That gave Adeline pause. Hiro relaxed his grip.
She took that opening. She planted the base of her hand on the floor, pushed with her feet, and broke free. She scrambled toward the stairwell. Her fingers were almost at the baluster when Hiro caught her again.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and dragged her backward.
Adeline balled up her fists and pummeled the man. Hiro hung his head, trying to keep the blows from hitting his face, and charged forward.
At the metal door in the basement, he drew something from his pocket and tapped on it, and said, “She’s here. I’ve got her. Come help.”
Adeline beat harder on him, but that didn’t seem to faze him. He was like a robot on a mission.
“Yes. At the house in Vegas. Hurry.”
He dropped the phone, the glass and plastic clattering on the hard floor, and charged through the doorway, dragging Adeline with him. He slammed the metal door and held his thumb on the panel on the other side, locking it.
He released Adeline then, and she gripped the door handle and tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t budge.
Hiro put his hands on his knees and gasped for breath.
Adeline spun on him and raised her fists.
Hiro staggered away from her, down what Adeline now realized was a narrow concrete passage with beady LED lights hanging above.
“Let me out!” she yelled.
Hiro didn’t turn back. Or answer her. He kept trudging through the tunnel, as if he was running from her now. That surprised Adeline. She gave chase, and Hiro began to jog.
“Hey. Where are you going?”
When she caught up to him, she grabbed his shirt and pinned him to the wall.
“What’re you doing?”
“You want to see it, right?”
Adeline squinted. “What?”
“My secret.”
“What secret?”
“What I’m hiding here. That’s why you came.”
Slowly, she released her grip on his shirt.
“Follow me,” Hiro said, turning and marching deeper into the tunnel.
They walked in silence. Adeline took out the burner phone, but there was no reception in the tunnel, which explained why Hiro had disappeared from the BuddyLoc app. As they walked, Adeline wished she had left a note for Daniele. Or sent an email to herself, revealing where she was. No one knew she was here. What if this was some sort of dungeon where Hiro was going to imprison her?
But his body language told her that he wasn’t a threat. It was almost like he was afraid of her now. Or maybe he was scared of whatever was waiting at the end of the tunnel.
Up ahead, Adeline spotted a metal door, much like the one in the basement of the home where they had entered the tunnel. There was a panel too, the same type as at the other end.
Hiro pressed his thumb to the glass and the door lock clicked. Hiro opened it, revealing an oval room with three metal doors like the one they had come through.
In the center, on the far wall, was a wide wooden door. Sitting in front of it was a muscle-clad man perched on a small stool. He was looking down at a hardcover novel encased in plastic, the type a library might wrap around a book. He closed the tome and slid off the stool with a creak.
“Dr. Sato,” he said. “Forget something?”
“No. Let us in.”
The burly man eyed Adeline. “She’s a bit young.”
Hiro’s silent stare was like the sun. The muscle man—a bouncer, Adeline assumed—was like a stick of butter. With every second, he melted.
Finally, he reached back and opened the door and held out his hand.
Adeline stood rooted on the spot, taking in the scene.
Tables spread out, wall-to-wall, filled with people sitting at them, studying the cards in their hands, stacks of chips arrayed around them like walls of a fortress, some tall, others crumbling. Dozens of conversations mingled in the air, which was tinged with the clouds from vaping pens.
Adeline stepped forward, through the door, and joined Hiro at the edge of the room.
An attendant in a white shirt and black vest raised a radio to his mouth and whispered something, then pressed a finger to his earpiece, listening.
He turned to Hiro. “We have a spot for you, Dr. Sato.”
Hiro turned to Adeline. “Seen enough?”
“Yes,” she said quietly.
In the tunnel, on the way back, they walked in silence for a while. Finally, Hiro said, “It’s a sickness.”
“Gambling?”
“I wish I could go back and never place that first bet. Never experience the rush from that first win.”
Adeline wasn’t sure what to say to that.