But what if she made a break for it alone? She didn’t owe these people anything. Maybe this was an opportunity to save herself.

As she glanced around at the terrified faces of her coworkers and clients, she dismissed the thought. When she had left India to study at an American university, her father had squeezed her tightly and said, “I know you’ll be fine. You are the strongest of all my children. But having strength of any kind means that you have a responsibility to those who are weaker than yourself.”

She couldn’t abandon these people. She needed to be strong for them.

She heard the young man call out, “Hello? Doc? Mr. K?”

That seemed strange in the moment, but what was happening in the vault room was not her concern. She needed to focus on the brief opportunity that she had created.

She couldn’t get everyone out, and she couldn’t escape on her own. But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t use this distraction to level the playing field, to gain a tactical advantage.

Think! She inwardly screamed at herself. What could she reach? What could she use against her captors? She had already scanned every inch of the lounge area, but she hadn’t noticed anything that could do her much good.

The young gunman entered the vault room and allowed the metal door to close behind him. This was her chance, but he could come back at any second.

Her chest was tight, every muscle tensed. She could barely breathe. Her mind swirled with a maelstrom of indecision and doubt. She felt like she stood at the edge of a cliff and was willing herself to jump.

Move! She screamed at herself.

Some deep part of her listened. Before she realized what was happening, she was on her feet. The other hostages looked up at her in fear and dismay.

She was on her feet, but what now?

Then she noticed Quentin Yarborough hunched over on the arm of one of the couches. He clutched his wounded hand to his chest, and his one uncovered eye looked glassy and distant. Blood was soaking through the bandage covering his other eye.

She realized where to go. The manager’s office could contain something of use. Knowing Yarborough and the nature of some of their clientele, she could quite possibly find a gun tucked away in a desk drawer.

In the vault room, she heard a muffled thump and a clang, as if someone had struck one of the metal sorting tables.

Time was running out.

Her mind made up, she ran for the door to the manager’s office.

Chapter 50

Nic slammed the door to Romeo’s office with such force that the entire wall shook. A picture of Romeo with James Gandolfini, the actor from the Sopranos, rattled free and fell to the floor with the sound of crunching glass. Nic was too angry to care.

“What could you two have possibly been thinking?” he asked.

“That guy was trashed,” LJ signed, “and he attacked me.”