Chapter 9 - The Stairwell
My father held the gun too tightly.
That frightened me more than if he had looked calm.
Arthur had always trusted systems—contracts, lies, family loyalty, other people’s shame. A pistol meant the systems had failed him.
“Give me your phone,” he said.
I raised my hands slowly. “You already stole my identity twice. Now you want the phone too?”
“Don’t be clever.”
Chloe looked at him. “You said there would be no gun.”
“I said a lot of things before Lena started digging.”
His voice was almost irritated, as if I had created paperwork.
I removed my phone and placed it on the concrete.
The wire was sewn inside my jacket collar.
Arthur did not know.
“Kick it over.”
I did.
He crushed the phone beneath his shoe.
Chloe flinched.
“Dad, we just need her to sign the indemnity and transfer the money.”
“No,” he said. “We needed that three days ago.”
A gust of wind moved through the open structure.
The work light swung slightly.
Shadows shifted across the stairwell entrance where Elena had fallen.
I looked at Chloe.
“Tell me what happened here.”
She stared at me.
Arthur said, “Stop talking.”
But Chloe’s face had gone pale.
“He wasn’t supposed to touch her.”
“Neil Foster?”
She nodded.
“He blocked the stairs. She tried to run. Dad came from the other side.”
Arthur’s jaw tightened.
“I was trying to take the notebook.”
“Elena smelled your cologne.”
His eyes sharpened.
Chloe kept talking, faster now.
“She twisted away. The safety gate was open. Dominic said Foster had removed the latch earlier so workers could move equipment.”
“And Elena fell.”
“I grabbed for her.”
Chloe’s voice broke.
“I actually grabbed her coat. It tore out of my hand.”
For the first time in my life, I saw my sister without the protective glass of our parents around her.
She looked terrified.
Not innocent.
Not redeemed.
Terrified.
Arthur stepped toward her. “Enough.”
“No,” Chloe said.
He stared at her.
“I said enough.”
“You told me we could fix it.”
“We could have if Lena had done what she was told.”
There it was.
The entire family philosophy compressed into one sentence.
Other people suffered because I refused to cooperate with the lie.
A faint crackle sounded in my earpiece.
Police were listening.
I needed Arthur to keep talking.
“You moved the trust money,” I said.
His expression changed.
“I protected it.”
“From me?”
“You would have wasted it.”
“I was ten.”
“You were sick.”
The words hit harder than I expected.
Arthur’s voice remained cold. “We didn’t know whether you were going to live. Chloe had a future.”
My prosthetic clicked.
Once.
Loud in the concrete chamber.
Arthur glanced down.
I smiled.
“That sound bothers you, doesn’t it?”
His mouth tightened.
“It always did.”
“You made everything about that leg.”
“No. You did.”
For a second, none of us moved.
Then Chloe whispered, “Dad.”
Arthur turned toward her.
She was holding Elena’s broken phone up between two fingers.
“You told me this was our insurance.”
“It is.”
“Against Dominic?”
“Against everyone.”
“Even me?”
Arthur didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
Chloe’s hand began to shake.
She tossed the phone toward me.
Arthur moved.
The gun swung.
I dropped sideways as the shot exploded through the stairwell.
Concrete dust burst from the wall.
Chloe screamed.
My prosthetic foot skidded on wet grit, and for one awful second I was sixteen again, falling beside a white rug while my father looked down at me with disgust.
Then training, therapy, years of refusing to stay on the floor took over.
I rolled behind a concrete column.
Officers shouted from below.
Arthur ran for the stairs.
Chloe grabbed his coat.
He shoved her.
She stumbled backward toward the same open shaft where Elena had fallen.
I lunged.
My hand caught Chloe’s wrist.
Her body swung over empty space.
For one suspended second, I held the sister who had watched me leave home with a garbage bag nineteen years earlier.
She looked up at me, crying.
“Don’t let go.”
My socket dug painfully into my thigh.
My arms shook.
Behind me, Arthur kept running.
May you like
I tightened my grip.
“I won’t.”
