Page 26 of Omega’s Oath

“Hey, honey. Why don’t you sit down for a second?” He guided her back to sitting and she let him, her legs suddenly feeling like jelly.

Rose gripped Aide’s hand as he sat beside her, and Dax and Cruz sat opposite. She cast a glance at the two men who were friends as much as colleagues. “What’s going on?”

As Aide was about to speak, Harlan came out of the bathroom and all three men tensed.

Aide scowled, his jaw clenching. “I didn’t know you had a visitor.”

Rose shook her head to clear the fog. “Uh, yeah. Harlan came for a visit and a catch-up.”

“What’s going on, Rosie?”

Rose looked at Aide for the answer to Harlan’s question.

“Can everyone give us a minute alone please?”

“Rose?”

“It’s fine, Harlan. Why don’t you go and I’ll call you later?”

She saw him blink fast like he always did when he was annoyed but didn’t have it in her to deal with his crap right now.

“Fine, call me.” He grabbed his coat off the couch and walked to the front door where Cruz was waiting with Dax.

Both men stepped out after him to give them privacy, and her heart skittered into her throat. She clutched Aide’s arm. “Tell me, Aide.”

“Rose, your mother was found dead this morning. She was murdered, and your father has been arrested on suspicion of her murder.”

A thousand thoughts swept through her like a freight train, each one wrapped in emotion. How, why, when—denial and grief gripping her. She hadn’t liked her mother, but she was her mother and she’d loved her in her own way. That her father, who was always so quiet and passive, would’ve done this was unthinkable.

“I don’t understand. Why would he do this? That’s not the man I know. My dad wasn’t aggressive. He was compliant and would do anything for a quiet life. I can’t believe he’d do this.”

She began to cry gently as shock and grief settled over her. Aide’s arms came around her and he held her while she cried, not offering to fix it, because he couldn’t but murmuring sweet words that helped her.

He offered her a tissue, and she wiped her eyes, which felt itchy and grainy now. “Tell me everything you can.”

“Rose, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

She nodded. “Yes, I need facts to make sense of this.”

“Let me ask Dax and Cruz back in first.”

“Yes, why are they here?” Now that the shock was passing, things felt bigger than what he’d told her, but she didn’t know what. That niggling feeling that she was somehow in the dark was in the back of her mind again.