Row after row of brown glass bottles, sterile gauze, and medical instruments sat in neat order.

Against the back wall stood a small, upright medical freezer, its digital temperature display glowing a harsh blue in the dark.

The hum of its compressor was the only sound in the room.

Lorenzo closed the heavy door behind us, plunging us into near-darkness until he found the wall switch.

A single fluorescent tube flickered to life overhead, buzzing like an angry insect.

“Keep your eyes on the door,” Lorenzo told me, his gaze already shifting to the freezer.

I stood near the entrance, holding Leo close, my eyes darting between the corridor window and the shelves.

On the third shelf, there were several boxes of the imported infant formula Leo had been taking.

Next to them sat a row of small, sterile plastic bottles containing frozen donor breast milk.

Lorenzo pulled a pair of latex gloves from a box on the counter and snapped them onto his hands.

The sharp sound of the rubber echoed in the small room.

He reached for the handle of the medical freezer, his knuckles turning white.