She was sitting at her desk, filling out the seemingly endless amount of paper before her. She knows she is just trying the bury herself in her work, so she doesn't have to deal with the shitstorm that is currently circling. McGrath was not happy at all that she had to recuse herself from the case regarding Burton Lowe. He had explained to her how she should be setting a better example as an NYPD captain and really shouldn't be "sleeping around" at her age, especially leading Manhattans top tier Special Victims Unit. His final words to her, before she left his office were: "you should've known better". Fuck him. Whilst she knows that the man is as dumb as a bag of rocks when it comes to sex-crimes, she couldn't help but agree with his last comment. She should've known better. She was a victim then, but now… how could she fall back into bed with him?

She finally decides to give up on her paperwork for now and stands up, walking toward the window. She leans on the wall next to the window, to give her ankle a rest. Staring out, she can see the patrol cars parked downstairs, faceless people walking by, late for a meeting, grabbing a cup of coffee or meeting a friend for lunch. She sees some detectives park out front of the precinct and meander their way in probably chatting about their case. She thinks back to when that was her. Back to the times when her biggest worry was whether to get coffee at work or on the way to work. Back to a time when everything was just a little bit different.

She is brought out of her trance when the door to her office is flung open, a loud bang emanating from the wall behind it. Not two seconds after its opened, it's slammed shut. Burton Lowe is now standing there before her, staring at her, a wild glint in his eyes. She stands up straight, hoping the anger will mask the anxiety growing in the pit of her stomach.

"We need to talk" Burton says in a surprisingly calm tone, despite the fact that his hands have formed fists.
Olivia immediately senses danger. Hoping she can deal with this herself, she moves a few steps forward, keeping a chair between herself and burton just to be safe.

"There is nothing to talk about Burton, I need you to leave right now" she says, her voice not showing even a hint of what she is truly feeling.

He just stands there, clearly thinking about what he is going to do next. He could leave and just be done with it. He could apologise. Or, he could defend himself.
"You can't just leave me like this. We were in love. That has to mean something. And I'm not just talking about back then! Liv, you can't deny that what happened the other night meant something"

She stands there, unable to articulate the wrongness of it all.

He continues "The way you let me touch you, the things you let me do to you, you wanted that, you know you did!".

His voice is becoming louder, and she prays that the new refurbishment included soundproofing her office. She takes a step back, feeling the ache in her ankle. She focuses on the physical pain, trying to keep herself grounded. She knows what he's doing, the manipulation is evident even in his sentence structurer.

You let me, it echoes through her brain until suddenly she realises that he has stopped talking and she is just standing there, silent. She brings herself back to the moment, knowing precisely what to say.

"This isn't about me. This isn't about us. This is about you, Burton. You are a predator. You might not look like madman who likes to rape women for fun, but I've worked this job for enough years to know that what you did to those women was wrong."

He's getting angry now, "So what, you're just going to believe them. Young women only in it for the money. You are just going to be my judge and jury, why not just send me to prison right now then! I am the victim here Olivia. There is no real evidence, but you already believe I'm guilty."

He has stepped closer now. Too close. There is only the chair between them.

"Olivia, you know me." His eyes are pleading with her now, his hand reaching to caress her cheek. She pushes his hand away, but she can still feel his breath on her skin, it still holds a whiff of whiskey. The same whiskey he was drinking when she confronted him last night. The same whiskey that he threw at her head, shattering the glass on the door.

"that's just it" she says

"I believe these women because I've listened to them. I've heard their stories and you did the exact same thing to me" She takes a breath, knowing she is about to open old wounds.

"I was vulnerable, I wanted to escape from my mother, I wanted to feel safe and you… you took advantage of that" she can feel the tears welling in her eyes, momentarily grateful she had closed the blinds earlier that afternoon.

And that's when she feels it! Like a burn with the force of a fist. He slapped her across the face. Hard. She's been hit before, but this one hurts. His ring has cut her cheek and she can feel the open wounds against the cold air in her office.

"You wanted it you are fucking whore!" he yells before storming out, slamming the door so hard, it bounced back, settling half-open.

Now she just stands there in the middle of her office, clutching her face with one hand, the other on the chair in front of her holding her up. She doesn't feel pain, or anger, or anxiety. She just feels a deep sadness. She's not sad about anything in particular but she has far too many options to chose from. Between Staler returning, Kathy's death, the letter, his UC op, their endless number of cases, Burton Lowe re-appearing, her constant thoughts of her mother, and even her own traumas. There are far too many things to just pick one.

Rollins is at her desk, cross-checking the names from a guest-list with fingerprints found at the scene when Carisi walks in holding a box of his mother's famous Cannoli's. At the sight of him, and more importantly the food, she decides to take a break.

Of course, Carisi is there to discuss a case, needing to get any updates before he heads to arraignment, so she silently takes a cannoli and they share a knowing glance, before getting down to business. At that moment, Fin is headed back from the break room holding two cups of coffee. He deposits one on Rollins' desk, swapping it for a cannoli out of the box sitting next to the ADA. Fin joins in on the briefing, telling Carisi that the guy confessed, and they were almost done with the forensics, which would surely nail him to the wall. Satisfied he had all the details he needed for the case, Carisi took a bite from Rollins' Cannoli and then looked around the room, noticing the captain's door was shut and her blinds drawn.

"Where's the Cap?" Carisi asked while gathering up some paperwork from Rollins' desk.

"She's in there… with Burton Lowe" Amanda says

At that, Fin immediately started to head to the door, not knowing the full story, but knowing enough to know he was dangerous and had a history with his Captain.

Amanda stood up calling to him as he was about to reach for the door handle. "She can handle herself Fin. If she wants our help, she will ask"

Realising that if he walked in there, she would probably have his ass doing desk duty for a month, he slowly retreated.

"You know what is takes for that woman to ask for help?" he says sarcastically, signally his final act of defiance before returning to his desk to finish writing up his DD5's, stealing one last glance at his captain's door as if trying to manifest some x-ray vision.

A few minutes pass, during which, Carisi and Amanda shamelessly flirt, Fin curses out his paperwork to no one in particular and Velasco sits in the corner doing something else. Instantly, with the sound Burton Lowe calling their captain a "whore", they are all out of their seats. They watch as Burton Lowe storms out of her office, listening as the door bangs against the doorframe, bouncing back to rest half-way open.

Fin and Amanda are the first to arrive at their Captains door. As soon as they see the blood running down her face and the empty look in her glassy eyes, Amanda runs to her, and Fin instinctively covers the doorway trying to protect his captain from the prying eyes of the 1-6.
Once satisfied that Amanda is there for Liv, Fin turns around to find Carisi standing right beside him, they look at each other, suddenly aware of what they need to do. Both men head toward the elevator, walking at first, before breaking out into a jog, headed after Burton.