“Your horse has arthritis in his knees. I’ve seen his gait in practice. Without snake venom, he’ll run out of gas on turn two and be lucky to finish in the middle of the pack.”

Knight sat back and waited for reality to soak in. He hadn’t specified which “sure thing” he was betting on. And if he had known about the snake venom for a week, he might have interfered with Gladiator’s doping regimen. He watched Richards piece it together, noting the exact moment his Adam’s apple rose with a nervous swallow. Yes, Richards was now keenly aware that the race wouldn’t be decided by the horses or their jockeys, but by whether Knight had decided to halt the doping.

“Which horse did you bet on?” Richards forced out weakly.

Knight betrayed nothing as the horses approached the second turn, with Gladiator going strong. “Nobody wants to see this thing go to court,” he said. “Walk away from your claim and fire your trainer.”

Suddenly, Gladiator began to pull away, his poison-fueled body unwittingly pushing beyond its limits. Richards watched the horse’s performance, looking like a man who had just been granted a stay of execution.

By the time Gladiator crossed the finish line two lengths ahead of the pack, Knight had already departed to collect his winnings.

Knight took no pleasure in working with men like Richards, but he did take pleasure in winning, both on and off the track. And he looked forward to using his payout to buy a new Montblanc watch next time he passed through the duty-free shop at the Dubai airport.

He returned to his high-rise hotel in downtown LA. He knew he should get some sleep. Instead he spent the next few hours playing pinball on his phone at the hotel bar as he drained their supply of Blanton’s bourbon. Outside, the city lights blurred together, looking just like the cities he pinballed between: Riyadh, Buenos Aires, Moscow . . . For a moment, he forgot which one he was in . . . Oh, right—Los Angeles.

Knight could feel his belly dipping over his Yves Saint Laurent belt. It bothered him that he had let his body go to shit, but it beat depriving himself of his vices, and he could still get by well enough on his designer threads and cocksure attitude.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a waifish form mounting the stool two seats down from him. He could sense her anxious body language—the look she cast in his direction to take inventory before returning her attention to the bartender mixing her dry vodka martini with a lemon twist. Knight could sense the deep well of insecurity within her that would never be filled. He could use that.

“You’re the face from those Gucci ads,” Knight commented, as if offering some small bit of inconsequential trivia.

He watched her turn, uncertain what to make of him. At first glance, his tailored suit and neatly groomed generic haircut might lead her to suspect he was a consultant or investment banker. But the specific luxury brands he was wearing painted a different picture. More international. More curated.