52 pages • 1-hour read
King of Envy
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Chapters 33-41Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence and death.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Ayana”
The next day, Ayana goes to help out at the family restaurant, and her mother demands to know about Ayana’s relationship with Vuk. They discuss how part of Ayana is relieved the wedding never went through, despite the guilt she feels. She doesn’t admit to her arrangement with Jordan, but her mother assures her of her support in whatever choice she makes.
Vuk comes into the restaurant, and Ayana’s mother makes them eat together. He and Ayana discuss her career and Hank’s strangely absent behavior of late. When they discover it is Vuk’s birthday, Ayana’s mother insists Ayana take him to the city, and the two are forced to agree.
Chapter 34 Summary: “Ayana”
Ayana leads Vuk through the city and a variety of shops she likes. When they stop at her favorite perfume store, the sales associate is revolted by Vuk’s scars, which angers Ayana. Vuk finds this amusing.
Ayana explains her love of perfumes, how she’d originally planned to study chemistry because of her fascination for scents, and how she typically collects perfumes from the places she visits during her international photoshoots to remind her of a memory she made there. She buys him a perfume under the guise of thanking him for saving her life instead of a birthday gift, as she suspects he is sensitive about the date. As she explains the notes of the perfume, she implies that she finds him warm and comforting.
When they stop for lunch, onlookers recognize her and make rude comments about Vuk’s scars. Angry, Ayana defends Vuk, and they leave.
Chapter 35 Summary: “Ayana”
Vuk continues to find Ayana’s anger over the onlookers’ comments amusing. When they return to her home, her parents have left already for a show. As they bid each other good night, Ayana overthinks in her room about the day they spent together. Vuk comes back to knock on her door, and they have sex. They take a shower after and fall asleep in her bed.
Chapter 36 Summary: “Vuk”
As he watches Ayana sleep, Vuk replays the day in his mind and finds his heart kindled with warmth. Quietly, he leaves her room to avoid any questions from her family the next morning.
Three hours later, Sean calls him to tell him they have detained the last perpetrator from the wedding incident. He and Sean discuss how much time they have to squeeze information out of this Brotherhood member before the organization realizes he’s been caught. Vuk leaves two notes, one for Ayana and the other for her family, before leaving the house. Sean drives him back to the abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn. He recognizes the perpetrator as a man with the alias Dex, or Dexter.
Chapter 37 Summary: “Ayana”
When Ayana wakes up the next morning, she finds Vuk’s letter beneath her door, explaining how he had to leave because of a work emergency and promising to make it up to her later. Her father comments on Vuk leaving at breakfast, and reminds Ayana that she should untangle herself from her previous relationship before starting anything new.
Ayana feels guilty. She receives a call informing her Jordan is awake. She quickly returns to his side, and Jordan announces that he wants to call off the wedding. He admits that the attack was a wake-up call, and he does not want to go through with a sham wedding. Ayana reveals she too wanted to end their engagement, and she encourages Jordan to admit his true intentions to his family. She also tells him about her feelings for Vuk. Jordan supports them, and Ayana leaves his bedside feeling lighter than she has in years.
Chapter 38 Summary: “Vuk”
Vuk tortures Dexter for information. After he kills him, Vuk struggles with memories of the murdering spree he enacted against the Brotherhood after they killed Lazar. He worries about what Ayana would think of the “real” him. He then convenes with Sean and reveals Dexter’s information: The Brotherhood is planning another hit against him at the end of the month. He opens his phone to find missed calls and texts telling him Jordan is awake.
Chapter 39 Summary: “Vuk”
When Vuk visits Jordan, he is crushed by the guilt he feels for involving him in his feud with the Brotherhood. Jordan reveals he knows about his and Ayana’s feelings, and admonishes Vuk again for not telling him earlier about his love for her. He tells him he’s ended their engagement, and despite his joy, Vuk apologizes for their argument.
When he leaves, he calls Ayana immediately and schedules their shooting lesson for the following Friday. That night, he, his team, and Roman lure Shepherd to a booby-trapped house and kill him in the explosion. Though they nearly injure Roman in the process, Vuk is suspicious of how easy it was to kill Shepherd.
Chapter 40 Summary: “Ayana”
Ayana arrives at the shooting range at the Valhalla Club, and Vuk instructs her on how to handle a gun. Though she initially does poorly, she improves with time. When they leave the range and go into Vuk’s exclusive elevator, Ayana initiates sex with him.
Chapter 41 Summary: “Vuk”
They have sex in the elevator. They clean up in his office, and Vuk arranges for new clothing to be delivered for Ayana. Vuk excuses himself momentarily for a meeting with Dominic Davenport. He asks him for a favor: To trace the money trail that finances the Brotherhood.
Chapters 33-41 Analysis
In this fourth section of the narrative, Vuk becomes more of an antihero than a traditional protagonist by demonstrating the depths of brutality he can succumb to when faced with his enemies, invoking the theme of Cruelty Versus Personal Justice. Though Vuk will later reveal he’s sought therapy for his brother’s murder, the events of that night still haunt and viscerally affect him more than a decade later. When triggered by memories of the Brotherhood’s break-in, Vuk enters a dissociative state of mind and must relive those painful memories before he can regain control of himself:
Adrenaline continued to pump, and the stench of death choked my lungs. I should leave and let my men clean this mess up, but I didn’t. My body was here, but my mind was hundreds of miles and years away. Thirteen years ago, to be exact, when I’d systematically hunted and destroyed those responsible for my brother’s death (376).
By highlighting these dissociative episodes, Huang suggests that, despite the fatal revenge he enacted against the Brotherhood, Vuk psychologically and bodily remains at its mercy. His literal inability to move beyond his memories implies that the wound they left behind has not quite (and may never) fully heal for him. Leaving Vuk in the grips of his past also insinuates that his revenge—and the brutality that it engenders within him—has also not been resolved.
With Dexter, Vuk is at his most rageful, brutal, and, in his opinion, honest. As Vuk states as he harms Dex, “The dormant monster inside me clawed its way out […] This was it. Beneath the suits and guise of respectability, this was who I am. I took my pounds of flesh from my enemies, and I didn’t feel a speck of remorse” (376). Vuk’s unapologetic tone when describing this facet of himself underscores his belief in his own righteousness, despite his acknowledgement of his less-than-humane methods and his fears of Ayana’s reaction when she becomes aware of this side of his personality. Qualifying himself as a “monster” demonstrates that Vuk knows his actions are neither socially nor legally acceptable.
Huang, however, deliberately invokes Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice through the allusion to the “pounds of flesh,” reinforcing Vuk’s views of his actions as rightful retribution. Whereas society may not be able to provide a just resolution to Lazar’s murder, Vuk suggests that his brutal and torturous enactment of personal justice is better than no justice at all. He defines his violence as a necessity rather than an indulgence: “I’d always hated Dexter. I resorted to violence when it was necessary, but he relished brutality for brutality’s sake” (375, emphasis added). Huang therefore presents her character as an unrepentant and irreconcilable ethical dilemma to her audience: Although he acts against murderers and assassins for morally acceptable reasons, such as protecting Ayana, his methods are explicitly violent, illegal, and gratuitously brutal, thus implying that he is still a murderer in his own right.
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