The Gift: A Novella by Sandra Marton Page A

Baltic, powerful beyond its size thanks to the gold that was mined in the high mountains that were its eastern boundary, wasn’t exactly a place that made the six o’clock news.
    All that had changed for him on his tenth birthday.
    A man who looked like an undertaker had turned up at the shabby apartment Kaz and his mother shared on 169th Street in the South Bronx, announced himself as the emissary of King Karl of Sardovia, and announced, as well, that the king wanted to see his grandson.
    “Me?” a stunned Kaz had said.
    It turned out that he wasn’t just a boy being raised by a single mother; he was the son of a Sardovian prince who had abandoned them both, and who never mentioned their existence until he was on his death bed.
    “My king wishes to see the boy,” the emissary had said.
    Kaz’s mother had been elated.
    “He’ll want to take care of us, Kazimir,” she’d said happily. “We’ll be rich! And you—you will be a prince!”
    Kaz took a navy Brioni suit from its hanger.
    Not quite.
    They had flown to Sardovia on a private plane, been whisked to the palace in a limousine, and brought before a white-haired old man seated on what Kaz supposed was a throne.
    “Where’s his crown?” Kaz had whispered, and a dozen voices had said, “Shhh!”
    “Boy,” the king had barked, “come closer.”
    Kaz had not moved. His mother had poked him and he’d stumbled forward
    The king had looked at him as if he were an alien.
    “You are illegitimate, boy. Do you know what that means?”
    Kaz had nodded. “It means that my father never took care of my mother and me.”
    “It means,” the king had said coldly, “that you are a bastard, a vivid reminder that my eldest son was not worthy of inheriting the throne. Fortunately, my younger son is worthy. But, like it or not, my blood is in your veins.”
    Kaz smiled thinly at the memory.
    “I will never formally recognize you as my grandson—but I will see to it that you learn our ways, and that you are properly educated.”
    That had meant a monthly stipend for his mother and, for Kaz, two weeks each summer spent in the gossip-filled confines of the Saradovian court.
    He’d hated those summers, hated that his grandfather paid for his enrollment at a private boarding school in New England, where he’d worked his ass off so that at age eighteen, he’d won a full four-year scholarship to Columbia and turned his back on the king’s unwanted money.
    He had not seen or heard from his grandfather after that, so he’d been surprised when the old man’s emissary turned up the day he got his degree in financial economics—a degree granted with the highest possible academic honors.
    The emissary had bristled with importance.
    “My king has decided that you are to take up residence in Sardovia and serve in an advisory position to the minister of finance.”
    “Tell your king that I have decided to join the Marine Corps.”
    His mother had grabbed his arm. “Kazimir,” she’d hissed, “you cannot do this to me!”
    “You need not worry, madam,” the emissary had said. “They will not accept your son. He is a foreigner.”
    But he wasn’t.
    Kaz held dual citizenship. The Corps was happy to have him, happier still to move him quickly into Special Ops.
    He’d loved it. The Corps. Special Ops. The hard training, the feeling that he was doing something that mattered. He would never have left except for the damned wound to his eardrum. Actually, the Corps had asked him to stay on. They’d offered him a desk job in D.C. and he’d tried it, but it hadn’t been a good fit.
    Spit and polish wasn’t his thing.
    Which was laughable, he thought as he tucked in his shirt, zipped his fly and looked at himself in the wall of mirrors that lined the dressing room. If this wasn’t spit and polish, what in hell was it?
    At first, he’d worked for Zach Castelianos. And he’d started investing in the market. It fed his need to take risks. One thing led to another. Five