Chapter 1 - The Seal on the East Wing
The three slow knocks echoed from the dark mahogany double doors of the east wing, vibrating through the humid garden air like a death knell. The sound was heavy, deliberate, and entirely impossible.
For the three years I had worked as a cleaning lady at the Almeida estate, the east wing had been treated as a mausoleum. The doors were secured with a biometric scanner and a heavy brass padlock, the windows blacked out with heavy security film. Mr. Thiago Almeida had personally threatened to fire—and ruin—any staff member who so much as lingered near the corridor.
Now, those three knocks shattered the silence.
Thiago’s hand, which had been gripping my six-year-old son Samuel’s hand with the desperation of a drowning man, began to shake violently. The color drained from his face, leaving him a ghostly, translucent white.
"Sir?" Thiago's attorney, Arthur Vance, stepped forward from the terrace doors, his professional composure completely fractured. "What is the meaning of this? You told the board that the east wing was entirely decommissioned after... after the incident."
"Uncle Thiago," Samuel said, his voice soft but carrying a terrifying clarity. "Is she hungry? Every night when Mom thinks I’m sleeping, I hear her tapping. She taps three times. It sounds like she's trying to write a letter with her fingers."
"Silence!" Thiago gasped, but it wasn't an angry command. It was a plea, choked with a terror so profound that his breathing became shallow and erratic. He looked toward the east wing doors, his eyes wide, reflecting a deep, dark guilt that no amount of billionaire status could wash away.
He whispered a name, so low it was almost swallowed by the rustle of the jacaranda leaves. "Isabella..."
"Who is Isabella, Mr. Almeida?" I asked, finally finding my voice. I rushed forward, grabbing Samuel by the shoulders and pulling him back toward me, away from the wheelchair. My heart was hammering against my ribs. "You told me when I was hired that the east wing was off-limits because of structural damage from a fire. You said it was empty."
"It was supposed to be," Thiago whispered, his head dropping into his hands. His shoulders shook as he began to sob again, but these tears weren't just from grief. They were from the agonizing weight of a secret that had finally clawed its way into the light.
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Before anyone could move, the biometric scanner on the east wing doors flashed from red to green. The heavy brass padlock, which had been locked for years, didn't click open—because the heavy wood of the door itself began to creak, slowly parting, revealing a sliver of pitch-black darkness within.
And from that darkness, a cold, stale draft blew into the warm garden, carrying the distinct scent of dried lavender and old paper.
