Content Warning: The novel and this section of the guide include discussion of graphic violence, including torture and murder; domestic violence and child abuse; terminal cancer; and the death of a parent.

Julian’s mother used to beat him when he was small, but always told him, “It will only hurt for a little” (1). Julian’s father ran a dry-cleaning business inherited from his parents, who emigrated from Calabria, Italy. His father abused Julian’s mother, and she inflicted her own hurt on Julian.

In the present, Julian confronts a man bound to a chair in a room draped in plastic. With Julian is his python, Isabella. Julian warns the would-be kidnapper, Samuel, that “The girl and everything that comes with her are mine” (3). He tells the man the ensuing torture only hurt for a little.

At a dinner, Yasmin Karam is irritated by the governor of New York’s wife, who comments that Yasmin’s father doesn’t look sick. Ali Karam runs a multi-billion-dollar empire that controls most of the world’s diamonds, and Yasmin knows he is dying. Also at dinner is Julian Faraci, her father’s right-hand man. Yasmin had a crush on him when she was younger, until she heard him speak disdainfully of her to her father.