Belonging to Ilias (The Commission Novel #4)

Prologue - Before

GALENA

The pavement was cold beneath me. Wet, maybe, though I couldn’t tell if it was from the cracked city gutters or my own blood.

I tried to focus on the pebbles that were caught in it and the dark pockmarks made by the weather that were now filled with dark, unmistakable fluid.

My ribs ached with every shallow breath, a cracked whimper escaping my throat as I blinked up at the stretch of the gray New York sky peeking between two apartment buildings.

Afternoon light filtered through rusted fire escapes and broken window blinds.

The city kept moving, but my world had stopped.

One of my arms was twisted at an odd angle, and I was pretty sure it was broken.

Something was wrong with it. Something was wrong with everything.

My vision tunnelled, then sharpened, like my brain couldn’t decide whether to give up or survive.

I tried to move my fingers a little on my other hand to test them.

That hand seemed alright. There was just blood everywhere.

On my fingers. On the concrete. On her .

My mother.

A sob clawed its way up my throat, raw and choking. I tried to turn my head to look. To see if she was breathing, but the movement sent a sharp lightning bolt of pain through my skull, and there was an unmistakable taste of blood in my mouth.

The men who did this were gone, including the one with the gold ring.

I still didn’t understand any of it. Why it had happened or who they were.

They’d known my mother, though. One of them had said her name, his voice slick and triumphant as he walked up to us.

He had laughed when she tried to shield me with her body like she was being stupid.

In the end, I suppose he must have thought we were both foolish. I wanted to move, to crawl to her. But the men had held me down, and now I was just fire and shards. Everything in me felt like it was broken.

"Mama?” I whispered. It hurt to say, but I said it anyway. Maybe she could still hear me. Maybe we just needed someone to come and help us, and everything would be okay.

We had just come from the grocery store when the three men had cornered us.

Plastic grocery bags had spilled everywhere—a red apple rolling down the alley, a box of Oreos crushed beneath someone's foot, her sweater soaked in blood. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

We were going home. I had an essay to write for my college English class.

I tried again to move. My body screamed. My face throbbed where his ring had caught my cheek. One of my eyes wouldn’t open all the way. My stomach lurched. If she was gone, who would ever love me like she did?

I was alone.

I let my head fall back against the pavement, breathing shallow through my teeth. Sirens in the distance. Car horns. Someone was shouting from a window nearby, but the alley remained empty. Just me and her.

My fingers twitched. I didn’t know if I would die here, bleeding out next to the only person who had ever loved me. I wasn’t even sure I cared, but I knew that I hated the men who had done this. They better hope I did die here, because if I didn’t, then I would find a way to make them pay.

?