But martial arts skills imparted by a loving father were of little use in her present situation. It wasn’t as if she could go Bruce Lee on a man holding a massive assault rifle. Still, maybe if she could enlist the help of her fellow captives, they could overtake the one referred to as Sparks by overwhelming force.

She sized up her fellow hostages. The three guards had been secured using zip ties and blindfolds, so they would be of little help. The other workers and customers had been gathered as a group in the middle of the GoBox lounge. They faced each other on a grouping of five couches, which smelled of new leather and peppermint oil. The manager insisted the peppermint scent of the couches made the customers feel refreshed while sitting there.

The manager, her boss, had recently been taken to his office by the giant. She had heard his haunting screams.

Gabi had felt the fear of death and worse before, but she had never faced an opponent like this massive African man. He was pure muscle and inspired pure fear. It radiated from him like a red aura of menace.

The manager, Quentin Yarborough, still clutched his wounded hand to his chest and one of his eyes had been covered over with a blood-soaked field dressing. Yarborough hadn’t said a word since he’d been carried out of his office. He merely rocked back and forth and whimpered occasionally, like a dog after being hit by a speeding truck. She had caught a glimpse of the bloody and burned stump where his hand had been. The giant had apparently removed it, probably as torture to extract some kind of information. She had no idea what had happened to his face and eye, and she didn’t really care to know or see the wounds.

The blonde mute woman still looked belligerent toward their captors, but it wasn’t as if the thin woman with the severely scarred trachea would be able to do much against the giant African, who seemed to have taken a shine to her. He would flip her blonde hair and run his finger down the side of her face every time he walked past. The blonde would pull away in disgust at each of his advances, once even trying to bite his massive fingers.

The others were a collection of customers and employees: a pair of middle-aged vacationers in shorts and Harley Davidson T-shirts, an Asian business man in a $5,000 suit, a twenty-something young man who looked like he had been out clubbing all night, and the two workers from the vault room. Her fellow Client Specialist, Deb, had already been released with a message for the police. Not that Gabi counted that as a loss for their team. The white-haired matron had arthritis and a bad hip, so she would have obviously been of little assistance.

But Gabi had to do something. She couldn’t just wait to die. That wasn’t her style. Plus, she knew that whatever the gunmen’s objective, they had no qualms about spilling blood. The giant had proven that fact when he played Russian roulette with Deb and her, gambling their lives merely to prove his resolve and force open a door.