Chapter 11 - The Shot Sterling Refused to Fire.
Gabriel dove behind the reception desk as bullets struck marble above him.
Rory dropped to the floor exactly as Mateo had taught her.
The guard holding her reached for his weapon.
Sterling suddenly pointed his gun at him.
"Don't."
The guard hesitated.
Arthur shouted from the staircase.
"Shoot the girl!"
Sterling went pale.
For months he had threatened Rory, stolen food money, and terrorized Lena.
But hearing the final order aloud changed something in his face.
"No."
Arthur stared at him.
"What did you say?"
Sterling lowered his weapon slightly.
"I said no."
Arthur fired.
The bullet struck Sterling in the shoulder and spun him against the wall.
Rory crawled behind a stone column.
Gabriel ran toward her between bursts of gunfire.
Mateo's team entered through the rear corridor.
The lobby filled with shouting.
Arthur disappeared upstairs.
Gabriel reached Rory and pulled her into his arms.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Where's your mother?"
"Room 417."
Sterling, bleeding heavily, laughed from the floor.
"Of course he put her there."
Gabriel looked at him.
"Why?"
"That's the room where Arthur supposedly died."
Gabriel's blood ran cold.
The old hotel fire ten years earlier had started in room 417.
The official story said Arthur had been trapped inside.
Sterling gripped his wounded shoulder.
"He likes repeating history."
Mateo ordered two guards to secure Sterling.
Gabriel took Rory toward the service corridor.
"Stay with Mateo."
Rory grabbed his sleeve.
"You promised you wouldn't leave."
"I'm getting your mother."
"Then I'm coming."
Gabriel wanted to refuse.
Then he remembered how every adult decision made without Rory had nearly gotten her killed.
He looked at Mateo.
Mateo handed Rory a protective vest.
"Behind us at all times."
They climbed the stairs.
The elevator had been disabled.
On the fourth floor, smoke drifted from beneath a door.
Room 417.
Gabriel ran.
The door had been chained shut.
Inside, Lena screamed his name.
Mateo broke the chain with a fire axe.
The room contained no large fire yet.
Instead, several fuel cans had been arranged around the walls with a remote igniter between them.
Lena sat tied to a chair in the center.
Gabriel rushed to her.
Rory hugged her before the ropes were fully cut.
Then a speaker crackled in the ceiling.
Arthur's voice filled the room.
"You always save people, Gabriel."
Gabriel looked upward.
"Come down and say it to me."
Arthur laughed.
"Why?"
A red light appeared on the igniter.
Thirty seconds.
Mateo grabbed the device.
"Move!"
They ran into the corridor.
Twenty seconds.
The stairs were suddenly blocked by fire below.
Ten seconds.
Gabriel smashed a window at the end of the hall.
A maintenance platform hung two floors down.
Mateo helped Rory through first.
Then Lena.
Three seconds.
Gabriel climbed over the sill.
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The fourth floor exploded behind them.
And through the smoke above, Arthur stood on the roof, watching his family hang over the side of the burning hotel.
