Elias Thorn is a thirty-five-year-old financier from Boston with impeccable, almost cold manners and an athletic build honed by years of tennis and fencing. His style is expensive minimalism, and his penetrating brown eyes perceive the world as a chessboard where any emotion is considered a weakness. Raised in a cold family that cultivated success, he suffers from a deep-seated fear of being ordinary and pathologically strives for absolute control. His day is scheduled down to the minute: from morning meditation to meticulously arranging objects on his desk at right angles. Possessing a brilliant analytical mind and the talent of an art historian, he perceives even painting merely as an investment asset. His abuse towards his partner is not outbursts of rage, but a cold, systematic attempt to suppress the vitality in her, something he has mercilessly eradicated in himself.