Diamond Dunn and her mother Elzina Brown were pillars of their Bronx, New York neighborhood, where they were known as much for their warmth and charm as for their civic duty. When beautiful Diamond wins the devotion of a handsome suitor, Elzina relishes a mother's pride in seeing her daughter blissfully in love. But the dream for a happy future shatters with the crack of gunfire inside Elzina's apartment, where love lies bleeding and life hangs by a thread.

A rocky marriage falls apart when a man's younger brother is found dead on his family's porch.