Chapter 4 - THREE KNOCKS IN THE DARK
The muffled sobbing from behind the mahogany wall reached a brief, shivering peak, and then—just as abruptly as it had started—it stopped entirely.
An suffocating silence swallowed the room once more.
Roman remained motionless, his hand hovering inches from a leather-bound encyclopedia on the middle shelf. He knew the layout of his estate down to the millimeter; there were no approved chambers, service ducts, or guest quarters behind the west wing's load-bearing walls.
TAP.
The sound was sharp, metallic, and deliberate.
TAP.
TAP.
Three very soft, deliberate knocks echoed from directly behind the central shelf of the bookcase, right at eye level.
May you like
Mia gasped softly, her grip tightening on Roman’s trouser leg, her small body shaking against his side as she pulled the blue shawl tighter around her sleeping sister.
Roman didn't pull away from the girl. His eyes remained fixed on the wooden seams, a shadow of an old, buried memory crossing his features. He recognized the rhythm of those three knocks—a specific signal code used decades ago within the highest, most secretive inner circles of the city's old-guard families. A code that had supposedly died out years before he ever bought this Beacon Hill residence.
