Vuk Markovic, also known as The Serb, is the novel’s other protagonist and narrator. Vuk owns a multibillion-dollar corporation in spirits and liquors, which he started when he bought a distillery after completing his chemistry and business degrees.

Though his parents died of natural causes, his twin brother, Lazar, was caught in the crossfires of the Brotherhood, an underground organization of hitmen and assassins. When Lazar witnessed a murder carried out by one of the Brotherhood members, Vuk bartered for his safety by offering himself and his services in poison creation. The Brotherhood agreed, on the condition he provide half-a-million dollars as a deposit, which Vuk obtained from Jordan. It is through this moment of kindness that he and Jordan became close friends.

Vuk then worked for an undisclosed amount of time as their poison-maker, learning their rules and faces along the way. When he could no longer justify his presence in the Brotherhood, he stole the organization’s secret ledger and used it as leverage for his freedom. The Brotherhood deceived him, eventually breaking into his home, torturing him and Lazar, and setting their house on fire. Lazar ordered Vuk to save himself and died. As a result, Vuk has a lasting pyrophobia, scars around his neck from where the Brotherhood choked him with a rope and then set it on fire, and a propensity to sign ASL over speaking words, as he has grown accustomed to the quiet.

He first sees Ayana through her interviews on television and, from then on, grows infatuated with her. When Jordan and Ayana announce their engagement, Vuk agonizes between the love he feels for her and the loyalty he feels for Jordan. Over the course of their 16-month engagement, he does not speak of his true feelings, but in the last couple of months before the wedding, his feelings for Ayana become mutual. His relationship with her enables him to open up to her and show a more vulnerable side to his character. By the end of the narrative, Vuk has coordinated with Roman Davenport to overthrow the contenders to the Brotherhood leadership, secured a lasting peace between them, adopted a cat named Shadow, and become engaged to Ayana.

Emmanuelle Beaumont is one of the principal antagonists in the narrative and a secondary character. Sister to Stéphane “Shepherd” Beaumont, she is the head of the Beaumont modeling agency and the secret second leader of the Brotherhood. Through her position at Beaumont, she is effectively both Hank’s and Ayana’s boss.

While she is seen as a force within the fashion world, Emmanuelle also secretly runs a sex trafficking ring, making victims out of low-success models and funneling the money to the Brotherhood to support its illegal activities. Though she does not pressure Ayana into the sex trafficking ring she runs, Emmanuelle nevertheless uses her position to extort Ayana, paying her late and deliberately having her work with known sexual predators like Wentworth Holt. When the Brotherhood’s old leadership dies, she works in the shadows to become its new leader, which involves attempting to kill Vuk.

Though she remains anonymous to most in the Brotherhood—including Shepherd—she plots with Roman to murder Shepherd since he is the leader of the opposing faction in the Brotherhood. When they succeed, she kidnaps Ayana to be rid of Vuk once and for all, but in the process, Ayana shoots and kills her to save Vuk’s life.

Jordan Ford is a secondary character. He is a friend to Vuk and Ayana’s fiancé. The heir to the Ford family and the Jacob Ford luxury department store company, Jordan is a down-to-earth man with simple pleasures and a compassionate heart. He provided Vuk with the half a million dollars he needed to temporarily save Lazar when they were still in college without asking any questions. Though the two hadn’t been close prior to this event, they became quite close afterwards, despite their contrasting personalities.

Unbeknownst to his family, however, Jordan is asexual and coded as being aromantic, which has caused grief for his grandmother Orla, who wishes to see him married. Orla sets a condition on his inheritance: If he does not marry, he will inherit nothing. In desperation, he concocts a fake marriage scheme with Ayana to fool his family. This leads to a tense confrontation with Vuk, as Vuk falls in love with Ayana.

When the Brotherhood shoots him at their wedding, Jordan reconsiders his life choices, admits to his sexual orientation to his family, and dissolves his engagement with Ayana. By the end of the narrative, he retains his friendship with both Vuk and Ayana, as well as his inheritance.

Hank Carson is one of the antagonists and a secondary character. As a manager at Beaumont, he works directly under Emmanuelle and oversees many of the agency’s models, including Ayana. Though Hank often takes credit for Ayana’s success, his managerial style is based on stalking, intimidation, and pressuring models. With Ayana, Hank often crosses the line, plants a listening device on her to keep track of her every movement, and shows up at her apartment without warning to threaten her.

Vuk beats Hank to find Ayana after she’s gone missing, and Hank admits that Emmanuelle has disappeared, too, which gives Vuk the final clue to find her.

Wentworth Holt is another antagonist in the novel. As a prominent photographer in New York, Wentworth is at the forefront of major advertisement campaigns and often works with famous modeling agencies, like Beaumont, and big-name models, like Ayana. Wentworth takes advantage of his ability to make or break a model’s reputation to sexually prey on them. When he sexually assaults Ayana, Vuk physically assaults him in turn and breaks his hand so he can no longer hold a camera anymore. In retaliation, he partners with Emmanuelle to kill Vuk and possibly kill Ayana, but Vuk gains the upper hand and kills him.