Angelo reflects on his strict rules about women, especially avoiding his uncle’s fiancée. Amused by Rory’s petty sins, he entertains a sexual fantasy about punishing her. He reminds himself he’s no longer the violent “Vicious” Visconti and is only visiting to tie up loose ends. He opens windows to rid the car of her vanilla scent but watches as rain makes her white top transparent, revealing a pink lace bra.

When Rory returns, Angelo insults her father for living in the woods. He notices her stroking her father’s jacket. Rory explains her father was the ranger for Devil’s Preserve near Devil’s Dip and delivers an impassioned defense of the forest’s ecological significance when Angelo dismisses it. He realizes Alberto wants to build a hotel in the Preserve.

Angelo recalls refusing Alberto and Dante’s proposal in London and deduces Alberto is deceiving Rory, making her believe he controls the Preserve to manipulate her into marriage. The land actually belongs to Angelo. He has a dark thought about what she might do for him if she knew the truth but calls her stupid for falling for Alberto’s trick.

Back at the mansion, Rory asks if they could have a deal that he won’t listen to her calls. Angelo asks what he gets in return, and her response arouses him. Struggling with temptation, he tells her to leave the car. Alberto appears and forces a kiss on the recoiling Rory. Angelo watches, fighting the urge to punch his uncle. As he’s leaving, Angelo turns back and tells Alberto he’ll escort Rory to Devil’s Dip every Wednesday and Saturday, claiming he has business there. On his way out, he deliberately scratches Alberto’s Rolls Royce. His headlights illuminate Rory smiling on the porch, and he realizes he likes seeing her smile.

Angelo arrives at a poker night and business meeting between Visconti clans. He meets his cousin Castiel Visconti, whose dying father is pressuring him to marry a Russian woman to secure his inheritance of the Smugglers Club whiskey business. Angelo has a sexual fantasy about Rory fighting back if he spanked her.

Benedicto Visconti arrives and offers Angelo “prostitutes.” The family gathers: cousins Castiel, Benny, and Tor, and Angelo’s brothers Rafe and Gabe, along with Dante and Donatello. Gabe silently disarms one of Rafe’s guards at gunpoint, embarrassing him. During the meeting, Angelo grants business requests to Donatello and the Hollow brothers but refuses Dante access to the Preserve. Dante becomes angry that Angelo favors the Hollows. Angelo taunts him by quoting Rory’s ecological facts about the Preserve. When Dante calls Rory “that bitch Aurora” (106), Angelo feels enraged.

Later, Dante privately asks Angelo for access to Sinners Anonymous call records to gather intelligence. Angelo refuses. At the poker game, Angelo and Rafe eavesdrop as two young men discuss a high school rumor that Rory let a group of men have sex with her. Feeling tricked by her feigned innocence, Angelo falsely accuses the men of using counterfeit chips. Rafe backs his lie, and the men are violently dragged away. Rafe confronts Angelo, declaring that his violent alter ego, Vicious, has returned. Angelo wonders if his alter ego ever truly left.

On Friday night, Greta sews Rory into a tight silver dress for dinner. Rory has felt constant unease since Wednesday’s car ride with Angelo. Downstairs, she’s disappointed not to see him among the guests. She spots Alberto meeting with his lawyer, Mortiz, and remembers she needs to learn about changes to the contract binding her to Alberto. She slips outside to eavesdrop through the office window.

Her high heel sinks into the sand, causing her to stumble, but Angelo appears and catches her. He is smoking, and he offers her his cigarette. After she coughs, he teaches her to smoke properly. He puts the cigarette to his own lips after hers, staring at her lipstick stain on the filter. Rory tries to leave, but Angelo commands her to stay.

He asks who she would rather kiss, him or Alberto. Her gaze drops to his lips, revealing her answer. To recover, she insults his age—as he’s 15 years older than her—and they trade barbs. She accuses him of keying Alberto’s car after witnessing their forced kiss. He feigns ignorance, but she knows she’s right. He pins her against the wall and demands she tell him a sin as part of their deal.

Rory confesses that every time Alberto forces her to kiss him, she spits in his whiskey. They both begin laughing, and she leans into his body. Suddenly, she realizes she’s obsessed with Angelo.

Angelo tries to ignore Rory in the basement bar but constantly finds himself watching her. He goes to the beach to smoke, hoping she’ll follow. Rafe joins him and questions his recent heavy smoking. Angelo recounts a business trip where he restrained his violent impulses, making him question his new life away from the mafia.

Rafe reminds him of his nickname, Vicious, for his tendency to deliver disproportionate revenge. Angelo reveals he left the Coast to try to be good, honoring his mother’s belief that positive actions can offset negative ones. He explains he came back after receiving a fortune cookie that reminded him of his mother but refuses to tell Rafe what it said.

Rafe questions Angelo’s actions at the poker game, saying he was defending Alberto’s plaything, not family. Rafe pledges his unconditional loyalty but warns Angelo not to start a war with their cousins over a woman. Rafe leaves, and Angelo remains on the beach, troubled by the conversation.

After returning from Friday night dinner and ending up in bed with Alberto, Rory wakes at five in the morning pinned by a sleeping Alberto and escapes his grasp. Feeling anxious, she decides to swim in the freezing ocean. She runs into the water, reflecting on her mother teaching her to swim and be brave, and her vow to save her father from Alberto.

While floating, her thoughts turn to Angelo and the previous night’s encounter. She becomes intensely aroused and begins to pleasure herself in the water. She spots Angelo standing on the beach, watching the ocean. Unsure if he can see her, she continues masturbating, enjoying the danger.

She swims back to shore and stands up in the shallow water. As she walks past Angela, he hooks his finger in the string of her bikini bottom and tells her that if she belonged to him, he would spank her for dressing so skimpily around other men. She returns to the house.

In Angelo’s car on one of their trips to Devil’s Dip, he crudely asks why she’s marrying Alberto. His easy laugh makes her feel foolish for thinking he might be jealous. By the Devil’s Preserve, Rory meets her father, Chester Carter, a retired ranger who still lives in a cabin by the lake, and his nurse, Melanie. Before entering the bird shelter, she removes her engagement ring. She takes Chester out on the lake in a rowboat, away from the nurse whom she doesn’t trust.

Chester is lucid and asks about her progress at the aviation academy, the cover story she’s been using to explain why she no longer lives at home. Rory feels immense guilt for lying to him. When he asks her to come to the cabin, she has to refuse, and the nurse helps cover for her. Rory returns to Angelo’s car, upset. He makes her sit in the trunk while he removes her muddy boots, then he lifts her and places her gently in the passenger seat.

Angelo asks her to identify a local man she knew from school—someone with a facial scar and a reputation for being cruel—then immediately goes to confront him. Rory names Ryder Sloane, imprisoned for an acid attack on his girlfriend and now working at his father’s bike shop. Angelo immediately drives there. He kisses her knuckles before getting out to confront Ryder. Rory watches, both horrified and aroused, as Angelo violently slams Ryder against the window, then throws him through the plate glass. He returns, saying it was the wrong person. He then asks Rory if she has any other suggestions.

Back at the mansion, Angelo puts his hand high on her thigh and demands a real sin. Pressured by his touch and Alberto’s approach, Rory confesses she was pleasuring herself in the sea while thinking about him. Angelo is stunned as Alberto reaches the car. Angelo tells Alberto that Rory was very useful. As she walks away, Angelo calls out that she should wear her hair curly.

Haunted by Rory’s confession, Angelo meets Rafe and Gabe at a Connecticut apple orchard for their monthly Sinners Anonymous kill. They’ve captured a man who called the confession hotline and have released him near the woods, where he’ll be hunted. Gabe provides modified, high-powered rifles for a hunt. The sinner, Phillip, is given a 30-second head start before they can shoot. Angelo, Rafe, and Gabe make bets on the outcome.

As the countdown ends, Phillip veers off the path into the trees, triggering a massive explosion. Gabe had rigged the sides with explosives and warned Phillip to run straight. Gabe wins the bet. Angelo tells Gabe he’s considering renovating their old family home in Devil’s Dip. Gabe predicts Angelo is moving back because he won’t be able to leave Rory with Alberto. Angelo denies this vehemently.

Gabe reveals he knows what Angelo did nine years ago—a sin bigger than any on the hotline—and why he truly left Devil’s Dip. Angelo is shocked and tries to leave, but Gabe stops him, saying thank you. He implies that if Angelo hadn’t done it, Gabe would have for his own reasons. Gabe warns Angelo that when he inevitably decides to steal Alberto’s girl, he will need an army.

On Friday night, Halloween, Rory convinces Tor to take her to his new club’s opening by bribing him with priority access to her tattoo artist friend, Tayce. Rory has dressed in a leather witch costume specifically in case Angelo is there. Tor’s security is instructed to watch her closely. Overwhelmed by the lavish club, she’s escorted to the VIP balcony, where she meets Amelia, Donatello, Dante, and Benny.

Tayce arrives and spots Angelo across the room talking to a dancer named Lucy, known for having an affair with Dante. Rory is crushed that her fantasy of Angelo watching her all night is ruined. Upset, she retreats to the bathroom in Tor’s private office. When she emerges, Angelo is waiting. He comments on her curly hair, then grabs her and pins her against the locked door.

He furiously demands to know what she meant by her earlier confession about pleasuring herself in the sea while thinking about him. Feeling reckless on her last night of freedom before the engagement party, Rory explains her fantasy. He then encourages her to masturbate as he watches, though he doesn’t touch her. Rory does, and Angelo, visibly aroused, calls her a bad girl and leaves, taking her pink bra with him.

The memory of watching Rory is burned into Angelo’s mind. On Saturday morning, the day of the engagement party, he arrives at Alberto’s mansion, which is bustling with preparations. He finds Rory, who tells him she can’t visit her father because of the party. When she says she’s not allowed, Angelo storms into Alberto’s office. He lies, using Alberto’s Preserve hotel plan as a pretense, saying he needs Rory to help him scout the Devil’s Preserve before discussing the deal further. Alberto agrees, asking Angelo to maintain the pretense that the land is Alberto’s, not Angelo’s.

In the car, Rory is tense and tells Angelo that what happened the previous night can’t happen again. She shows new boldness, threatening to burn his car if he tells Alberto. After visiting her father, she returns visibly distressed. She says she can’t handle the guilt from the previous night without being able to confess to Sinners Anonymous. When he sees her glance toward the cliff near the church by Devil’s Dip, Angelo fears for her mental state and takes her into the abandoned church.

He points her to the actual confession booth and explains the origins of Sinners Anonymous: as boys, he and his brothers would hide behind the booth, listen to sins, and punish the sinners—later modernized into the confession hotline. He tells her he gets the same release from avenging sins that she gets from confessing them. Rory confesses she has an uncommitted sin so bad that even confessing won’t bring release—that she enjoyed their sexual encounter and wants it to happen again. Aroused, Angelo suggests an alternative to confession: atonement.