My voice came out low and dangerous. "Why?"
The guard swallowed hard. He looked like he was regretting taking the money now. "There was… an incident."
"What kind of incident?"
His gaze flickered downward, as if debating whether he should go on. I took a slow step forward. "Talk."
He sucked in a breath. "She and Señorita Rosa had a fight."
A fight. María José was always getting into these fights with her sisters.
That didn't surprise me. I had half a mind to believe Rosa started it, because, of course, she would.
But there was something in the way the guard said it, something that made my stomach tighten unpleasantly.
"How bad was it?"
The guard hesitated. Then, with clear reluctance, he answered:
"She lost her beauty."
The words sounded too impossible to even be believed. All I did was gaped without blinking for a minute, trying to process the words.
She lost her beauty.
