Chapter 10 - The Old Voss Hotel.
The Old Voss Hotel had been closed for eight years.
Gabriel's father built it before Gabriel was born and refused to sell it even when the neighborhood collapsed around it.
Arthur had loved the building as a teenager.
He used to say every family needed a place where secrets could be locked behind numbered doors.
Now Gabriel understood the cruelty of the memory.
Mateo refused to let him go alone.
Gabriel refused to risk Rory.
They compromised by creating the appearance of solitude.
Gabriel carried a leather case containing copies of the trust papers.
The originals remained with an attorney Arthur did not know.
A hidden transmitter sat beneath Gabriel's shirt.
Mateo and two trusted guards entered through the service tunnels beneath the hotel.
Gabriel stepped into the lobby at 11:07 p.m.
Dust covered the marble floor.
Only one chandelier remained lit.
Its weak golden light illuminated a man standing near the grand staircase.
Arthur Voss smiled.
Gabriel had imagined this moment since seeing the photograph.
None of those imagined versions prepared him for the reality of his brother's face.
"You look disappointed."
Gabriel tightened his grip on the case.
"Where are they?"
Arthur descended one step.
"No welcome home?"
"Where are Rory and Lena?"
Arthur laughed.
"You always were impatient."
Sterling appeared from a side corridor.
His grey suit was wrinkled and stained.
A pistol trembled in his hand.
He looked nothing like the confident executive who once sat across from Gabriel in board meetings.
"The papers first."
Gabriel placed the case on a dusty reception desk.
Arthur opened it.
His smile disappeared.
"Copies."
"You get the originals after I see them."
Arthur studied him.
"Father chose you because you could pretend to be brave."
Gabriel stepped closer.
"Father chose me because you stole from him."
Sterling's eyes flicked toward Arthur.
That had struck something.
Arthur smiled again.
"Sterling, bring the girl."
A guard emerged from the elevator holding Rory by the shoulder.
She wore the same red hoodie.
Her red bow was missing.
A bruise marked her cheek.
Gabriel's entire body went rigid.
Rory saw him.
"Dad."
It was the first time she had called him that.
Arthur noticed the effect.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Gabriel's voice dropped.
"Touch her again and this ends differently."
Arthur came closer.
"It already ends differently."
He explained that he had spent ten years rebuilding control through shell companies, compromised officials, and Sterling's financial network.
The final step had always been Gabriel's death.
Then Lena discovered Rory's likely parentage.
Arthur could no longer kill Gabriel until the child's legal status disappeared with him.
"You starved them to keep Lena obedient."
Sterling spoke defensively.
"That wasn't the plan."
Arthur looked at him with contempt.
"There was never a plan you understood."
Sterling's hand tightened around the gun.
Gabriel saw resentment flash across his face.
Then Rory did something no one expected.
She reached into her hoodie and dropped a small object onto the floor.
Her missing red bow.
A tiny green light blinked inside it.
Mateo's tracker.
Arthur saw it too.
His smile vanished.
May you like
"Move!"
The hotel erupted into gunfire.
