.
Chapter 25-Epilogue Analysis
In the final section of the novel, Kai and Banks’s relationship continues to show signs of critical imbalance, given that Kai essentially coerces Banks into an arranged marriage and proves that their intimacy is built partly on his toxic need to establish emotional dominance over her. However, once again, the narrative glosses over this problematic dynamic by introducing a conflict that is portrayed as being even more egregious: Damon’s callous insistence upon reclaiming “ownership” of Banks. However, in both men’s eyes, Banks is relegated to the status of a piece of property—a prize to be fought over and then guarded jealously against all outside influences. Given this framework, Kai’s attachment to Banks is little better than Damon’s, but the conventions of dark romance have already rigidly cast Kai as the “hero” to Damon’s “villainous” role, and these implicit labels are intended to free the author from the responsibility of addressing the ambiguous ethics on display in both men’s behavior.
Damon’s return to Kai’s life during the climax reinforces also how the unresolved pain of the past can destabilize growth and love. Damon’s need to destroy Kai and Banks’s relationship stems from his refusal to let go of his resentment that things have changed in his absence. His actions are based in memory, jealousy, and the fear of being left behind, and it is clear that he is haunted by The Long-Term Consequences of Traumatic Decisions. When Damon appears at Kai’s house wearing a replica of Kai’s mask, this gesture symbolizes identity confusion and reflects Damon’s desire to blur the lines between himself and his former friends. By appropriating Kai’s home and taking on his unique “Horseman” persona, Damon engages in a symbolic act of intrusion, attempting to reclaim the past and destabilize everything that Kai has built.
Meanwhile, Will’s insights into Damon show the dynamics of Making Sacrifices for Love and Friendship, for his observations show how deeply rooted the group’s original bond still remains. Specifically, he insists that Damon has lingered in the area not just for the sake of hurting them, but also because he feels compelled to remain close to them. Damon himself expresses this conflicting bond, describing family as “The knot in your soul that says no matter where you go or what you do, there’s someone in this godforsaken, shithole hell of a world you’re forever connected to” (443). The bitter contradictions in this statement aptly encapsulate his simultaneous resentment of the other Horsemen and his inability to relinquish his past connection to them despite all that he has done to betray them. His ambiguous role in the plot is further complicated when he performs a redemptive act by saving Rika from the very fire that he started. This moment suggests that, even in his most broken state, he’s not entirely beyond the realm of hope.
A key emotional breakthrough comes when Kai tells Banks that he loves her, which changes her entire perspective on the future: “Instead of the direct line in front of me—a tunnel—my future seemed more like turning in a circle to find a road and instead finding only meadows and hills and mountains. So much to explore. No set path. I could walk and never step in the same spot twice” (441). This metaphor shows Banks’s shift from seeing life as predetermined and constrained to seeing it as full of possibilities, thanks to love. Likewise, the tone shifts dramatically in Chapter 30, moving from suspense to a contemplative mood as Kai and Banks sit together, imagining a future beyond the chaos.
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