Can your enemy be a friend? Could your friend be the enemy? Can you tell the difference?

When Nick de Carteret meets Tselmeg Yusupov he doesn’t know whether to love or hate the Oligarch (soon-to-be President) from Kuikbakhistan. All Nick does know, with the visceral certainty of an abused child desperate for validation, is that he needs to be the best – and very rich.

Born in the gutter and desperate to succeed, Nick left home as a teenager and began the single-minded, uncompromising pursuit of anything and everything which could validate his worth, falling into the world of high finance and low politics.

Yusupov had sought Nick out, as a successful and unscrupulous financier, to manage his money profitably, unhindered by morality or the law.

Nick and Yusupov are mirror images. Both suffered traumatic childhoods, and so have a visceral need to be the best, whatever the cost. But as their relationship develops into the most violent extremes, they begin to realise there is only room for one at the top.