Free CUL-DE-SAC (On The Edge Book 1) by M.E. YILDIRIM Page B

be if
they were still alive?
    The question was far from being new; it was
the one she asked herself often over the years while she entertained many
scenarios. There were so many paths her imagination lead her to but no matter
which one was on the forefront of her mind, each chain of events assumed a happy
ending.
    A happy ending her family was not granted.
    In her version of a fairy tale, they were
still all together and love was more than an empty and unfulfilled void living
within her.
    She knew Chloé was right and it was hard to
find something true and real enough that would connect two strangers for life.
But as someone who was a result of such thing, Cat knew that sometimes it did
happen.
    However, connecting and staying
together were two different matters.
    She sighed, caressing the picture with
delicate brushes of her thumb wishing just once she could touch the faces of
people who were as much strangers to her now as the idea of affection was.

 
    CHAPTER 8
     
    A vicious kick to his left kidney snapped
Xan’s attention as nothing else would.
“Fuck!” His breath hissed out between his teeth and he looked at his attacker
warily. “Disqualify me before my next fight, why don’t you?!”
“Got your attention finally though, did it not?” Kelton Donovan scoffed.
“A tap on my shoulder would do the same.” Xan scowled at the man who was his
tormentor always, friend mostly unless he decided otherwise which happened on a
few occasions.
    Kelton was a thirty-seven-year-old ex-Marine
carrying his own baggage. Xan met him when the baggage was getting the better
of him and his only reality was the bottom of every bottle he could find.
    One night he found himself in a dark alley
on the receiving end of a knife when a few teenagers decided he was the best entertainment
that stumbled into their way.
    It didn’t look pretty, Xan remembered but
then the sight of blood wasn’t a novelty in his own life.
    Far from it.
    For reasons he still fully couldn’t comprehend , he sidled up to the
man, probably saving his life. Not that Kel was grateful, spewing profanities
right and left that even Xan – who
was no stranger to the life on the streets – had never heard before.
    They had been part of each other’s lives
since then, training together regularly, but their relationship was a far cry
from peaceful sailing.
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you come here for some affection, boy? Hell, you should
have said so because here I thought you actually wanted to learn something.”
The man sneered.
“Screw you,” Xan said without any heat behind his words although he hated when Kel
called him a ‘boy’ and the man knew it, which of course was the reason
why he did it every damn occasion he got.
    At twenty-eight years old, he was hardly a boy ,
if ever.
“No, screw you for wasting my time. What the fuck is up with you today
anyway?” Kelton asked, taking off his sparring gloves, which was an unwritten
law they were done.
    Xan wanted to protest, but he knew his
concentration was shot to hell today and he also knew better than argue with
the man who could give him run for his money when it came to sheer stubbornness.
“Nothing.” He muttered.
    Just because he knew it, didn’t mean he
wanted to share it, Xan thought.
“I bet it’s some bimbo on your mind. No bigger distraction than that, my man.”
“It’s not like that,” Xan protested, although it was.
    Kind of.
    Since the last Tuesday and the meeting with
Catalina in the Monsoon Café, he hadn’t been himself and it was pissing him off
to no end that she managed to have the upper hand after all.
    He blew out a harsh breath because it
wasn’t like that either.
    It’s just…
    He believed he knew all there was to women
shedding tears.
    He was intimately acquainted with them
since he was a little boy. His mother spilled buckets of tears on many
occasions, usually due to his father’s actions, words or lack of thereof. They
were dictated by shame, pain, hopelessness and