"Please, sir! If you don't help us, we have nowhere left to go!" Lionel Lawson’s voice broke as he began to sink to his knees on the sun-baked pavement. "Boys, down! Show the Deputy Lead we know who’s actually on our side!"
As if on cue, a wave of motion rippled through the hundred-strong crowd of laborers. Men in dusty denim and yellow hard hats, their faces etched with the grime of the Sandmere Springs construction site, began to drop. It was an ancient gesture of desperation, a plea to a higher power that felt jarringly out of place in the modern, glass-and-steel heart of the Lakeport Development Zone.
"Lionel, stand up! Everyone, get back on your feet!" Ambrose Ward moved instantly, his hands firm as he caught Lionel by the shoulders, physically hauling the older man back up before h
