He unzipped one of the bags, brought it to his nose, and took a shallow breath.

“It is in the milk too,” he said, his voice flat and dangerously quiet.

“The same chemical?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“Yes,” Lorenzo said.

He picked up a small, amber glass bottle of liquid supplement that sat next to the formula.

He unscrewed the cap and let a single drop fall onto his fingertip.

He touched it to his tongue, then immediately spat onto the concrete floor.

“A tasteless, low-grade metabolic inhibitor,” he said, his eyes narrowing in the phone’s light.

“It mimics infant wasting disease.”

“It does not kill instantly.”

“It simply prevents the body from absorbing nutrients, day by day.”

My stomach turned as I looked down at little Leo, sleeping peacefully against my shoulder.

“They were starving him,” I said, a wave of nausea hitting me.

“Under my own roof,” Lorenzo said.

His hand clenched into a tight fist, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.

“They wanted it to look like a natural failure to thrive.”