CHAPTER 53

"Olivia, we'll be right here on the other side of the glass." Cragen said sympathetically as Olivia and Elliot prepared to walk into interrogation room three.

"I know." Olivia said lowly, shaking her head. Her nerves had taken a beating over the last several weeks and it seemed like everytime she saw light at the end of the tunnel, she also heard the sound of a train.

Fin interjected. "Olivia, be careful he's not cuffed because of the injuries you gave him...not that he didn't deserve them."

"It's okay, Elliot will be with me." She winked at the crew hoping to reassure them by sounding confidant, like it was just another case. She knew it wasn't. It was her case.

Olivia and Elliot walked to the door of interrogation room three. "Liv? You gonna be able to handle this?" Elliot asked softly. It was one thing to collar a brother she never knew existed...but a father she had been seraching for? Could she handle that? He wasn't sure.

"Elliot, I am good...let's just get this over with." Olivia said, knowing she wasn't 'good' by anymeans, but she was sick of hiding, of not knowing who she came from. She reached out for the door knob. It's cold steel was welcomed against her hot palms. She turned the door knob slowly, plastered on her best interrogation face and opened the door, making her self vulnerable to whatever was on the otherside.

"Olivia sweetheart!" He called out in a sickly fatherly tone as she walked in, Elliot behind her closing the door.

Olivia sat across from her father as Elliot leaned against the wall. Behind Victor, keeping Olivia in front of him.

Olivia opened a case file and spoke without emotion. "It's Detective Benson." She looked up to see a man she'd never met but that looked so much like her. The curve of his lips and outline of his jaw. His almond shaped brown eyes. He was taller than her, but only by an inch maybe two. So that's where I got my height. She thought to herself. He mother had been several inches shorter than Olivia's five foot nine inch frame. His hands long and slender just as her's were.

Victor Lias kept his hair in a short fade. He was clean shaven, slender with a medium build. He stared at Olivia and Elliot as she continued in silence to look over the file she had in her hand. Everything she wanted to know about the stranger before her was being held in her own hands.

"You gonna say something or I am I just here for decoration?" Victor's raspy voice broke the silence.

"Shut up..." Olivia said in a matter-of-fact tone..."I am reading." She flipped calmly absorbing the information infront of her, looking for anything that might shed some light on why he and her brother were so obsessed with her.

"What what in the he-" Victor began to speak but was silenced when Elliot pushed himself off the wall and grabbed the back of the man's collar pulling it back in a ball of fabric, restrictign his air.

"She doesn't like to be bothered when she reads." Elliot hissed in his ear and then forcefully broke his hold of his collar.

"Says here your a professor?" She asked him leaning back in her chair. "Elliot? Tell me something. How does a sick piece of crap such as Mr. Lias become a professor? Or better yet why would he become a professor?"

"I don't know." Elliot responded innocently playing off his partner's lead. "Maybe Professor Lias will enlighten us." He said pushing a yellow legal pad in front of him before sitting next to Olivia.

"Fat chance bacon boy." Victor laughed. "You think I am just gonna come in here and hang myself?"

"Pops, your already hung." Olivia said leaning in, "We have you on tape trying to murder me." She smiled and continued. " I guess the intellegence factor doesn't run too deep on your side of the family, does it?"

Clearly insulted Victor snarled, narrowing his eyes, "I suggest you dont develope a hero complex right now Detective."

"Hero? Hear that Stabler?" She said grinning at her partner. "Daddy thinks I am a hero." Olivia suddenly stood to her feet and side stepped the table overshadowing Victor she spoke aloud. " Well guess what?" She raised the question as she leaned into her father's ear and whispered "I don't give a damn what you think."

Olivia straightened herself and walked casualy with her hands in her pockets looking down. "Elliot I guess theres really two ways of looking at this situation." She began,

"Yeah?" Elliot played as if he were intriqued.

"Well, it seems to me Mr. Lias is gonna go to prisoner for what fifty? Sixty years?" She looked up thoughtfully. "Seems like he could cooperate with us and maybe we could ask that he be segregated from the population."

"Yeah, we could do that if he cooperates, But then what if he doesn't?" Elliot continued to follow Olivia's song and dance.

"Well," She said reclaiming her seat and pressing her lips together. "I supppose, we'll still send him to prison, maybe put the word out that he tried to rape and murder his daughter...have a welcoming party." She stared back at her father.

"Benson, come on." Elliot continued trying to play good cop for once. "You know what they do to rapist in prison, he wouldn't have a chance."

"Well then," She reopened the file in front of her. "Seems like it's his choice."

Victor Lias stared coldly back to Olivia and responded calmly. "Do you think you scare me Detective? A man without conscience can not be shaken."

"Well, I suppose that were true...If she were talking to a man." Elliot responded with a smirk and furrowing of his eyebrows. "Seems to me, your just a pansy punk like your son."

"You leave my boy out of this!" Victor growled.

"Your boy?" Olivia was stunned. She stood to her feet and circled him as if he were wounded prey. Olivia had just found a weak spot and Elliot sat back to watch her pounce. "Your boy? Are you crapping me? Let me tell you something old man." She slammed down a piece of paper in front of him with one hand and grabbed his neck shoving his head down forcefully. "Your boy as you put it, just sold you down the river."

Olivia released him "Sure you don't want to talk now?" She asked him arrogantly. She knew she had just gained the upper hand. She had leverage, and if anyone knew how to use leverage on an opponent it was her. "I suggest you start making some better decisions there Pops." She covered the word Pops with loathing and sarcasm.

Victor read only a few sentences of the signed statement his son had given and leaned back in his chair. "I don't work for free." He smiled. "You want something from me, I get something from you." He smiled sadisticaly.

"How about let's not and then say we did." Elliot was growing frusterated with the man's arrogance.

"Shut your mouth Bacon Boy. This is between me and my daughter." Victor said pushing Elliot's button for the third time.

"What do you want to know?" Olivia asked unknowingly opening Pandora's box.