Chapter 1 - THE KNOCKING BEHIND THE WALL
At two in the morning, Boston businessman Roman Duca returns home and discovers six-year-old Mia Harper secretly cleaning his private study with her baby sister strapped to her back. Mia is terrified her mother, Grace, will lose her housekeeping job, but Roman quickly realizes something far worse has been happening inside his own home.
Mia reveals that Roman’s sister-in-law, Catherine, has forced her to help clean at night. Then she mentions a mysterious person who knocks from behind Roman’s bookcase.
Three knocks lead Roman to a hidden passage beneath his study.
Catherine desperately tries to stop him, admitting Roman’s supposedly dead older brother Anthony knew about the passage. Inside, Roman discovers medicine, photographs documenting his entire life, a letter written by his dead father warning that if “the Harper child” hears the knocking, an old agreement has failed—and a damaged family photograph containing a forgotten child.
Then Mia identifies that forgotten boy as the man she has seen behind the wall.
Before Roman can understand what she means, a weak voice comes from the darkness.
It belongs to Anthony.
The brother Roman buried five years earlier.
And Anthony’s first words are not an explanation.
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They are a warning.
“Don’t let Mia see me.”
