Chapter 7 - The Gold Button's SecretAlessandro and Rosa both froze.
They turned to see Lily sitting up in the center of the massive bed, rubbing her eyes with her tiny fists. Bun, the stuffed rabbit, was tucked under her arm. She blinked through the soft afternoon sunlight streaming through the window, her gaze landing directly on Alessandro.
She didn't look afraid. She didn't look confused.
Slowly, she uncurled her tiny right hand. Resting in her palm was the polished gold button she had held all morning.
“Pretty,” she whispered again, holding it out toward Alessandro.
Alessandro felt his heart drop into his stomach. He slowly stood up from the chair, letting Rosa stand beside him, and walked over to the side of the bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress, his large frame making the soft feathers dip beneath him.
He held out his hand. Lily leaned forward on her knees, carefully placing the gold button into his open palm.
Alessandro looked down at the metal. Now that he held it under the clear afternoon light, he noticed something he had missed during the chaos of the morning.
The button was not from a modern coat. It was made of heavy, solid 18-karat gold, engraved with a delicate, crest-like pattern—a crest featuring a rising phoenix surrounded by three stars.
Alessandro’s breath caught in his throat. His fingers began to tremble.
“Where… where did she find this?” Alessandro asked, his voice shaking with a rare, naked emotion.
Rosa frowned, stepping closer to look at the button. “She found it near the console table in the hallway this morning. I thought it fell off one of Isabella’s expensive designer coats.”
“This didn't belong to Isabella,” Alessandro whispered, turning the button over in his hand. On the flat gold back, barely visible to the naked eye, were three tiny initials etched into the metal: E.M.M.
Elena Maria Moretti.
His mother.
Rosa gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “Your mother’s crest…”
“This button belonged to my mother’s private winter cape,” Alessandro said, his eyes wild with a mixture of shock and sudden realization. “The cape she was wearing the night she died in that car crash thirty years ago. My father told me the cape was destroyed in the fire!”
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He stood up abruptly, his mind racing through a maze of dark memories, broken records, and decades of family secrets.
“If this button was under that console table in my hallway this morning…” Alessandro murmured, looking toward the door, “it means whoever owned that cape was inside this house very recently.”
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