Penelope POV
"Get up," I said.
My own voice woke me. The silk sheets of the Westview Governor’s Mansion felt like sandpaper against my skin. I did not sleep like a baby. I slept like a soldier waiting for a mortar shell to hit the trench.
The heavy scent of cheap grain alcohol from last night’s ceremony burned the back of my throat. I sat up. My knuckles were bruised from where I had slammed them into the marble pillar during the dance. The name Julian was an open wound in my mind, but I refused to touch it. I refused to look at it.
"Sir," my terminal chimed on the bedside table.
I did not answer it. I grabbed the device. The glass screen flickered against the dark walls of the bedroom. The PackNet was already ablaze. One photo dominated the entire continental feed. It was the acciden
