Olivia hadn't felt this happy in a long time.
She had a glass of wine in her hand, a half-finished pizza on the table next to leftover birthday cake that she'd gotten a couple of days ago, and Noah was laughing away on the carpet as he built a new Lego contraption… with the help of Rafael Barba.
He'd suggested a drink right after the harrowing Nicole Keller trial but quickly amended his suggestion to dinner at her place when the troubled look in her eyes lingered even long after Keller had been hauled away screaming by the COs. She ordered a pizza, he called an Uber; before they knew it they were sitting in her living room, drinks in hand and watching the sun dip outside her window.
Rafael turned around and met her gaze, the affectionate smile that he gave her son warming her insides quicker than any glass of wine could. There remained some hesitance in his eyes, a few furtive glances at Olivia to check if he was doing alright, but as far as Noah was concerned, he'd found a new play companion with a flair for Lego building, their gleeful laughter combined filling the room with joy and painting over the residual stress of the day.
Even with his anxiety about stepping into his new role, Rafael was doing one heck of a job right now, and evenings in the Benson apartment suddenly felt much less lonely.
At work, they remained the ADA Rafael Barba and Lieutenant Olivia Benson they'd always been: professional, competent, relentless in their pursuit of justice. But behind closed doors, when the suits and blazers came off and they kicked up their feet on her living room couch, they were just Rafael and Olivia - two people enjoying each other's company where no cases or curveballs could faze them.
There were no traces of their relationship making their way through the NYPD gossip circles; no prying eyes subtly reminding them that they needed to disclose their relationship at some point in the future. And after her relationship with Ed had blown up spectacularly, neither was racing to yell it from the rooftops. For now it was a well-kept secret: their silent fuel at work; their safety and solace behind closed doors.
Olivia watched as Rafael put the finishing touches on Noah's Lego fortress, to the delighted squeals of the young boy, and let the warmth she felt envelope her fully.
A couple of hours later, Rafael wiped the pizza sauce and ice-cream stains off her living room table while she cleaned her kitchen counter, a languid, relaxed tranquility now settling over the apartment as Noah scurried away to his room to get dressed for bed.
"I hope you aren't missing Forlini's too much," she chuckled, as she made a mental note to get a bottle of Macallan - and extra glass - for her apartment. It was bound to be put to good use.
He reached for the sauce-stained plates and loaded them into the sink without a hitch. "It's fine. Anthony will live to open another day even without my bar tab. Anyway, I'd rather much be here, where the drinks are free," he said with a twinkle in his eye.
"Even though there isn't a steak special and you have a preschooler as your dining companion?" she teased.
"I couldn't be more sure," he beamed.
Olivia playfully slapped his arm with her kitchen towel. "When did you become so sappy?"
"I learn from the best," Rafael retorted with a mischievous grin as she turned the corner and slipped into Noah's room, leaving him scrubbing her glasses and plates as he hummed a Broadway hit she vaguely recognised but didn't know the name of, with a spring in his step that she hadn't seen much - not until the last couple of months.
Olivia knelt next to Noah's bed and looked between the peaceful smile of the boy she was putting to bed and the man standing in her kitchen. The ease with which he moved that felt so familiar that it was like he'd been doing this for months, not mere weeks.
It wasn't like they didn't want to disclose. With disclosure came the very enticing perk of actually being able to touch in public; to go out to lunch or dinner within a reasonable distance of their workplaces without worrying that they'd be spotted and become fodder for the NYPD gossip circles yet again. She'd been badly burned by her experience with David Haden, and too recently with Ed. The logical part of her was going into overdrive telling her to get ahead of things before they inevitably blew up and she'd be left picking up the pieces - again.
But the prospect of disclosure, as tempting as it could be sometimes, couldn't compare to this - her secret weapon; her refuge from the seemingly endless chain of chaos that was her life. And that meant not letting whatever they had get sullied by NYPD politics and the clinical objectivity of paperwork. She wanted to control this while she could.
She wanted Rafael all to herself, and they didn't have to talk about it to know that he wanted the same.
Maybe it was foolish, naive. But one glance at him standing in her kitchen, still humming as he sorted her dishware - a man who was feeling more and more like the family she'd always longed for and felt slip out of her grip too many times - made the choice clear.
She could allow herself to be a little foolish; a little naive. They could wait for the right moment to come along - and savour this little slice of heaven in the meantime.
Because Olivia hadn't felt this happy in a long time, and she didn't have to ask herself why.
It was supposed to be a victory; nailing the River Rapist after a motion to suppress that almost derailed their entire case and a witness who disappeared right before he had to take the stand. The mood between Olivia and Rafael as they descended the courthouse steps after the verdict, however, was far from victorious.
"It's a hell of a thing, thinking that you're destined to be a rapist. That every normal, healthy urge is a warning. An omen that something bad is to come."
Her faraway look made it clear that she only had one person - a person whose shadow would continue to loom over her life no matter how hard she tried - on her mind. This case had unshackled those demons, and no number of clandestine office kisses or supportive under-the-table hand squeezes were enough to completely take away that pain.
She wasn't the kind to ask Rafael to erase that pain for her, but it didn't stop him from wishing that he could.
The buzzing of her cell phone in her pocket interrupted them before Rafael could get a word in.
"Hello?"
A look of concern immediately crossed her face and Rafael felt his stomach clench. If this was yet another crisis...
"Oh, okay. All right…" Her tone was polite; professional, but her worried facial expression said far more. "Yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much for calling."
It was taking him so much not to reach for her hand - he couldn't do that here, in front of so many people who'd run straight to Jack McCoy with the news. "Everything all right?"
"Yeah, it's... it was Noah's school," she grimaced. "He fell, playing tag. He cut his knee. It's... it's no big deal," she muttered with a shrug, as though trying - and failing - to convince herself that it was fine.
It was fine, wasn't it? Kids got injured all the time on the playground. Cuts were nasty, but they healed. He finally had friends to play tag with, after a rough first few months at school - wasn't that far more important?
So why did she feel so terrible about it?
He picked up on her uneasiness immediately. "Just like pushing a kid in a sandbox," he remarked, hoping that it would soothe her emotional wound. Cuts and bruises from rough afternoons on the playground were a fixture of his childhood and he'd never thought much of them, but this felt markedly different.
Suddenly he understood why his mother, herself an expert in playground injuries after 45 years of teaching, would spend the better part of an afternoon fussing over a scraped knee or tiny cut, because that same exact worry, raw and potent, was flashing through Olivia's eyes.
"I hope you're right," she shrugged sadly.
"I am," he replied confidently. "Come on, let's go and pick him up."
The decisiveness in Rafael's voice roused her to action, and she trailed his assured stride down the steps and towards her parked car a block away.
Let's go and pick him up? He was sounding more and more like Noah's parent by the day - and it was something that she liked very much.
Even more so when he offered to drive, knowing that she needed precious time to decompress in between the strain of that trial and the all-too-likely tears from Noah that she'd have to face in due time. He reached over to give her hand a much-needed gentle squeeze as they pulled up at a red light, Olivia increasingly grateful for the distraction that was Rafael's absolutely terrible driving as they headed uptown.
Although she didn't admit it often, being a single mother came with a loneliness she'd known to expect but didn't hit in full force until one particularly painful sleepless night she'd spent fruitlessly attempting to soothe a sobbing Noah - right before 12 hours of non-stop work. She'd eventually learned to swallow it; how to bury it under the enormous weight of her responsibilities. But Rafael's quiet, steady, assuring presence next to her was now changing that.
As sappy as it sounded, he was becoming her bright spot in what sometimes felt like the sea she was drowning in.
(Maybe he always had been.)
She watched quietly as he took her crying son from her arms and hoisted him into his car seat, the apprehension he'd expressed on her couch that evening a few weeks ago barely discernible. I've got this, he mouthed to her as he strapped the boy in, knowing that she had to preserve what was left of her mental strength for the rest of the evening. Being able to breathe - even for just a few extra minutes - made all the difference.
I've got this.
His actions spoke as loudly as his words did. And it hit her in full force that she wasn't in this alone any longer.
Noah's crying had thankfully subsided to a soft whimper by the time they set him down on the living room couch. Olivia ignored the headache that'd been brewing since they'd left the courthouse and tottered to the kitchen, only to be beaten there by Rafael.
"How about you grab him something to drink, and I'll get his wound cleaned and bandaged?" Rafael asked, although it sounded more like a statement than a question. He rifled through the kitchen drawers for the bag he was looking for while Olivia filled Noah's cup with water, her mind still a murky haze; he sat with Noah and tenderly cleaned and bandaged the (thankfully small) cut, not even the slightest bit fazed by his whimpers of pain as the antiseptic cream stung his exposed skin.
How had she never realised that his suave, unflappable exterior; the courtroom theatrics and highfalutin talk - hid a heart so open; so capable of love?
It'd been a terrible day - a terrible week, in fact - but even the relief of seeing Sam Dalton put away for his heinous crimes wasn't as powerful a healing balm as the sight of Rafael with Noah, with a quiet confidence she didn't quite know the origins of.
A take-out dinner and two episodes of Paw Patrol later, Olivia tucked a significantly more cheerful Noah into bed, the residual stress of the day finally sliding off her shoulders as she pressed a kiss to his forehead, her hand lightly brushing over his now-bandaged knee. The peaceful smile on his face - a smile that she knew Rafael had a huge part in putting there - was exactly what she'd hoped to see, and finally, she felt like she could breathe easy.
"Goodnight, sweetheart," she whispered as she turned his night light on and turned to leave, only to realise that Rafael was standing in the doorway, eyes filled with admiration and stance expectant.
Can I? he mouthed to her nervously, feet rooted a few inches from the door as he awaited the green light from her.
Of course, she beamed back, and stepped back to let him kneel by Noah's bed.
Rafael stared at Noah for a few seconds, clearly overwhelmed by the difficulty of this small task (or unsure of what Olivia would be alright with), but settled for a gentle caress of his shoulder and a hushed "goodnight, Noah", the trepidation she'd seen seconds ago now an assuring, contented smile.
It made her heart swell.
"You've been amazing today," she said as they settled onto her couch, drinks in hand, the low hum of whatever was on HBO in the background providing white noise.
"I did what I could," he shrugged. "I hope it was alright with you."
"Of course it was alright," she beamed. "You're really getting the hang of this parenting thing."
Rafael laughed off her remark, but both knew deep down that it was exactly where they wanted to be. He still didn't quite know where the burst of confidence had come from. Maybe it was seeing Olivia in visible distress; maybe it was his desperation to redirect the stress of the day towards something that didn't remotely resemble a cross-examination. But in any case, perhaps he was starting to get the hang of this parenting thing - and it was a fantastic, exhilarating feeling.
She rested her head on his lap and allowed him to run his fingers through her hair. "How are you feeling now?"
There was a long, contemplative pause before she spoke again.
"You know what?" Olivia looked up at him and smiled. "I've actually never been happier."
"Really?" He furrowed his brows in confusion. "I wasn't quite expecting that."
She sighed contentedly and let her eyes flutter shut, the last of her stress fleeing her body. "I'm just so used to bursting through my front door after a downright shitty day and having to drop everything work-related to care for Noah. Like a treadmill that I can't ever get off…"
He was silent, concern and worry written all over his face.
"It was nice to have someone else around; to let me breathe for a bit. You being here, handling Noah's knee - I really needed that today. So thank you."
She could almost feel tears well up in her eyes, but settled for a grateful squeeze of his hand - the same squeeze he'd always give her, a silent burst of strength.
"I'm glad I could be a part of it, Liv." Rafael's lips gently grazed her forehead. "You know, if you still want to talk about the case…"
"No, I'm good," she replied reassuringly.
"Sure?"
"I'm alright."
She was so used to uttering those two words that they were able to roll off her tongue like clockwork, but tonight, she meant them whole-heartedly.
It wasn't like Ed Tucker hadn't been helpful - he pitched in to help with the cooking and caretaking and always did so more than competently, but she'd always have to ask him to help, and the awkwardness of that had never quite gone away. With Rafael that additional layer of guilt and self-consciousness had practically evaporated; it was like he could read her mind, seamlessly filling in the cracks where she faltered.
And that was a freedom that she didn't realise she needed.
Ever since she'd adopted Noah it'd become routine for her to collapse into bed, mind still heavy with whatever case she'd been working on after a seemingly endless day of work and taking care of her son. But the ghosts of the past that'd loomed over her all through the investigation faded into obscurity as she luxuriated in this - the gentle rustling of her hair in his palm, the soft hum of the Cuban jazz song from his lips, the touch of his skin sending shockwaves through her.
Maybe what she'd really wanted all these years wasn't an escape, but the freedom to just be. To let herself fall; to let herself feel.
This was exactly what she'd been waiting for.
Of course, there were still so many things to worry about - organising date nights that revolved around Lucy's schedule (and perhaps looking for a back-up nanny), figuring out how separate to keep their work and private lives, how much of their work to bring home, disclosure… but those could wait. They could handle those issues one day at a time.
This was comfortable. This was a peace that neither of them wanted to disturb.
For now, they just enjoyed each other.
The first time Olivia sensed that something was very wrong with the Jennifer Knowles case was the moment their NYPD rope expert suddenly tore a huge, irreparable hole in their murder evidence.
"It doesn't matter what he does now. He could bring the rope into court in a golden chariot, but his credibility is shot. The evidence is tainted. Chain of custody's broken," Rafael said matter-of-factly as he and Olivia raced down the hallway, their plans for a quick brunch abruptly interrupted by the situation with Colin Bennett.
"So Willard blackmails his way out of trouble and that's that?" she retorted frustratedly. "There has to be some other way."
He hated that he couldn't do more about the situation as it stood. "Do you have anything else on him?"
She sighed in defeat. "Nothing - less than nothing - because someone else confessed."
"Well, you need to get something. I'll get you warrants," he offered without missing a beat. That, he definitely could deliver.
"Yes, for his computers, his car, his apartment. We need to move fast because this guy's gonna be covering his tracks," she fired back just as quickly, not missing the fleeting smirk that crossed his face when he realised that they'd shared the exact same thought.
"Go to his office - I'll get you a warrant and email it to you by the time you get there." He immediately ran through a list of judges he knew were in the building in his head as Olivia took off towards Willard's office without a goodbye, her purposeful and thundering footsteps echoing in the hallway. Surely he'd be able to pull something together in the next half an hour-
Bzzzzz.
He fished his phone out of his pocket, expecting yet another one of those annoying telemarketer calls he'd been getting so many of recently. Not now, he cursed, when he had a warrant to type up and get signed in record time - and a lunch break that he'd been looking forward to since the morning.
Unknown number.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
This isn't THAT unusual, he attempted to convince himself. T-Mobile customers were plagued with robocalls; all he had to do was cancel his contract at the end of the year - but why did this make him feel so uneasy?
The timing was uncanny. The NYPD's famously meticulous rope expert suddenly mislabelling evidence and destroying their otherwise solid case? And now a mysterious call to Rafael's personal cell number right after he'd decided to get warrants?
Something doesn't feel right about this.
Memories of Felipe Heredio - the bone-chilling fear; the eyes that bore through him in the elevator - flashed through his head and Rafael accepted the call in a blind panic, his fingers fumbling over the screen.
"Hello?" he asked tentatively, praying fervently that this was just yet another robocall.
The voice that came over the line was robotic, but blood-curdling.
"Rafael Barba."
The way that the caller spoke his name made his hair stand on end, and the realisation that this wasn't just a robocall made his blood run cold.
"Who's this?" he pressed, trying his best not to let an ounce of fear seep into his voice.
The caller hadn't even said anything more than his name, but Rafael had a sinking feeling that something much worse was in store. He wished he'd made it back to his office, because his legs were starting to feel like lead, and he desperately needed to sit down before they gave way under him.
"Who's Ashtonja Abreu?"
Fuck, he cursed under his breath.
It was the last thing he wanted this mysterious caller to know.
Every fibre of his being was telling him to continue this call in the privacy of his office, but there was no way he could muster the strength to make it there. He stumbled unsteadily to the nearest corner, feeling a bead of cold sweat form above his brow.
The echo of Olivia's footsteps disappeared as she turned the corner at the end of the hallway, and Rafael felt a wave of nausea ripple up his gullet.
She didn't know. She couldn't know.
"What about her?"
The voice, still cold, still robotic, had a way of cutting right through him. "You know what you've done."
"What do you want?" Rafael demanded.
A part of him was telling him to hang up immediately and call Olivia or even TARU to put a trace on his phone - but this son-of-a-bitch had found out about Ashtonja somehow. Which meant that he probably had more dirt on Rafael than he could anticipate - and plenty more ways to get to him.
This wasn't some petty low-lifer. This was a skilled, methodical mastermind - and that scared the fuck out of him.
"Thinking about calling your precious Liv for back-up? You're smarter than that," the voice snarled, like he'd read Rafael's mind.
Rafael resisted the urge to make a snarky remark - something that would prove to this bastard that he had the upper hand; that he wasn't fazed by yet another threat…
Your precious Liv.
The way that he'd emphasised those words made it abundantly clear that something was very, very wrong.
Rafael immediately searched his memory for the remotest of possibilities that this could have slipped out, but found none. Even Carmen, who knew the most about his schedule and appointments after Olivia, had nary a clue - he'd done a meticulous job of ensuring that evenings with her weren't penciled in; that her calls always went right to his cell and never through his office phone. Anyway, Carmen wasn't the kind to sell his secrets.
Which only confirmed his worst nightmare.
This certifiably was the work of David Willard - a man with the technological know-how to do something this under-handed and who just happened to be the lead suspect in a murder investigation that he was prosecuting.
Rafael wished he could hurl his phone to the ground and crush it under his heel, but the ADA in him absolutely couldn't lose what could become a crucial piece of evidence. Yet he couldn't just walk away from this and pretend it'd never happened - not when Willard probably had all the ammunition he wanted at his fingertips. His options were disappearing by the second.
Maybe he wouldn't be an ADA for much longer if this got out, he realised with a sinking feeling. That was a possibility usually too unfathomable for him to even dare to consider, but with Ashtonja and now this, he was going to have to stare it in the face.
"Does Liv know you're paying a teenager for sex?" the voice taunted, its mechanical, filtered overtones barely masking its contempt and malice.
"I'm not," he bit back through gritted teeth. "I'm not."
But it was fruitless - like this mysterious caller was going to buy a single word he said in his defence. He was determined to wound Rafael, and it was working.
The menacing chuckle on the other end of the line made his stomach lurch. "I can't wait to see what Olivia has to say when she finds out."
When, not if. A new wave of nausea rippled through him. No, not Liv, he wanted to scream. She didn't deserve to be dragged into this.
"You know what you need to do, Mr. Barba."
The line went dead, and there was silence once more.
Willard had it coming for him, and Rafael was powerless to stop it - with the one exception of one heart-wrenching option.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this vulnerable - not since Heredio had up-ended his entire life. Rafael anxiously dabbed at the sweat that had formed on his temples, his entire body now cold and trembling. The pain was proof that he hadn't just hallucinated that. Someone - Willard - knew about Ashtonja, knew about him and Olivia. What else did he have up his sleeve?
And was he about to shatter Olivia's heart too?
The peace of the last couple of months was on the precipice of shattering. After how hard they'd fought for this, it now felt fragile in his palm, and that realisation made him sicker than any vendetta against him ever could.
He couldn't lose her; not after all they'd been through - but he had to be prepared to.
It pained him more than words could say, but he knew exactly what he needed to do - for himself, for them, for her.
His fingers tightened around the handle of his briefcase as he walked away from the row of judges' chambers behind him.
"What the hell, Rafael? What do you mean, you're off the case? What happened?"
Shit, Rafael cursed silently, as Olivia's footsteps - and furious voice - reverberated in the frigid winter air. He'd slipped out of his office immediately after calling on Jack McCoy in the hopes of rushing home to make sense of this clusterfuck in private, but she was putting a wrench in his plans.
"There was nothing I could do. I had to recuse myself," he said through gritted teeth, while skillfully averting eye contact with her.
He knew from her incredulous tone over the phone - during which he had the thoroughly soul-crushing task of telling her that no, I can't get you the warrants because I had to recuse myself - that the blow had been devastating. She'd come here in search of answers.
It was precisely what he'd expected her to do, but he couldn't cave in.
Keep walking. You can't have this conversation now. Not here.
Maybe he never wanted to have it.
One glance at the crowd ahead of him and he found at least 2 people he recognised on sight. This was the last place he needed to be seen arguing with her - about this, of all topics.
"Why?" she demanded, her tone testy and frustrated; gestures emphatic and forceful.
He forced himself to keep to brief, curt sentences, knowing that he'd explode if he tried anything else. "I can't tell you. I'm sorry."
"You can't tell me?" There were two layers to that question: one from Olivia the Manhattan SVU lieutenant; the other from his Olivia - the Olivia he was able to bare his deepest insecurities to, except now, when he needed her most.
He couldn't bring himself to look directly at her, but he could just imagine the hurt on her face, and it cut him like a knife.
"You've got to trust me," he insisted, although he knew it was going to be fruitless. "This is for the best."
His resolve rapidly dissolving, he forced himself to meet her distraught gaze, and a lump formed in his throat just looking at her - the rage, the confusion, the disbelief. Emotions that he now was powerless to heal.
Rafael wanted to scream this out; get it off his chest. How much he hated hurting her. How much he hated keeping secrets from her, especially after the months they'd just shared.
But this was different, he told himself. It wasn't some lover's quarrel, and he had to keep her out of it before she got hurt even more.
"Oh, so I should trust you, but you don't trust me?" she spat out indignantly. "How does that work?"
He steadied his shaking voice the best he could. "You're making this personal. It's not personal."
Except that it was personal: personal because she looked to become the next casualty in Willard's crusade against them if he didn't make a choice for them right here, right now.
He didn't know how else he could protect her, and that terrified him.
"It is personal now!" Olivia shook her head incredulously. "Would you stop? Just talk to me," she begged.
She stepped closer to him - so close that he inhaled a whiff of the perfume she'd sprayed on her collarbone that morning while he lay in her bed, admiring the way the morning sun hit her skin. It was a sight that he now feared he'd never see again, and he forced himself to push it to the recesses of his mind.
That, and the anxiety and concern that now filled her brown eyes, broke Rafael's heart, but he couldn't give in. Not now.
"What happened?" Olivia asked imploringly, her eyes pleading with him to just tell her.
The air was heavy with unspoken words - so many on the tip of his tongue that he just couldn't bring himself to utter. His eyes stung, but no tears fell.
Her voice hardened and posture stiffened, but her resolve didn't flicker for even a second. "I have a viable suspect for a brutal murder. I need those warrants."
Changing tacks. Appealing to the ADA in me. She was desperate.
He knew what exactly she was doing, but even that razor-sharp redirection to the case at hand wasn't going to sway him - not this time.
"You see that building over there?" He gestured at the stone facade of 1 Hogan Place in the distance, his tone suddenly stern and cold. "There's a whole floor full of ADAs. Ask one of them. Right now, that's the best I can do."
He turned to walk away, petrified of what he'd do if he looked into her eyes for one second longer, but Olivia's firm, imploring grip on his hand stopped him dead in his tracks. "Please don't shut me out. Talk to me."
It was the same vulnerability he'd seen in her lowest moments - the one that never failed to completely undo him - and the subtle but unmistakable way her voice cracked stabbed his heart.
He had two choices. He could turn around and look at her and let her touch and brown eyes burst him open at the seams.
Or he could harden his heart and walk away from this case; from her, in one final, last-ditch attempt to protect her from the fall-out of this.
The choice was painful, but clear.
"Don't do that, Liv. Not here," he snapped. Not here, not now - where they could be spotted by just about anyone. They didn't need that additional layer of trepidation when it felt like everything was going to implode on itself.
Rafael steeled himself and shook himself free of her grip, his eyes peeled to the street ahead of him. His fingers slipped out of her palm, now cold and desolate in the winter air.
He could picture the expression on Olivia's face - shock, hurt, sorrow - and it took every ounce of willpower he had not to turn back. He heard her sad, exasperated sigh, loud and resonant to him even in the thick of the mid-day cacophony around them, and the defeated scamper of her footsteps in the opposite direction as she searched for another ADA who could get her those warrants.
That was the focussed, determined Olivia he knew and loved, and that he hoped he could still love in the days to come. Right now, he didn't even want to think about how he'd get through the rest of the day.
She still had a job to do, and the last thing he wanted was for her to get bogged down by his mess. He needed her to nab Willard: not only for him, but for the both of them, and she didn't even know just how badly he needed that yet.
His heart sank once more as he pulled out his phone to dial an Uber home and saw a new message from her.
We need to talk about this later, Rafael.
His fingers hovered tentatively over the keyboard and possibilities raced through his head. He had the chance to chase after her right now, tell her everything - they could fight this together and perhaps emerge unscathed. Why was he wilfully shutting out the one person who not only had the resources to nail David Willard, but who'd also weathered so many storms with him that he'd put his life in her hands?
But thoughts of Ashtonja and long-buried secrets and the sheer unknown that was what Willard could do to hurt Olivia gave him cause for pause, and he settled on two firm, unambiguous words.
Don't, Liv.
He prayed that, for once, she would listen and back off, because the tears that welled up in his eyes as the Uber pulled up by his apartment block told him that the worst was still yet to come.
An hour later, Olivia and her squad stormed back into the offices of Attention Inc, the hard-fought blue sheets she clutched now emblazoned with a signature that wasn't Rafael Barba's and every footstep charged with a vengeance that had only intensified after their conversation outside the courthouse. She quickly folded the bottom of the stack of papers as she thrust them in Willard's hands - the last thing she needed right now was to get distracted in front of the most conniving, intelligent perp she'd encountered in recent months.
There was nothing I could do. I had to recuse myself.
Why? Olivia had wanted to scream. Why? Rafael being evasive, pulling away from her like that - did he really not trust her? Her residual fears from a few months ago, seemingly buried under the joyful bliss of the last few weeks they'd shared together, returned in full force, sending butterflies into her stomach. He wasn't picking up her calls; his reply to her text was a cold, damning don't, Liv.
There was no other reasonable explanation for Rafael's behaviour. It had to be Willard - this slimy prick standing a few feet away from her. First Colin Bennett, and now Rafael; she dreaded to think of what dirt Willard had unearthed that had made him this fearful of touching the case.
Get it together, Olivia.
She had to find a way to bury this bastard - and soon.
"This is outrageous. You're not supposed to be here," Willard protested indignantly as Amanda, Sonny and Fin tore through the office floor with a vengeance, Olivia allowing herself three seconds of satisfaction when his jaw dropped seeing just how warlike and resolute they were.
"Why? Because you didn't see it on email or because it's an old-fashioned, handwritten warrant? Officers are searching your apartment and car right now," Olivia fired back sarcastically as she passed him, eager to have him out of her line of sight as quickly as possible.
The last thing she wanted to do was piss him off and give him even more ammunition for his crusade, but she couldn't just stand back and watch as he protested and whined his way through the search. Clearly he'd done something to Rafael - something conniving enough to make one of the most stubborn ADAs she'd ever worked with back off in this fashion; something to make him shut her out without warning.
It was taking plenty of restraint not to punch Willard squarely in the face right now.
"Where'd you get this warrant, anyway? Your friend, Barba? I thought he was smarter than that," he fired back smugly.
Olivia flinched.
Don't turn around; don't bite back, she said to herself. Was she imagining things… or was that smugness with which he spat out Rafael's name...
He stopped her dead in her tracks, a haughty smirk on his face. "Or should I say your boyfriend, Barba?"
Fuck.
Her breath caught.
The room felt like it was spinning. Heads whipped around to find the source of the commotion, including the three very shocked faces of Amanda, Fin and Sonny. This was the last way she wanted them to find out - in the middle of a crowded office they were raiding, from the mouth of their prime suspect in a brutal murder.
Willard didn't skip a beat. "Guess your detectives finally know about your little secret. Let's see… who else should know about this?"
Olivia stormed towards him and dipped her voice to the most threatening whisper she could muster. "Back off, Willard."
"Liv?" Fin called out from his station, the protective tone he'd always used with her emerging in spades. Behind him she could see Amanda and Sonny busy confiscating hard drives and manila folders, their hands moving quickly but the shock on their faces still clear as day. Her stomach lurched with the realisation that they probably were going to have an awkward conversation about this in due time.
She looked Fin squarely in the eye and shook her head firmly with as much resolve as she could muster, but the lump that'd formed in her throat betrayed the extent of her fear. It was exactly what she'd dreaded the most: Willard definitely had gotten to Rafael.
He'd blackmailed an upstanding lab technician, and now a Manhattan ADA. What else did he have planned?
"You need to step aside, now," she said with gritted teeth, her eyes now boring into Willard's. How dare he blackmail his way out of this case; how dare he come between her and Rafael like that.
"Careful, Lieutenant," he whispered tauntingly, just out of earshot for the rest of her squad. "You might want to ask your boyfriend who else he's fucking. Heard he likes young blood."
Olivia felt her pulse accelerate wildly - whether with anger or paralysing fear, she didn't know. "Don't give me your bullshit," she fired back.
Willard turned and walked away without another word, that stupid smug grin still glued to his face. He knew exactly what he was doing. Olivia knew exactly what he was doing.
And the worst thing was that he'd done it devastatingly well.
You might want to ask your boyfriend who else he's fucking.
No, it couldn't be. Rafael wasn't the type to cheat. He'd been hurt that badly by Yelina; cheating simply wasn't in his nature.
But what if Willard, with his technology and gadgets and practically omnipresent listening ear, was right? Was Rafael living a double life as...
Heard he likes young blood.
Olivia felt like she was going to throw up.
It absolutely couldn't be. Willard couldn't possibly be accusing Rafael Barba of being the exact kind of person she - they - spent all their waking hours pursuing relentlessly and looking at with contempt.
Get yourself together, Olivia!
Why was she letting someone as pathetic and lowly as Willard - a man so insecure that he gathered intel on every person who crossed him - get to her? What did he have on a relationship that she and Rafael had fought so hard for; a comfortable joy that they'd just come to relish?
No, she couldn't stoop to David Willard's level. She was better than this.
But all that rationalisation didn't stop those nagging doubts from planting seeds in her mind.
Those thoughts grew like parasitic weeds as Amanda, Sonny and Fin gathered the last of the evidence from the office and loaded them into the CSU and TARU vans. They festered and bloomed as they drove back to the precinct, Olivia not sure if the uncomfortable silence that her detectives had seemed to mutually agree upon was making things better or worse.
The hurt that she'd felt as Rafael shook himself free of her grip outside the courthouse just a couple of hours ago stabbed away at her. Was he doing that to protect her from Willard's vendetta… or was that a sign of a guilty conscience? Were there things he was hiding from her?
"Liv - are you alright?" Fin asked quietly after Amanda and Sonny had quickly clambered out of the backseat, the tension in the squad car so heavy that it practically suffocated her. "What else did Willard say to you?"
"I'm alright," she said as convincingly as she could. "He was just trying to mess with me."
"Okay," Fin nodded, although she was sure that he hadn't bought that explanation. It was a blessing that he wasn't the kind to get in other people's business, because she wasn't sure if she wanted to scream or cry more in that moment.
Shit, she was still going to have to sit down and go through all the evidence they'd gathered from this son-of-a-bitch's offices and apartment and address the new elephant in the room…
Olivia marched towards Willard's front door, her curled fists the only way she had of channelling her sheer fury. She hated David Willard with more anger than she could capture in words - she hated his sneakiness, his possessiveness, and the entitled attitude that was the very reason he was trying to blackmail his way into innocence.
But above all, she hated that this man now had a power over her that she knew she didn't want to allow him to have.
"Well, that was awkward," Amanda muttered to Fin and Sonny as she poured herself a cup of coffee and glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Olivia wasn't within earshot.
"Which part?" Fin deadpanned, while keeping a close eye on Olivia's visibly troubled figure in her office.
She rolled her eyes. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Fin."
"Lieu and Barba? I can't say that I'm that surprised, Amanda," he pointed out.
"I don't think any of us are surprised about that. I'm talking about how David Willard knows about them."
"Lieu and Barba haven't disclosed, have they?" Sonny enquired. The look of confusion on his face that'd stayed there all through the ride back reminded Amanda and Fin that he hadn't been privy to all the Ed Tucker-related tension that summer, but now wasn't the time to fill him in.
"I don't think so - and judging by the look on her face, she wasn't ready to," Fin pointed out worriedly. Liv and Barba - that wasn't his business, right?
Except that it now looked like he was going to have to make it his business, because their case hinged on this. He'd seen first-hand how Willard pushed Colin Bennett to the brink of taking his own life, and wasn't liking how torn up Olivia was looking at the moment. Even the untimely reveal of her relationship with Ed Tucker hadn't taken this much of a toll on her.
What the hell did Willard whisper to her? The question continued to nag at him, even though he wasn't sure if he'd ever find out.
Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.
"Let's get this over and done with, everyone," Olivia called out defeatedly from across the room and beckoned for everyone to gather by the conference table, now littered with additional piles of evidence to comb through. Fin slid into the seat next to hers, feeling the sadness practically emanate from her.
You all right? he leaned over and asked, to which she shook her head wordlessly.
"Let's get this over and done with," Olivia repeated half-heartedly, the stack of evidence photos and case files before them now thoroughly unappealing. She was of two minds: she wanted as little as possible to do with David Willard - except that they had to find something on him as soon as possible before he escalated whatever vendetta he had against Rafael.
And being the person - the detective - she was, she chose the latter. Even if that meant ripping her heart out of her chest every time she saw a photo of Willard.
"Okay," Fin shifted uncomfortably in his seat and shifted his focus to the evidence they had to comb through. "TARU's got a thousand mega-terabytes or whatever to go through."
"CSU says nothing in Willard's car matches anything found on any of the victims, including Jennifer," Amanda added, her gaze shifting awkwardly between her notepad and visibly disturbed boss.
The faster we get this sorted out, hopefully the faster the mood in this squad room will return to normal. This wasn't good for any of them.
"Well, we know from Jennifer's apartment that this guy knows how to clean up his messes," Olivia replied with no emotion whatsoever, her expression listless and distant.
This looks bad, Amanda worriedly mouthed to Fin across the table. They hadn't even gotten to the elephant in the room yet.
I've got this, he mouthed back. There was no use beating around the bush. Fin straightened and decided to rip the Band-Aid as quickly - and hopefully painlessly - as possible.
"Liv, listen. What Willard said to you… are you and Barba involved?"
Her silence was all the confirmation they needed.
How she wished that this could have been the joyous reveal she'd originally hoped it would be - a reveal that would happen only when both she and Rafael were ready to make that leap. A reveal that they'd have control over. Now here she was in the middle of the squad room, trying to nail the perp who'd decided to blow up her personal life to avoid a murder charge.
It wasn't personal, Rafael had protested just a couple of hours ago, but that was an outright lie. This was deeply personal now.
Willard had no qualms about blurting it out in front of her squad, so cavalier and nonchalant. Who else had he told? Was something worse in store?
"How does he know that about you both, anyway?" Sonny added.
It took no time for Fin to put the pieces together. "We know he hacked Bennett, okay? That he blackmailed him. So, if he's hacking Barba…"
"You think he's blackmailing Barba too," Sonny completed.
"Barba was getting us a warrant, then all of a sudden he didn't?" Fin stared at the table of defeated, resigned faces before him. "I'm open to another explanation, but it makes sense to me. What do you think, Liv?"
They turned to her nervously, Olivia instinctively sitting up as she felt their eyes on her.
Blackmail. If Willard had the know-how to infiltrate the NYPD's closely guarded computer systems, he certainly could probe into her and Rafael's entire existences: bank accounts, phone records, addresses, texts… The realisation that he'd probably read every text message between her and Rafael - maybe even listened to their calls - made her sick to her stomach. Had he hacked her cell phone too - or God forbid, gathered some dirt on her adoption of Noah?
"I don't know," she mumbled, her tongue in knots and palms clammy. "I think… we need more information."
She honestly wasn't sure how much more she wanted to know, but the prospect of being kept in the dark for a moment longer seemed infinitely worse.
Heard he likes young blood.
She just knew those words were going to continue to taunt her until she knew exactly what they meant.
"We've got a lead," Sonny offered as he pulled up a spreadsheet on his laptop. "A uni found a burner cell in the garbage outside of Willard's apartment. Here's the outgoing call list. Okay - one call to Bennett's office…"
"We knew that," Amanda interjected.
"Here's what's interesting. One call to Barba's office, and…"
"Told you it made sense," Fin quipped.
Olivia could spot one more name on the spreadsheet and almost dreaded the answer to her own question. "Who else did he call?" she asked with a worried sigh, and craned her neck to look at Sonny's laptop screen.
"... there's a bunch of calls to a number in the Bronx. Someone named Ashtonja Abreu."
A woman's name. She felt dizzy.
You might want to ask your boyfriend who else he's fucking.
David Willard was sounding more and more right by the second. Trepidation pooled in her stomach.
"I'm looking her up." Amanda's fingers flew across her keyboard at lightning speed even before Olivia could muster the nerve to ask for more details. "Address is East 152nd St. She's… seventeen this year, and lives with her grandmother. Records say she's a student at LaGuardia High."
Seventeen.
For the second time that day, Olivia felt like she was going to pass out.
Heard he likes young blood.
It can't be, she screamed at herself, her entire system feeling like it was on fire. She knew Rafael Barba better than anyone and had no reason to doubt his character, so why was she letting who was clearly a vindictive, opportunistic bully make her believe otherwise? She was better than this shameless, diabolical manipulation-
Except that she also wasn't.
She didn't know what or who to believe anymore, and she detested herself for that. A suffocating, stabbing pain rippled through her chest.
"I think we need to pay Ashtonja a visit," Sonny declared, and tossed the car keys onto the table.
Olivia was out of her seat even before he finished that sentence, the adrenaline that now coursed through her completely taking over. "Let's head there now. Carisi, you drive. Fin and Amanda, get yourselves to TARU."
For a second she wondered if she should have asked Fin - the person on her squad she trusted the most - to accompany her to the Bronx, but quickly decided that Sonny was the best possible choice. Fin and Amanda knew too much about her history with Rafael, and she couldn't risk falling apart on the long drive uptown.
Now wasn't the time to frantically go over the events of the summer in her head and search for signs she'd missed - hints of any kind that all that Willard was spouting was even the slightest bit true. She needed to be present; here, now, where the answers to this mess were going to be.
"Are you sure you want to go, Liv?" Fin asked worriedly. Was she really the best person to do this - especially in this frame of mind? He eyed the car keys on the desk, wondering if he should snatch them away from her while he had the chance; or at the very least, offer to drive her uptown.
Olivia's tone was unrelenting; firm. "I'm going. Whatever business Rafael has with this Ashtonja, I want her to tell me to my face."
Fin opened his mouth to protest, but Olivia and Sonny were halfway out the door by the time he found any words, her footsteps weary yet resolute.
Amanda raised her hands in surrender. "Let her go, Fin. We can't stop her now. Come on, we need to check in with TARU. Maybe we'll get something useful."
The knowing look they exchanged as they walked to the car confirmed that both had the same question on their minds: was Rafael sleeping with this Ashtonja Abreu? They hadn't missed the way her face fell when Sonny had uttered that name; when Amanda checked her age. Did the ADA they'd come to trust and respect have some skeletons in his closet?
"Barba's not capable of something like this," Amanda declared firmly, her eyes glued to the road ahead of her. "There has to be some perfectly logical explanation for this Ashtonja business."
"Believe me, Amanda, I'm not assuming the worst... but Willard can hack anything he wants to. He's smart. He knows Barba has something to hide, and he's using it."
"For Barba's - and Liv's - sake… I hope he's wrong."
"I hope so too."
Fin's tone was firm and determined, but the troubled expression on his face was telling enough of the gravity of the situation they now stared down. Barba and Olivia. For them to emerge unscathed from this now seemed to require a miracle - a miracle that they now desperately needed, because so much damage had already been done.
Olivia clutched the same hope in her chest as Sonny sped uptown, his foot on the gas more aggressively than usual and typical curious quips and wild trains of thought replaced by a grave, deafening silence.
Had she made a mistake coming? What was Willard going to do to retaliate if he somehow found out that they were still on the warpath? Or was he already delighting in the satisfaction she was sure he was getting from seeing her so rattled?
Too many questions, and too little time for answers.
What was she even going to say to Ashtonja when they arrived? Would her words fail her when they came face-to-face?
Maybe it was time to seriously reconsider this expedition.
"This is the block, Lieu." Sonny checked the address a final time and pulled up in front of a nondescript brick building, its unassuming and innocuous facade concealing a minefield of emotion for Olivia. "You sure you want to head up?"
Olivia fiddled nervously with her seat belt buckle, suddenly unsure if she wanted to leave the safety of the car. There were countless reasons for her to stay there - for her not to walk through those doors and come face-to-face with the person who now had her relationship with Rafael in her palm. She could prepare herself for the worst, but she wasn't even sure that she would ever be prepared for something like this.
Don't, Liv.
His last text to her had been unambiguous. He had something to hide, that was for sure. Something that he didn't want her to investigate.
But she couldn't just walk away - not after making it this far. Loose ends were not in her nature, and especially after the year she'd had, neither were secrets.
Better that she nailed this bastard, and proved to David Willard that he wasn't going to get away with blackmail, even if she was scared as hell. He'd already scared two people into backing off, and she wasn't about to become the third.
"Let's go."
She took a deep breath, slammed the car door shut behind her, and pressed the buzzer for Ashtonja Abreu's apartment.
With the winter came ridiculously early sunsets that Rafael had long hated, but suddenly found himself appreciating as he slumped on his living room couch in the half-darkness, listlessly swirling his undrunk glass of scotch.
His mind occasionally wandered to what Olivia and her squad were doing - hopefully they'd gotten the warrants and found something of interest in Willard's office or apartment; something to nail that bastard before he could destroy Rafael's entire career.
Provided that Willard hadn't already done that. Rafael's phone had been strangely silent the rest of the day - not even a check-in from Jack after he'd barged into his office to abandon the case without warning.
Oh, so I should trust you, but you don't trust me?
Those words had replayed in his head on loop the entire afternoon, taunting and mocking him. Of course I trust you, he wished he could have screamed, but that would have meant unlocking the very truth he was trying to protect her from. Of course I trust you.
If only he could say those words to her.
If only he could find the courage to look her in the eye and tell her just who Ashtonja Abreu was; that he wasn't one of the perps she - they - pursued with a vengeance. Would Olivia even dare to consider that possibility? Did he want to know if she would?
If only he didn't have to shake himself from her grip - the hand that'd reached out to him when he needed it most.
The buzz of his doorbell came as a rude, dissonant shock. He stumbled towards the intercom in a daze, groaning when a familiar face appeared.
"Stanley, I said no visitors," he reiterated firmly to the green-suited man in the corner of the screen.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Barba, but she insists that it's an emergency and showed me her badge," Stanley replied apologetically as he tried to stop a visibly furious Olivia from storming into the elevator behind them.
"Fine," Rafael grunted. What's the point of having a doorman if he doesn't stop guests from coming up? he cursed.
And Olivia - waving her badge around, insisting it was an emergency? That woman really did not know how to back off.
He couldn't decide if he hated or was grateful for that.
The two minutes in between the intercom call and her emerging at his door were the most arduous two minutes he'd experienced in a long time. God, how much he wanted to see her and kiss her and finally let the tears he'd been suppressing the whole afternoon flow; how much he wanted her to pull him into her arms and tell him that everything's going to be alright, to let her steady him before he descended further into this hellscape.
But the robotic voice from that afternoon's phone call echoed in his head, making him shake with anxiety. He reached for his untouched glass of scotch and gulped from it, letting it burn the back of his throat.
I can't wait to see what she has to say when she finds out.
Fuck, had Willard already told her? Was he going to have to convince her that no, I'm not paying a teenager for sex? Was this a situation they were never going to come back from?
There was no time to agonise over it further, because the pounding of her fists against his oak door instantly brought him back to his painful reality. "Rafael! Let me in, please."
Her voice was desperate, imploring. He felt foolishly near tears - Olivia, the one person he needed more than anyone else right now, was begging to be let in, and here he was deciding if he was going to send her away. He never imagined that things would come to this.
The door flew open and he came face-to-face with her, her temples dripping with sweat despite the frigid weather and eyes red and blotchy. His heart sank taking in her downtrodden state.
"Liv…" he choked out, his voice barely above a whisper.
"I need to talk to you, Rafael. Don't shut the door on me," she implored, hand pressed against the door frame and eyes boring through him, begging him to let her in.
"Liv," he tried again, the lump in his throat growing increasingly stifling by the second.
"Don't," she interrupted before he could get another word in. "Let me in. Please. We have to talk."
"About?" he feigned ignorance, despite knowing that she'd see through him in seconds.
"About what you did. About how Willard got to you."
Rafael's pulse accelerated; he felt dizzy. Nauseous. The scotch he'd swigged a minute ago went straight to his head.
Was he ready to have this discussion with her? He frantically searched his mind for something; anything, to put this discussion off.
Nothing.
"Why are you hiding things from me?"
Olivia didn't take her eyes off him.
He wished he could lie and tell her that he didn't know, but the reason was as clear as day. Guilt crossed his face instantly and he leaned unsteadily against the door frame for support, feeling like his legs would give way at any moment.
"What happened with you and Willard?" she pressed, Rafael suddenly unable to decipher the tormented look in her eyes. "What did he say to you?"
There was nothing he wanted more than to give her the answers she was looking for and send her away, but his tongue was paralysed and hands trembling as he averted her questioning, desperate gaze. He just knew what was coming next, and the tidal wave of fear that washed over him made it hard for him to breathe.
Please don't say it, Olivia, he pleaded silently. Please don't say it.
It was futile. Olivia took a deep breath and stepped towards him, her hand lightly grazing his, and asked the three words they both knew were going to change the course of their relationship irrevocably.
"Who's Ashtonja Abreu?"