King of Wrath: An Arranged Marriage Romance

Dante Russo is the 36-year-old CEO of the Russo Group corporation and the male protagonist and romantic lead. His company was founded by his grandfather using the fortune built by his ancestors in textiles. The family is a very old family with longstanding wealth and power. Dante is known in society for his business acumen and his security team’s ruthlessness. He is ruthless in his business, as well, destroying companies or other businessmen like Francis or Heath simply out of revenge or uncontrolled wrath. He says himself that “[r]estraint didn’t come naturally to me. If I didn’t like someone, I made damn sure they knew it, but extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary measures” (16). His business and security decisions are often morally gray, and his security measures are not always legal. Dante, like Francis, is used to being obeyed by his employees and used to getting his way; gaining someone like Vivian in his life, someone who stands up to him, is something he needs to challenge his ways of thinking about his power and sense of control over his life. He is, therefore, an archetypal romantic lead of a dark romance, since he exhibits dangerous or morally gray qualities but exhibits potential for change if a romance opens his softer side.

He exerts control not only in business but in every arena of life. Something Vivian notices when she moves in with him is how everything in the home has a specific place and how Dante is hyper-aware of everything in his home. He is frustrated with the fact that having another person living in his home means that he will have to deal with changes and the unexpected. He notes that Vivian disrupts “the environment I’d carefully cultivated. I would come home not knowing what to see or expect. Aggravation rose in my chest” (50). The disruptions to his life help him learn how to live with and compromise with another person.

Despite Dante’s morally gray choices, he is a man with a heart, as Greta, his housekeeper, reminds him. When it comes to his business, he understands the value of starting from the lower echelons of his company and learning what things are like for his employees. Dante also has a deep capacity for love, one revealed by the care he shows Vivian, even before they begin to build a deeper relationship. Dante’s inner conflict centers around his Choosing Vulnerability over Wrath.

Sloane and Isabella are Vivian’s closest friends. Sloane runs a boutique public relations firm, and she notoriously overworks. Despite this, she is a loyal and supportive friend to Vivian, providing Vivian with a place to stay and reassurance when Vivian leaves Dante. Isabella is a writer supporting herself with bartending jobs. Of the three friends, she is the most outgoing and, at times, outrageous in her jokes. She is the first character to encourage Vivian to build a real relationship with Dante, and she does so throughout the novel. Both are flat characters who function as catalysts for the plot when Vivian needs advice or an escape.

Kai and Christian are Dante’s friends. Christian is also a business associate of Dante’s, helping Dante find Francis’s blackmail photos and find dirt to use to destroy Francis. Christian is influential in the outcome of Dante’s vendetta against Francis. With little use for morals himself, Christian prods Dante back toward revenge whenever Dante considers abandoning it for love. Christian also drives forward the progress of Francis’s and Vivian’s relationship when he sends Heath to see Vivian under false pretenses simply because Dante flirted with Christian’s girlfriend to taunt him. Christian represents the wrath in the novel: Vivian pulls Dante towards Choosing Vulnerability Over Wrath while Christian does the opposite.

Kai, on the other hand, is a more supportive and caring friend. He is unafraid of offering advice and providing Dante with an alternative perspective. Knowing his friend’s capacity for wrath and mistreatment of others, he appeals to Dante’s kinder side and firmly reminds him to treat his new fiancée with the respect she deserves. He regularly boxes with Dante, providing his friend with an outlet for some of his anger, taking their matches as an opportunity to try to get Dante to confide in him or listen to advice. He is therefore a foil for Christian.

Francis and Cecilia Lau are Vivian Lau’s parents, and Agnes is Vivian’s sister. Agnes, the elder of the two sisters, was married before Vivian in another arranged marriage. She does not often appear physically in King of Wrath, but she plays an important role as a confidante and advice-giver to Vivian. Agnes plants the seed of Vivian’s ability to finally stand up to her father by admitting that if her own arranged engagement had not gone well, she would not have sacrificed her own happiness to please her parents. She understands The Impact of Familial Pressures.

Francis Lau is the founder and owner of Lau Jewels, which he started as a tiny jewelry shop in Boston and built into an extremely successful jewelry business. When the company became profitable, Francis moved the family to an upscale neighborhood and altered their dynamic fundamentally, emphasizing perfection and adherence to the rules of upper-class society in an attempt to find acceptance. That obsession with acceptance is what drives Francis to blackmail Dante into marrying Vivian. He is also a man who craves power and complete obedience from his family and “inferiors,” but unlike Dante, he is unwilling to learn how to let go of a little bit of that control and lean into love for his family. He is therefore the antagonist of the novel.

Vivian assumes that her mother, Cecilia, supports her father in everything. In many ways, Cecilia has been a loyal and obedient wife to Francis, and she was just as affected by society’s refusal to accept them. Like Francis, she turned her desire for acceptance into a drive for perfectionism in herself and her daughters. She is highly critical of Vivian, including Vivian’s clothes, make-up, and behavior. Huang explores the way Racism and Classism in society demands perfection from this Chinese American family but does not apply the same standard to wealthy white people. Cecilia, however, goes through her own journey of growth. Like Vivian, she has a moral code, and she refuses to abide by Francis’s behavior or his disowning of Vivian. She also listens to Vivian’s feelings and agrees to work on becoming a less critical mother.