“You think you can put your filthy hands on my future mother-in-law? You worthless trash!”
The voice sliced through the silence of the Chicago afternoon like a serrated blade. I didn’t have time to think. I didn’t have time to breathe. I only had time to react.
I dropped low, my knees hitting the expensive Persian rug with a thud, and wrapped my arms protectively around the frail frame of Rosa Moretti. She was trembling in my arms, a small bird caught in a hurricane. Her eyes, wide with a terror that no 75-year-old woman should ever have to know, were fixed on the woman standing above us.
She was beautiful, in that sharp, terrifying way that cuts you if you look too close. Her designer stiletto, a weapon of patent leather and steel, connected with my ribs.
