"Let go of me!" the woman screamed.
"You're lying, you son of a bitch!" the man yelled. He turned to the law enforcement officials that were present. "She is certifiable!"
"That is enough," Olivia said, glancing between Michael and Carolyn. "Both of you stop." Olivia eyed the wife. "Carolyn, have a seat. Can you please tell me exactly what you saw?"
"He was in my son's bedroom," the woman explained. "Lock him up!"
"I was just holding him," Michael shot back.
"Holding him?" Carolyn sneered.
"Oh! Whoa, whoa!" Fin said as the wife went to attack her, well, soon-to-be-ex-husband, by the looks of things.
"Hey, Carolyn, enough!" Olivia said. "Sit down!" Of course, neither adult stopped. The woman was clearly seeing red. "Whoa! Hey!"
Both parents were still yelling, and once the man could get a word in edgewise all he said was, "She's crazy. You see that?"
"I swear," the son, Nathaniel, said after a moment, "nothing happened..." He glanced at his stepfather and mother. "Except for my mom trying to ruin my life."
That started the parents back up again and the boy started to run for it, heading to his bedroom. "Nate!" Carolyn called after her son.
The woman tried to follow her son down the hall to his bedroom, but Olivia immediately went to stop her, not wanting the parents to make things even worse than they already were. "Mrs. Banks-"
"Wait," Rafael said, eyeing Olivia, "Let me speak with him."
Olivia nodded her consent. Fin had to keep both Carolyn and Michael from following Rafael as he headed down the hallway to the room that he'd seen Nathaniel enter moments earlier.
"Can we talk?" Rafael asked, taking a seat on the bed beside the boy.
"Fine," the kid mumbled.
"What happened, Nathaniel?"
"Nothing..."
"Nathaniel, you can tell me."
"I can't."
"Yeah, you can."
"Tell me," Rafael said softly. "We'll stop him."
"I can't..."
Rafael played his face for a minute. The only thing coming to his mind to do was the one thing he never wanted to do. This was not the situation he expected to find himself in when they left to drop the kids off at his mother's for a sleepover that night.
They'd been on their way home when Olivia got the call, and they'd just went straight to the scene, not bothering to drop Rafael off.
Even knowing it was a call for a domestic, he hadn't expected this.
He took a shaky breath and used the mask he'd perfected as a child to hide the fact he honestly wanted to cry even thinking about everything that had happened all those years ago. He'd built the mask to near perfection, still, unbeknownst to him, his hands clenched into fists. "You know... when I was a kid, my uncle... He lived with us for about a year and a half." He licked his lips. "He'd wake me up right after my parents went to sleep. He'd tell me he loved me and-"
Nathaniel looked at him with wide eyes. "You mean, you were…"
"Yeah," Rafael said, forcing the words passed for the very first time in his life. "I was molested, raped, by my uncle."
"But it's my dad," the boy whispered brokenly.
"I know," Rafael said, "but what he is doing... that's not love." He eyed the boy. "My father hurt me too, beat me, so I get it, kid, but -"
Nathaniel flopped back on his pillow. "He said that he'd been good to me and that now I had to be good to him. At first... He'd make me undress in front of him... And take pictures."
"And then what happened?" Rafael asked softly.
"For a while," the nine-year-old said, tears falling freely, "it was just the pictures. But then one day he said he needed to videotape me."
He nodded, swallowing the bile in his throat. "Nathaniel, these tapes and photos... Do you know where your stepdad keeps them?"
The boy dipped his head slightly. "In a box in his study."
"Okay," he said, giving the boy a reassuring smile. "Thank you for talking to me."
As he made his way out of the room, he registered Olivia and Fin standing there, and it felt like he was hit with a bucket of ice water.
Olivia looked at him with something akin to pity, and Fin, thankfully, decided to focus on the present, reading Michael Banks his Miranda rights and cuffing him.
After what felt like ages to Rafael, the awkward car ride not helping matters, they finally pulled into their driveway.
Once they were inside, they took a seat at the island in the kitchen and she poured them both a drink.
He took a sip, savouring it. He tilted his head back as he took another swig of the alcohol, relishing the slight burning sensation as it went down his throat.
After a moment, Olivia broke the silence. "Rafael?" she said softly, trying to open the door for him, to make the conversation easier somehow. "Was it Mauricio or?"
He took another gulp of scotch. "God no. I wouldn't have let him near Noah if it was him..." She visibly relaxed at that. "Dear dad had another brother. Eugenio. He... It only went on for a few months," Rafael said, waving the concern off, as he finally spoke. "Haven't talked to him in over a decade."
"Rafa..." She shook her head. "Only? Don't try and mitigate it. Once or a dozen times, rape is rape. What was done to you..."
"It was years ago," he said, "it's not a big deal."
Olivia eyed him. "I don't believe that for a second. And neither do you."
"No," he admitted, "but it's firmly in the past where it belongs." He gave her a ghost of a smile. "Mami kicked him out, you know... she never said anything, but I think she suspected..." He shrugged. "I don't know."
"You never told her or anyone?" Olivia inquired.
He gave a sardonic laugh. "Didn't think my old man would care, and my mother had enough to contend with... And, honestly, the mere thought of her knowing was and is absolutely mortifying. And it took me longer than I'd like to admit for me to realize it wasn't my fault." He took a deep breath and leaned in to give his wife a kiss on the forehead. "He isn't worth a second more of my time, Liv. So, let's bury this, okay?"
She nodded. "As long as you know I'm here if you need to talk."
He gave her a grateful smile. "I know."
