Chapter 6 — The Mafia Babysitter

Vittorio Conti had killed eleven men in the line of duty, survived two assassination attempts, and once walked out of a burning building carrying a heavy safe under one arm without even breaking his stride. By a general—and slightly terrified—consensus, he was the most frightening man on Dante’s payroll. He was six-and-a-half feet of silence and scar tissue who mostly communicated through stares. On at least three documented occasions, those stares had caused grown men to confess to crimes they hadn't even been accused of yet.

Until this particular Tuesday, he had never been asked to hold a baby.

"Absolutely not," Vittorio said. His voice was the kind of low rumble that had ended more disputes than most men's guns.

"It's an order," Dante replied. He was already halfway out the study door, half-buttoning his jacket and running late for a meeting he’d already pushed back twice this week. "I need everyone else on the security sweep before the Bratva meeting tonight. You're the only one left."

"I don't do kids."

"You do now."

"Boss." Vittorio’s face didn't move—it rarely did—but his posture suggested a level of genuine panic that eleven kills and two assassination attempts had never managed to trigger. "I once interrogated a man for six hours without blinking. I am not equipped for this."

"She's smaller than the guy you interrogated. Mathematically, this should be easier."

"Mathematically, that guy couldn't scream for backup."

Dante was gone, the door clicking shut with the finality of a man who had made his decision and didn't care for arguments. This left Vittorio alone in the study with a baby who, until thirty seconds ago, had been peacefully asleep. Now, sensing a new presence in the room, Luna was starting to stir.

Vittorio stood perfectly still, like a man hoping that if he didn't move, the threat wouldn't see him. He watched as Luna’s eyes blinked open, focused on him, and went wide with the kind of delighted curiosity infants have for anything large and unfamiliar.

"Don't," Vittorio warned.

Luna smiled.

"I mean it. Don't do that."

She reached both arms up toward him, her small fists opening and closing in that universal infant demand for immediate attention. She made a sound that was unmistakably a request to be picked up.

Vittorio Conti, a man who could stare down a rival Don across a negotiating table without his breathing changing once, felt something in his chest completely cave in.

"This isn't a negotiation," he muttered, picking her up with the extreme care of a man handling live explosives. He cradled her against his massive forearm as if she might detonate if he jostled her the wrong way. "I want that on the record."

Luna, completely ignoring his objection, grabbed a fistful of his shirt and settled in against him, perfectly happy with the outcome of a deal Vittorio hadn't even realized he'd already lost.

***

The trouble started twenty minutes later when Marco poked his head in to check on them. He found Vittorio Conti—six-and-a-half feet of scar tissue and quiet menace—sitting bolt upright in an armchair. He was holding a bottle at the exact angle the instructions recommended and murmuring something low and rhythmic. It took Marco a second to realize it was an old military marching cadence, repurposed as a lullaby.

"Left, right, left, right," Vittorio murmured, rocking Luna with the same steady, measured rhythm he'd once used to sneak through hostile territory. "Hold the line, hold the line—"

"Are you singing her a marching cadence?"

Vittorio's head snapped up. For one brief, dangerous second, the old menace flickered across his face, before he remembered who he was holding and softened his expression. "It's rhythmic. She likes rhythm."

"That's... actually not wrong," Marco admitted, watching Luna's eyes drift shut, content and heavy against Vittorio's arm. "Huh."

"Don't tell anyone."

"Vittorio Conti, the terror of three rival families, singing army songs to a baby. I have to tell people."

"Marco."

"It's a moral obligation—"

Whatever moral obligation Marco was about to fulfill was cut short by Luna. She chose that exact moment to finish her bottle, pull back with a satisfied gurgle, and immediately spit up—comprehensively—right down the front of what Marco would later describe as the most expensive suit Vittorio had ever owned.

The room went silent.

Vittorio looked down at his ruined lapel with the same flat, focused expression he'd used while disarming bombs. Then he looked up at Marco with an intensity that suggested he was deciding if murder was still an option given the current circumstances.

"Not. A. Word," Vittorio said.

Marco, wisely, said nothing. At least, not until he'd backed out of the room. Once he hit the hallway, he sprinted away at a speed he'd never used in his professional life, purely so he could find someone else to tell.

By dinner, the whole house knew. Enzo had reportedly laughed so hard he had to go to the kitchen to recover. Salvatore had solemnly suggested that the ruined suit be kept as a family artifact. Even Dante, returning from his meeting hours later, had to fight to keep a straight face when he saw Vittorio still holding Luna—suit changed, expression blank, but making no move to hand her off to anyone else.

"I heard there was an incident," Dante said.

"There was no incident."

"Marco has photographic evidence of an incident."

"Marco," Vittorio said with the flat certainty of a man already planning his revenge, "will not live long enough to develop that photo."

Dante looked at him for a long moment—the most feared man in the organization, sitting in a chair with a sleeping baby against a fresh shirt, guarding an infant with the same total commitment he brought to million-dollar shipments.

"You didn't have to keep holding her," Dante said. "After the... accident. You could have given her back."

Vittorio looked down at Luna. She was fast asleep, one small fist still curled in his shirt. His usually unreadable expression shifted into something Dante hadn't expected to see.

"She fell asleep," Vittorio said simply.

In a house that had, in a single week, quietly reorganized its entire operation around that kind of small, undeniable fact, that was all the explanation needed.

Dante didn't push it. He just nodded and left them there—his most dangerous soldier and the baby who had, without any of them admitting it, become someone none of them were willing to hand off anymore. Then he went to find out exactly how much the suit had cost, mostly so he could add it to a growing list of expenses he'd stopped questioning days ago.