130|Shock Waves—Part 2

"It's okay, Orly," Marybeth murmured, gently patting Orlando's back to comfort her. "It's okay to miss your Daddy."

"I should be used to it," Orlando cried even harder, her words muffled as she buried her face in Marybeth's shoulder. "But I thought after Mrs Allan left, Daddy would have time for me. Why does he work so much?"

Marybeth thought it was a rhetorical question, but when Orlando pulled away and stared at her expectantly, her eyes brimming with the tears her small heart couldn't contain, she didn't know how to answer her.

She knew why Austin was always away, but a six-year-old should never be burdened with the knowledge that her father was a crime lord and perhaps one of the deadliest, if not the most dangerous.

"Do you want to practice the guitar when we come home?" she suggested feebly, hoping to shift their conversation to a much happier place when she couldn't come up with a good reason for Austin's absence.

"But it's not Wednesday," reasoned Orlando in her six-year-old l