I had been at Beatrice's house for three hours, and I had already been offered seven different types of pastries, two glasses of fresh lemonade, and a foot massage by a woman named Gretchen who looked like she could kill a man with her pinky finger.
I declined the foot massage.
Penelope was sprawled across the chaise lounge across from me, scrolling through her phone with the intensity of a detective looking for a smoking gun. Her cheek was still slightly bruised from where Alexiou's hired muscle had slapped her, but she had refused to let the makeup artist cover it. "Battle scars," she had called them, winking. "Makes me look dangerous."
Beatrice sat in her high-backed armchair, knitting something that looked like it was supposed to be a scarf but was slowly transforming into a blanket for a very small horse. She hadn't stopped watching me since I arrived, those sharp old eyes missing nothing.
"You're thinking too loudly, dear," Beatrice said without looking up from her needles.
