"Don't waste your breath on a homewrecker, Maria! She needs to be taught a lesson right here, right now, so she knows what happens when she opens that mouth!"
Someone spat at me. Others hurled insults without restraint.
My gaze went cold enough to kill. I spoke slowly, every word deliberate.
"I didn't come here to listen to you twist the truth. You're a mother who put her own son up to hurting my daughter."
"And you," I turned to Ursula, "are a teacher who abused your authority and enabled every bit of it."
I let my eyes sweep over every face in that crowd.
"Every single one of you is complicit. And I will settle the debt with each of you, down to the last cent, with interest."
WHAM.
A dull impact knocked me off balance. My knee hit the ground hard, and white-hot pain shot straight through the bone.
I looked up at the woman who had just kicked me.
She stood right beside Maria, chin raised, voice venomous.
"She told you to kneel and apologize. Are you deaf?"
I braced my hand against the ground and staggered back to my feet. When I glanced down, my white suit pants were smeared with dirt and blood.
The jeering didn't pause for even a second. If anything, it turned sharper, uglier.
The circle tightened around me. That same woman reached into her designer bag, pulled out a lipstick tube, and hurled it at me. The others followed her lead.
Wadded tissues, cups of coffee, loose coins. Anything they could throw, they threw.
"A cheap mistress who can't even show her face in polite company, and she actually thinks she's Rosalind Black? Threatening us!"
"Look at her in that little power suit, playing dress-up! All you're good at is seducing married men. Your kid's just like you. Both of you deserve every bit of this!"
The commotion drew a crowd of onlookers to the villa gates, phones raised, recording, snapping photos, whispering among themselves.
I lifted my hand and wiped the filth from my face. I straightened my jacket. Then I looked up, directly at Maria, who stood on the highest step.
"You're not some uneducated thug. Your son bullied my daughter at school. Now you're standing here watching these people attack me, verbally and physically, and doing nothing to stop it. You really think you can afford the consequences of this?"
Maria tilted her chin higher, radiating arrogance.