A/N: Don't hate me.

December 6th – 2:10 p.m.

He's in my basement.

Those words echoed in her head as two pairs of eyes stared her down from across the table. The cup of water in her hands did little quell the nervous bubbling in her stomach. She wanted to check her phone, hoping for a few missed calls from her grandmother wondering where she was. Any excuse to leave this table, leave this room and leave this building.

Deep down, she knew she needed to do this.

That didn't make it any easier.

"Lexi?"

She dragged her eyes from the plastic cup in her hands to Olivia Benson. The woman from the press conference. She hadn't expected her to be so soft spoken and gentle. During her speech, she seemed so emotionless and cold, like she wasn't there of her own free will. The entire time she stood in the background, camera's flashing and some important people speaking at the podium, looking like she'd rather be anywhere else but there.

Lexi was seeing the opposite now.

"Please…continue," Olivia patted her hand gently and pulled it back, grabbing her pen off the table. Amanda shifted in her seat, eyes never leaving hers. Somehow, she didn't feel intimidated by the two officers. The police had been the number one enemy in her house. Her father let it be known to anyone around them he wasn't a fan, but that was only because he had something to lose. Lexi was beginning to see that now.

She was also beginning to see that by her opening her mouth, she was compromising her own father. It terrified her that she felt no remorse for it. She loved her dad and yet, she couldn't be bothered to worry about whether he was going to be spending the rest of his life in prison.

Her name was spoken again and Lexi cleared her throat, willing her thoughts back to the conversation they were having previously. She glanced down at her phone, seeing it light up with another text from her grandmother. She felt bad for worrying her and now, she was going to have to explain what was going on to her and that was going to be a headache.

"Do you need to answer that?"

Lexi shook her head, answering Amanda's question. The longer she could put that subject off, the better.

"Anyway…," Lexi started again, "…so the guys leave the house and I got out from underneath the cabinet and…my curiosity got the best of me.

Uh…so I went downstairs and I haven't been down there in years because my dad doesn't let me. But I went and I, uh, I saw him. And he was bleeding bad on his head. I think they cut it open when they beat him with their bat."

"Did he talk to you at all," Olivia asked quickly, writing a few words on her notebook paper and underlined them. Amanda glanced at it, not bothering to write anything on her sheet.

"Yeah. Well, I talked to him. Asked him if he was ok. I got him a few napkins and brought him some food and water. He cleaned himself up. And then…I left."

Lexi crossed her arms and brought her thumb to her mouth, teeth biting at the nail. Her eyes wondered around the room, taking in the little details of the walls as she tried to gather her thoughts. Another text message lit her phone screen up and she didn't bother glancing at it when it continued to vibrate the table. Her grandmother was calling again, probably worried sick now. She hadn't realized she'd been there for almost two hours.

"I also talked to him this morning," she started after the vibrating stopped, "Gave him some more food and water and gave him some pain pills for his arm. It looked broken, almost. And then he asked me to do a favor for him and he told me to come here and talk to you."

Olivia stared straight into Lexi's eyes, seeing nothing but the truth reflected. The discussion her and the squad had before her and Amanda entered the room brought up the possibility that this innocent looking girl was a distraction. It wouldn't be the first time they'd been through that mess. It was a tactic to give them false information, throw them off their scent.

If what Lexi was saying was true, then BX-9 was going to pull out all the stops to ensure they couldn't find who they were looking for.

However, Lexi was telling the truth. All her years on the squad, working with victims and suspects, left her with a keen awareness of body language. She'd studied it for years, first-hand experience and plenty of seminars helped her in ensuring she was an expert, or close to it.

Lexi was telling the truth and Liv was feeling a weight lifting off her shoulders every second that passed. It had been weighing her down since the stupid press conference Dodds, against her pleas, moved into action. Politics were a bitch and so was the city's government for trying to use Barba's abduction as a ploy to crack down on the city's crime rates.

She was surprised she still had a job after the lashing out she let her boss and her boss' boss heard. Fortunately, Dodds was understanding enough to talk the situation down. Liv had been a ticking time bomb, emotions ranging from deep sadness to absolute fury.

Anger at Barba for not having come forward about the threats again. Anger at her squad for not being able to find anything through security or their contacts. Anger at herself because she was damn emotional and it wasn't letting her think straight.

Now? She could feel all those emotions dissipating, like storm clouds on a summer's day. Lexi was the break they needed and she was telling the truth.

"You said you left the house around 8:15 this morning? It's 2:25 now…a little over 6 hours he's been alone."

"Maybe."

Amanda, who'd been looking at Liv, turned back to Lexi with a questioning look. Liv looked a bit struck. Lexi took her thumb away from her mouth and fixed them both with a stare.

"He's been down there for who knows how long. If they're not going to kill him today, then they'll do it soon."

Liv nodded, standing up and grabbing her notebook. The words spilling from Lexi had ignited a fire and the sudden urge to gather everyone and hop in a cruiser was overwhelming. Amanda, thankfully, sensed this and followed suit.

"Lexi, we need your address," the blonde said steadily, not glancing back as Liv left the room, exiting through the door next to the two-way mirror. Lexi could hear a flurry of activity as the door slowly shut, voices rising with questions. Amanda called her name again, sternly with no hesitance. It caught her attention and she blurted it out, watching the pen in her hand scribble across the page.

"Thank you. Here," Amanda tore off a large end of the same page, jotting a phone number down, "This is my number. I have yours. We'll be in contact with you soon, so keep your phone by your side."

Amanda turned to leave and Lexi stood up, grabbing her bag and phone. She had to grab a taxi back down to the hotel. She could brainstorm some ideas on how to break the news to her grandmother that way. Unfortunately, there wasn't going to be a way to salvage this weekend with her but this was bigger than that.

"Detective," Lexi stopped Amanda on her way to the door, "What are you going to do with my dad?"

Before she could answer, one of the other detectives popped his head in the room, blinds clanging loudly on the glass door. The tall man looked between them and apologized before he spat some words at her and left, disappearing into the throng of officers being gathered in the large room.

They worked quick.

"Look, sweetie," Amanda placed a hand on the young girl's shoulder and turned her to the door, walking her out and around the commotion. She waited until they were by the elevator, where it was quieter, to continue.

"Your dad will be put into custody," she explained, expecting Lexi to burst into begging and pleas for them not to and to take it easy on him. Lexi had explained the situation with him earlier and there was no possible way he was going to get off scot-free.

"Ok," Lexi said softly, nodding. Lexi wasn't stupid enough to believe he wouldn't. She was, rather than upset, indifferent about the news. Her dad, albeit depressed and as protective as a junkie could be, deserved it in a way. Needed it, as well.

Amanda, although not expecting the response, patted her back and pushed her towards the elevator, itching to join the group. She could hear Liv speaking over the noises of scuffing shoes and telephones ringing.

"Lexi," Amanda watched as the young girl turned around in the elevator, locking eyes with her as the door began to close. Amanda could only imagine the types of violence the teen had been forced to witness in her short 17 years of life. It made her sick to her stomach thinking of all the possibilities. Street gangs like that didn't care, though. They didn't care how old you were.

"Be careful."

Lexi nodded just as the doors closed in her face. Amanda stood there for a few more seconds before she inhaled and marched straight towards the front of the expanding group, ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work.

December 6th – 3:59 p.m.

The old car came to a screeching halt in the gravel behind the house. Nate stood on shaky legs, eyes blurry as he listened to the car doors banging closed and footsteps stomping up to and into the house.

The high he had before they got there was short lived and he had been fixing up another dose, holding the syringe full of heroin in his hand, hands itching to just shove it in his arm and let the feelings of euphoria wash over his body again. Something was telling him not to.

Something was wrong and he could tell when Victor came straight up to him and grabbed the front of his dirty shirt, hauling him almost straight off his feet. Behind him was Romero and that one kid he couldn't remember the name of.

The look of pure rage on the man's face was enough to make him drop the syringe, not even flinching when Victor stepped on it and shattered it under his boot. He could smell alcohol and weed on his breath, but he didn't look impaired.

"Who the fuck did you tell?"

Nate gulped, shaking his head and stuttering out a response, "I-I don't know what you mean."

Victor growled and pushed the man onto the couch, pulling a loaded gun out from the waist band of his baggy jeans. Romero followed, cocking his gun and holding it to the side as he walked around from behind his boss. Victor pointed his gun straight at his head, finger on the trigger as he asked the same question over again.

"We know you told someone. There's about 15 cop cars headed this way right now. Unless they've been following us, someone had to have told and it wasn't one of us."

Nate shook his head violently and stopped when he felt the cold press of the gun barrel against his forehead. Victor got down on one knee, still managing to tower over Nate. The gangster quirked a sinister smile and glanced over at the staircase.

"If it wasn't you…then maybe it was Alexis," Victor whispered between them, watching Nate's eyes turn from worry into fear. The junkie sent him a pleading stare, lips quivering as he tried to form words to spit out. In the back of his head, Nate knew his daughter wasn't there. A vague memory of his daughter mentioning the weekend with her grandmother came to him that morning when he woke up.

That still didn't calm him down. If they wanted to find her, they would find her. They had their ways, whatever they were.

"We know she's not here. We also know she's the one that ratted us out," Victor sneered and stood, putting the safety back on his gun and shoving it back in his pants. He snapped his fingers and Zeke walked up to him nervously, shucking off a backpack and digging through it quickly to produce a tablet. Victor tapped a few buttons and threw it on Nate's chest.

Nate focused in on the video playing on his screen. It was time stamped for the night before and showed his daughter climbing out from under a kitchen sink and entering the basement door a few moments later. Nate cursed, eyes wide as he kept watching, seeing her reappear and leave back down there with a few supplies.

Shit.

Victor snatched the tablet out the man's hands, glancing at it before he passed it back to Zeke.

"You have cameras in my house?"

"Too high to notice," Victor shook his head and walked away, Romero and Zeke following after him. Nate sat up and watched them exit down into the basement, feeling like his whole world was about to come crashing in around him.

Basically, it already had.

"Aww, look at him," Victor cooed, watching as the lawyer groaned and roused from his sleep, "he's taking a nap."

"So adorable," Romero mocked, laughing when Victor delivered a swift kick to the man's ribs. Barba coughed and gasped, holding his hands up in front of him to try and placate them. He was trying not to do or say anything that would set them off.

Zeke jumped when Victor kicked at him again, running a hand through his unruly hair. He watched as his boss kicked his outstretched hands out of the way and pressed his boot into Barba's throat, forcing him to gurgle and fight for gulps of air.

"Get enough to eat this morning?"

Romero sniggered and looked back at Zeke, trying to get the kid to laugh along with him. How they found this funny or as a form of entertainment, Zeke didn't know, but he didn't want anything to do with it.

Three days away from this mess he put himself in was enough to want to get out. He'd spent his time off speaking with his grandmother and praying at the church down the street from his house, seeking forgiveness and confessing his sins, albeit keeping sensitive, incriminating information to himself. It made him feel guilty.

It made him feel truly responsible for this man's upcoming fate, even if he wasn't going to be the one pulling the trigger. He was along for the ride, but when push came to shove, he would get the blame pinned on him. That's how they did things.

Blame the weak links to save the strong ones.

Victor took his boot of Barba's throat, making him damn near throw up as he gulped down oxygen and grabbed at his throat with his good arm. Spit dribbled down his chin, eyes closing for longer than a few seconds at a time as he tried to roll back over on his side.

"Please…," Barba choked out, still coughing. He looked up through two black eyes, wincing as he maneuvered himself up onto his knees. He sat back on his feet, his left arm close to his body while he raised his right hand, holding it up like he did earlier.

"Let me go," Barba whispered pathetically, feeling hot tears burning in his eyes. His entire body felt so damn weak. It was impossible to keep his eyes open and stop the pain in his arm from consuming him. The pain pills and the food the girl brought him down earlier helped some, but he couldn't help but think that would be his last meal.

The impending sense of death hit him all at once just before he fell asleep on the concrete floor, memories flooding his dreams of the last might he saw Liv in his office. He wasn't quite sure why that was what came to him in a cloudy replay, but it maybe had something to do with the woman herself.

He never doubted she wasn't out there, searching for him. She was damn near unstoppable when she set her mind to things and he knew, deep down inside she hadn't given up on him. Unfortunately, these people were smarter than they let on.

Liv hadn't found him yet and he doubted she ever would. With the way things were headed (he overheard the muffled conversation being yelled upstairs), she probably wouldn't find him alive. It killed him a little, recalling all the missed opportunities that were slowly becoming apparent to him. Chances he didn't take because he let his mind get the best of him. All the feelings he suppressed for the sake of staying professional. What did it get him?

At the time, he thought things would be better in the long run. He wouldn't ruin their friendship or make things awkward, but looking back now, it was painfully obvious she wouldn't have turned him down.

He was going to die with a list of regrets and her name was at the top of the list.

"We're not going to let you go. They paid good money to see you dead and we're going to deliver. They wanted to wait a few more days, make you bleed a bit more, but with an ass load of cops headed this way, that's not going to happen."

Barba's train of self-pitying thoughts was derailed at the mention of the police, his chest filling with hope. Had that girl listened to his pleas for help? Had she gone to Liv like he asked her to? She must have. He'd been missing for how long and a few hours after he asked for help, the police were racing to his location?

Barba got so excited he almost laughed in relief, but the sudden appearance of a sharp pocket knife glinting in the light of the basement killed that immediately. Victor knelt in front of him, getting on his level. He moved closer, letting the blade rest against his cheek and dragged it down, past the stubble, down his throat and ending halfway down his jugular.

It hovered there, scratching his skin before Victor moved it away, dragging it back up his face and towards his eye. Barba tried to stop the shaking and flinching every time the sharp blade scratched his skin, leaving an angry, red mark in its track. He could feel a small trickle of bleed seep down his cheek and down his lips. He could taste copper as he inhaled deeply, trying to contain himself.

"Don't worry…I'm not going to kill you here," Victor said softly, his brown eyes meeting Barba's green eyes, a little wide as he pulled the blade away from his face completely. It disappeared and Barba exhaled, feeling some of the tension leave his body the moment the knife was pulled away from his eye.

Victor glanced behind him and a wicked smile formed across his lips. He winked at Zeke, who was looking pale and like he wanted to run before he turned back and shared the same smile with a fearful Barba.

"But we're going to leave your favorite detectives a little present."

December 6th – 4:30 p.m.

Liv jumped out of the police van as soon as it pulled to a stop, racing behind SWAT as they stormed the front and back of the house. She could feel her detectives bringing up the rear, suited up and guns drawn at the ready. Up ahead and behind, cruisers had blocked off the street while uniforms lined the streets surrounding, making sure the neighbors and civilians were staying back and didn't have any weapons they could pull.

Liv clutched her gun tightly, a dark feeling settling in her stomach as they moved closer and stopped on the sidewalk. They watched as SWAT banged on the door a few times before swinging and breaching the door with the battering ram.

The sound was loud and echoed down the street, shaking her to her core. The bang of the flash bang going off followed immediately, smoke billowing out of the door as the SWAT officers moved in a single file line. Liv and Carisi moved further up the front steps while Amanda and Fin ran around the back, making sure every exit was covered.

They waited for the all clear before they were ushered into the house, the room smoky but visible, all four of them meeting in the same room. The house was dirty and it smelled, right off the bat.

The carpeted floors were overrun with dirt and other substances, piles of trash in every corner of the living room. Drug paraphernalia was everywhere, loitering almost every available surface the room had to offer, along with beer cans and empty liquor bottles. Not to mention the number of drugs sitting in plain view on the dirty glass coffee table.

Liv shook her head in disgust and trekked into the kitchen, noticing immediately the old wooden door that Lexi said led to the basement. It had been opened and cleared and Liv could feel a bit of bile rising in her throat when she saw two heavily uniformed SWAT officers walking up the steps and out of their way. Their hands were empty and they didn't say a word.

She wanted to ask if anyone was down there but the words were stuck in her throat that had gone bone dry. Behind her, she could feel Carisi place a comforting hand on her back, pushing her to walk down the stairs.

Her feet moved a fraction of an inch towards the steps, dreading walking down the rickety wooden steps because she knew what she was going to see when they got down there. SWAT officers called something when they saw it. They didn't just walk away empty handed or kept information to themselves. The fact that she could see the armed men milling about, as if nothing was wrong was making her sick.

Amanda noticed it, too. Eyes scanning worriedly about the crowd and she eyed Fin behind her, noticing the man's neutral expression. He knew what was happening, just like Liv did. Amanda placed her hand on Carisi's arm, shaking her head so he could stop pushing their Lieutenant to walk down the stairs. He was confused, even angry for a second and was about to voice it when a booming voice from down a little hallway, separating the kitchen and living room called for a few detectives.

Fin was the first to break off, tugging on Carisi's jacket to follow him and the younger detective did, reluctantly casting Liv a glance before racing after Fin.

"Liv…," she said softly, "Let me go."

"No."

The sternness in her voice almost echoed in the kitchen and the dark-haired woman pushed past her, forcing Amanda to take a few steps back. Liv practically stomped down the stairs, hand still holding her firearm. Amanda followed her down, keeping her distance.

Liv walked around the stairs and came to a stop in the center of the room, her boots clicking on the concrete floor loudly. There was a click and the room lit up from the grimy light bulb swinging above Liv's head. Amanda squinted, taken aback by the sudden presence of light but looked around the room, scanning the small space for anything out of the ordinary.

Liv took a few staggered steps forward, eyes catching something gleaming on the floor. She squatted down, gun dropping on the floor with a loud clang that made Amanda flinch. The blonde stood unsure near the stairs, taking hesitant steps towards Liv.

The woman's back was to her, but there was an unmistakable inhale of shuddered breath and sniffling. Liv wasn't a crier, at least not in front of her squad. Amanda didn't ever think she would or could see the woman break. She was strong, much like herself, but there were some thing's that just got to strong women in ways other things couldn't.

Amanda came to a stop behind Liv, eyes landing on a large puddle of dark blood, seeping into the cracks on the floor. In the center was a gold cross chain, one she'd seen hiding under Barba's unfastened shirts from time to time.

It was his, she knew it and Liv knew it.

He'd been here and they took him. They were too late and the gravity of that was hitting them in full force.

It was quite for a few moments before Liv stood and wiped her nose. She turned and fixed Amanda with a cold stare, eyes emotionless. Her voice was still thick with tears but it was steady and strong as she gave her orders.

"Get CSU down here. Now."