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Dressed in a gray suit with a black tie, Senator Rick Parsons was a handsome man with chocolate brown skin and short hair that he wore parted to the side. He stood behind a lectern, anxiously eyeing the crowd.
Behind him, a series of flags lined the stage: the New York State Flag next to the stars and stripes of Old Glory and then a silver, four-pointed star on a field of blue. The emblem of the Justice Keepers.
Gripping the sides of the lectern with both hands, Parsons leaned forward to blink at the audience. “We have come here tonight,” he began, “through a series of trials. We have passed through the fire together.”
The banquet hall was filled with maybe thirty round tables, all with a pressed, lily-white tablecloth and a bouquet of flowers as the centerpiece. Every single one of
