Chapter 4 — Operation Baby

"We need a list," Marco announced. He was standing in the kitchen with a legal pad, looking as intense as if he were planning a corporate takeover. "Diapers. Formula. Bottles. A crib, because the drawer situation isn't going to work for long. And clothes, because she’s currently wearing one of Enzo's undershirts and, no offense, it's a bad look."

"It's a fine look," Enzo shot back. "She looks like a tiny linebacker."

"She looks like she was dressed in the dark by someone who's never seen a child before."

"Which is true, Marco. None of us have kids—"

"That’s not the point—"

Dante, sitting at the head of the table with Luna balanced against his shoulder, pinched the bridge of his nose. For the first time that week, he seriously wondered if it would be easier to just move his entire operation into a monastery.

"Get everything on the list," he said. "Today."

Salvatore blinked slowly. "You want us to go... to a store?"

"That's usually how shopping works, yes."

"Boss, with all respect—look at us. Six armed men walking into a baby store is going to attract the exact kind of attention we've spent years avoiding."

Dante thought about it for a second and realized he genuinely didn't care. "Then don't take six. Take three. And leave the guns in the car."

"All of them?"

"Marco can keep one. Concealed. The rest of you are buying diapers, not robbing the place."

***

The baby aisle of the superstore had never seen anything quite like the scene that unfolded forty minutes later.

Marco stood before a wall of pacifiers, scowling at the options with the same level of scrutiny he usually reserved for scouting an ambush site. Enzo had wandered off entirely, only to return pushing a cart already half-full of things nobody had agreed on—including a stuffed elephant twice the size of an actual baby. Salvatore was on the phone with Dante, describing the diaper section in a tone of genuine, growing despair.

"There's—boss, there's a *number system* here. Newborn, then one, then two. I don't know which one is which; the box just says 'up to twelve pounds' like that's actually helpful."

"Weigh her," Dante said from his study. He’d stayed behind with strict orders to be called the second anyone hit a decision above their pay grade, which apparently included almost everything.

"I don't have a scale, boss. I'm in aisle six."

"Then guess."

"I am not qualified to guess the weight of an infant. That's the whole problem—"

A woman nearby, watching three massive, tense men debate baby weights with the gravity of a hostage negotiation, quietly stepped back and pulled her cart further away.

"Sir?" a store employee asked. He looked about sixteen and approached Marco with the wary courage of someone who'd clearly drawn the short straw. "Can I help you find something?"

Marco turned. The kid's eyes flicked instinctively to the bulge under his jacket, and he took a subconscious step back.

"Diapers," Marco said. "For a baby. About—" he waved a hand vaguely, "—baby-sized."

"Do you know her age?"

"A few days. Maybe a week."

"Newborn size, then. They're right—" the kid pointed, his hand shaking slightly, "—right there, sir."

"Thanks." Marco grabbed three boxes, paused, and then grabbed a fourth. "Better safe than sorry."

By the time they hit the register, the cart was a mess: eleven boxes of diapers in three different sizes, four types of formula because they couldn't agree on a brand and Enzo wanted to "diversify," six bottles, a baby monitor that Salvatore noted could cover "the whole property, including the boathouse," a pile of onesies in sizes they hadn't actually verified, a star-shaped mobile that played classical music, and the giant stuffed elephant, which Enzo refused to put back.

"We are not buying that," Marco said for the third time.

"She needs a toy."

"She's a week old, Enzo. She needs milk and someone who knows what they're doing holding her."

"Everyone needs a stuffed animal. It's a childhood essential. I had one."

"Did it help you become a functional adult?"

Enzo thought about it. "...It's a process."

"Not helpful."

The cashier, a middle-aged woman who had seen every kind of stressed parent imaginable and had learned not to ask questions, rang them up without a word. She only paused when she reached the crib box at the bottom and looked up at the three men, who didn't look like they'd ever been near a baby in their lives.

"Congratulations," she said carefully, "on the... new addition."

"She's not—" Salvatore started.

"Thank you," Marco cut in quickly, stopping the conversation before it got too complicated for a checkout line. "We're very excited."

When the total popped up on the screen, Enzo actually winced.

"Boss is going to ask why we spent this much on a baby who might not even be here next month," he muttered while loading the bags into the car.

"Boss," Marco said, sliding into the driver's seat, "is not going to ask that. He's spent the last three nights sleeping sitting up just so she isn't alone in a room. I don't think that phrase is even in his head right now."

Enzo stayed quiet for the rest of the drive, which was unusual for him. By the time they pulled through the mansion gates, he'd clearly come to a conclusion, because the first thing he did was carry the stuffed elephant into the nursery and tuck it carefully into the corner of the crib.

***

Dante found the crib assembled—mostly. It had a slight lean to one side that Marco insisted was "structural, not a flaw." Luna was lying in it for the first time, staring up at the star-shaped mobile with a wide, unblinking focus.

"We got everything," Salvatore reported, sounding exhausted in the way a man does after surviving a war he didn't understand. "It's more than we needed. Enzo insisted on a few extras."

"How much more?"

Salvatore handed over the receipt. Dante looked at it for a long time, said nothing, and folded it in half.

"Good work," he finally said.

Salvatore blinked. "That's it? No complaining about the price?"

Dante looked down at Luna. She was transfixed by the slow rotation of the mobile, her tiny fists opening and closing in the air as if she were trying to catch the stars.

"No," he said. "No complaint."

He stayed there after Salvatore left, watching his daughter—not his daughter, he reminded himself, though the correction felt weaker every time—drift off to sleep under a mobile bought by men who, twelve hours ago, had been terrified to hold her. He realized that whatever his house had become, it looked nothing like the empire he had spent his life building.

As her eyes finally closed, he found that he didn't actually mind.