“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 p
osition 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 years ago, he’d started his own investment firm. It was small. It was open to investors by invitation only. It had done well. Hell, it had done brilliantly.
He met a friend of Zach’s, a so-called financial genius named Travis Wilde, at a financial conference. Wilde had shaken his hand and said, “You’re heavy-duty competition, dude.”
It had been a huge compliment, and an honest one—which was the reason Kaz hadn’t been all that surprised when the Sardovian minister of finance paid him a visit.
Time had passed, but Kaz’s attitude had not changed.
“I told the last guy to take a walk,” he’d said to the minister, “and nothing’s changed. I’m not the least bit interested in serving on a council.”
The minister had stood as straight as an oak.
“You are to take over the investments of Sardovia.”
Well, well, well, Kaz had thought, but he’d kept his face expressionless.
“Why?”
“Because you are Sardovian.”
“I am American.”
“You are Sardovian. And Sardovia has wealth, but it has not been properly invested. We need hospitals, teachers and schools. We need a future for our children. Is that not part of what America said it wanted to bring the people of Afghanistan?”
Nothing had touched Kaz, until that.
Unannounced, he’d flown to Sardovia, rented a car and spent a week on his own, driving from villages to towns to cities. He’d met people. Real people. Farmers. Small merchants. Women who wanted better things for their children.
And he’d become the head of The Sardovian Investment Fund.