Romeo

Romeo is the main male antagonist on Netflix’s Sky Rojo. During his life, he was a businessman and owner of several "clubs" (really brothels as well as night clubs) such as Las Novias in Tenerife, where he was a pimp, and the leader of operations.

The series shows him becoming fierce enemies with three of his former workers, Coral, Gina and Wendy after they had seriously wounded him, escaped from his "club" and plotted against him. This ultimately causes Romeo to harbour an intense desire to hunt down and annihilate the women out of anger for their uprising. He was portrayed by Asier Etxeandia.

Background

Romeo was likely born and raised in the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands, having lived in Tenerife for many years before the series time period. Over twenty years prior to the current time period of series, he helped a teenage boy named Moisés Expósito take the corpse of his murdered father away to be buried in the remote area of a Tenerife desert and following this, Romeo and Moisés made a vow to become brothers, thus he also treated Moisés’ brother Christian and their mother, as relatives. In the current time of the series, Romeo's wife, had just died from cancer, leaving him to be the widowed single father of their two daughters.

Into their adulthood, Moisés, Romeo and Christian began working as human traffickers and pimps, working in an elaborate scheme where they recruited women into prostitution, providing them with shelter, food and other necessities for their life and new occupation in exchange for money. Their workplace, the Las Novias Club became an established and successful night club and brothel in Tenerife, allowing them to employ other people such as a security guard named Beefcake.

Appearance

Romeo was a middle-aged Spaniard Caucasian man. He had brown eyes, wavy brown hair, that he usually wore loose and slightly messy. He had lightly tanned skin and appeared above average height. Being a wealthy and affluent businessman, he tended to dress in expensive suits.

Personality

Romeo was the criminal mastermind behind a line of successful brothels, including the Las Novias Club in Tenerife.

In public, Romeo had two main faces- one of an upstanding citizen, a loyal, responsible and loving family man. And the other being a frankly deluded, dominative, ambitious, highly opportunistic, materialistic, manipulative, crude, narcissistic, greedy, selfish, misogynistic, highly persuasive, entitled, and very charismatic businessman with a superiority complex, a penchant for violence, and appearing with a limited conscience, likely making him a sociopath if not a psychopath.

He was happy to trick, kidnap, take advantage of, torment, hurt and force vulnerable women into selling their bodies for sex and giving him money, essentially making them into his slaves, and to get his way would even at some points threaten them with the death of their family members to follow his demands.

Romeo was also an extremely vengeful person who hated loosing against his enemies, as shown by his determination to kill, Gina, Wendy and Coral for escaping his grip and punishing him.

Of course, Romeo liked many pimps, saw his female sex workers as his possessions and mere pawns and objects to please men and build his empire, completely overlooking their emotions and only caring about the monetary profits they gave him. But he tried to appeal to their nicer side whenever they challenged or outsmarted him. Of his prostitutes, he only developed romantic feelings towards Coral and Rubi. Romeo also showed mistrust and cruelty to men around him, such as his henchman, Christian, who he let die in the desert of a gunshot wound, so he could have better control over his brother Moises, and also killed one of Moisés' friends nicknamed Tattoo, stabbing him with a broken bottle of liquor and trapping him in a pipe to die of asphyxiation, because he did not trust him.

Furthermore, Romeo was also an extremely self indulgent person especially with sex and drugs and openly claimed that lust took over him.

Throughout the Series

Season 1

Romeo is an abusive pimp who works at a brothel. He controls the women there and rules over them in a brutal manner. He has a wife, who died from cancer, and kids at home. Romeo had a secret relationship with one of the prostitutes, Coral.

After three of his girls try to kill him and run away, he is on a mission for revenge. He sends out his henchmen to go and track the girls down but it all goes to hell. The girls weren't successful in killing him the first time and they try again. At the end of the season, Romeo overdoses and almost dies but he wakes up at the last minute.

Relationships

Unnamed Wife - Romeo had a wife, whom he called "his saviour", she seemed either unaware of her husband's work and his dark side, or tolerated it, having married and having two daughters with him. Romeo proclaimed to have loved his wife, and showed remorse when she died of cancer, leaving him a widower. And only spoke of her with fondness and respect. It seemed as if Romeo tried to fill the space of his deceased wife with his prostitute, Coral, even before she passed away.

Two daughters - Romeo had two daughters with his late wife, he appeared to love and cherish them in his own way as well as try his best to be a good father to them, showing much tenderness and care for their needs and pain, completely shielding them from his work.

Coral - She was one of Romeo's sex workers in the Las Novias Club, she willingly joined his brothel, to begin a new life. On becoming a prostitute, Romeo guided her and instructed her to adopt a new persona in the club- of an unattainable woman men would want to be with after watching "an artsy fartsy French movie". Because of her intelligence, high education and charisma, Romeo became fond of and lustful towards her, he later sent Coral to tutor his two daughters at home, after seeing her skills from her CV. After seeing him interact at home with his children, Romeo grew feelings for Coral and began a secret romantic affair with her whilst still being married to his sickly wife. Coral however turned down his advances for sex. And decided to merely use his newly found trust in her to learn much about Romeo and use it against him. Romeo developed a toxic obsession with Coral than love as he tried to kill her numerous times after she escaped the brothel, tricked and backstabbed Romeo, including when she and her crew stole over €4,000,000 in profits from his collective clubs (brothels). This shows that he gave up on reasoning with Coral and their relationship.

Appearances

Season 1

Trivia

Gallery

References