More Than Life by Garrett Leigh Read Free Book Online Page B

discharged myself as soon as I was able and flew to Greece. When you weren’t there, I went to Pristina. I found your old home razed to the ground, and I feared the worst.”
    Mik nodded, but then he thought of the mysterious parcel that had nearly broken him. “Someone knew I was here. I got a package a few years ago with my parent’s valuables and your cap. Who sent that?”
    A startled look crossed Isa’s face before he seemed to reconcile himself with an answer. “My partner, Rico, I’d imagine. I knew things were going to go bad and your parents probably wouldn’t get out. Your father and I figured Doric could use anything of value to keep moving the children. Rico smuggled them to Switzerland when he left Kosovo the week before your father was killed.”
    Mik exhaled slowly. Even faced with their own demise, Artan and Isa had done so much to protect all that was dear to Mik’s heart. If only they’d thought to protect themselves .
    Isa dropped his gaze, and Mik felt a stab of fresh grief lance his heart. So much pain, so much suffering. Could any of it have been prevented? And where on earth did they go from here? Isa seemed so broken, shattered by all he had endured. Was there anything left of the man he’d mourned for so long?
    “Mik, I’m sorry.” Isa’s quiet voice faltered. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
    Dazed, Mik shook his head. It was almost impossible to comprehend that Isa was stood in front of him…in front of him and alive, and the guilt he felt was crippling. For years, he’d believed the remote Albanian haven he’d built with Rea and Leka was the safest place for them, and that the decision he’d taken to halt their flight had been the best path for all of them, but now he wasn’t so sure. The image of Isa searching for them tortured him. Would Isa have found them sooner if they’d gone to Greece like he’d instructed them to? Or stayed in the country they’d given everything to defend? “What do you have to be sorry for?”
    Isa kept his gaze on the dense forest ground. “It was selfish of me to come here. I knew you believed I was dead…that your life would move on. I thought I’d be content just to see you were alive, but I should’ve known it would never be enough.”
    “Isa? What are you trying to say?”
    The American shivered in answer. For the first time, Mik realized that it had begun to rain. He put his hand on Isa. The American was cold to the bone. He pulled Isa towards the lodge. “Come inside,” he said. “You need to get warm.”
    Isa resisted. “What about your wife?”
    Mik turned sharply. “My what ?”
    Isa couldn’t seem to bring himself to say the words again. “Your daughter,” he said. “How old is she?”
    “Four years, three months.”
    Isa swallowed thickly. “She was born when we were working together?”
    Mik frowned, confusion clouding his brain before he understood the direction of Isa’s thoughts. “I’m not her biological father, Isa. We…Rea, Leka and I, are her guardians. You’ve seen her face before. Don’t you recognize the light in her eyes?”
    Isa shook his head, blank and unmoved. “Is she from your neighborhood?”
    Mik grasped Isa’s shoulders. “Isa, you carried her in your arms all the way from Kosovo. She’s only here because of you.”
    Memories of the perilous journey that had brought them to this very place flooded Mik’s mind as Isa finally seemed to comprehend what he was trying to tell him.
    The fight drained from Isa. He fell into Mik’s arms. “I remember, Mik. I remember everything.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Isa let Mik pull him into the lodge and undress him in front of the fire. Mik placed a warmed blanket over his shoulders and searched out fresh clothes. When Mik returned to the living area of the lodge, he found Isa staring at the flames, lost in thought.
    Mik stood in front of him and grasped his hands. In the fading light of the room, he noticed the raised flesh on Isa’s wrists—scar tissue, from