A/N: Did someone say "Dana Lewis"? :D She's a favorite character of mine (Marcia Gay Harden is in-freaking-credible), and I was bummed out she got such a raw, shitty deal on the show. It never added up to me, so here's my interpretation of events. Hope you guys like it. Trigger warnings are a bit more mild on this one, too: still mentions of rape/sexual violence, but they're more like flashes. In other good news, my schedule has opened up recently, so I should be able to keep a more consistent posting schedule from now on.

The winds are getting stronger
And the sky is falling through
And you ain't got much longer
Til the rage rips off the roof
I'm a tornado... and I'm coming after you...

- "Tornado," Little Big Town

Chapter 14.

F5

. . .

After years spent infiltrating hate groups and terrorist cells, you developed a strong stomach. Dealing with the slime of the earth, befriending them and being welcomed into the fold, you had to. If there was a single doubt in your mind, they smelled it on you—and you could kiss your sorry ass goodbye.

Dana Lewis had built an entire career around that ability to put aside her morals and sometimes her conscience (the still, small voice Mama had always talked about), to shapeshift and become that which she was not. There were moments when she had almost lost her way, after witnessing the atrocities humans were capable of, and suffering a few of them herself.

But she had stayed the course through it all, everything from living and working among white supremacists who thought nothing of spitting on a child of color (she had developed stomach ulcers during that case), to her own rape by a man she still had nightmares about from time to time. Getting arrested for murder so she could be sent to Bedford Hills Correctional and take down a powerful criminal network, which consisted of COs, prisoners, and outside sources alike, had been no walk in the park, either.

She'd taken part in a prison riot, literally been shanked by an inmate who just didn't like her face, and witnessed three murders during the Bedford stretch.

Yet, in all that time, and in her years of undercover work since then, Dana had never seen anything as devastating or as gut-wrenching as the scene unfolding on the flat-screen a few yards away. After the rape, she had specifically avoided cases involving sex crimes, but you could never escape it altogether. Sooner or later, some scumbag raped some defenseless girl, and Dana couldn't just turn tail and run.

The horrors she encountered while busting human trafficking rings were many, but she didn't know those people. No matter how unlivable the conditions, how unspeakable the abuse, she could go home at night, feed her fish, and mostly forget the victims' faces by the time she dozed off in her nice warm bed. There were too many to remember them all.

But this face belonged to Olivia Benson. Though they hadn't spoken in years—not since Dana led the younger woman to believe she was guilty of the murder she had framed herself for—she considered Olivia a friend. She liked the policewoman, respected her even, and there were precious few people left whom she could say that about.

In another life, Dana might even have liked Olivia as more than a friend.

She closed her eyes and gathered herself just as one of the men on the screen pushed Olivia's head towards his erect penis, while two of the others penetrated her from the front and the back. Dana expected screaming, muffled cries, sounds of a tussle—the Olivia Benson she had known was one helluva fighter, God love her—but she heard nothing beyond the men's lewd panting and jeering.

For a moment she felt the weight of a two hundred and twenty pound man on top of her, and then it was gone. She opened her eyes just to be sure, but all she saw was her old friend, who had dedicated her whole life to protecting women from similar degradation, being torn apart. It was enough to make you lose your faith in humanity, if you even had any left to begin with. She had seriously begun to doubt hers, and she was quickly losing confidence in the operation of this squad room as well.

Assistant Director Danvers hadn't had time to fill Dana in on what to expect upon arrival at Manhattan SVU, only that their captain had been abducted by Dreamland, the title some irreverent twerp of a field agent had slapped on the trafficking ring headed by Gustav Sandberg, AKA The Sandman. He wasn't her division's prime target—the head of the snake that needed to be lopped off, else it keep thriving—but he had risen to the top spot in Manhattan after John Drake got himself killed in a courtroom shootout with police.

That news was bad enough to make Dana break her pledge not to set foot in the one-six again. After the murder rap, she'd lost the few friends she had, and convinced herself it was better if Olivia never find out that Dana had lied to and manipulated her for the job. A couple of Christmases ago, while feeling nostalgic and lonesome for a family that didn't exist, she had almost broken down and called Olivia, but after a little preparatory digging, she discovered that the other woman was now Captain Benson and a mother of two. No way would Dana interfere—or try to compete—with that.

But the call from Chief Garland, fielded by Dana's boss and relayed to her section, sealed it. She had gathered her team and raced to the precinct, stopping just short of jumping on her motorcycle and yelling for them to meet her there as she sped away. Entering the squad room to find Olivia naked on a television screen, already in the throes of a nasty gang rape (not surprising; Dreamland didn't waste any time turning out new girls), was bad enough. It was the cops standing around like a bunch of mourners, though, watching their boss get fucked seven ways to Sunday, and no one giving orders, that really pissed Dana off.

Fucking amateur hour at the NYPD, ladies and gents.

She was about to crank up the volume and the bitchiness on her previous inquiry—who was running this shit show?—when the door to what she vaguely recalled as an interview room swung open. "What the hell?" asked Detective Tutuola, gaping at her as if she were Jesus Christ arisen from the tomb.

Dana usually did enjoy making an entrance, but now was not the time. Without giving the detective a chance to do much more than step aside, she plowed into the room at full force. Though she lacked the height advantage, she was stout and bullheaded, a combo that had carried her through Quantico and prison. Men and inmates, it turned out, did not know how to handle a woman they couldn't intimidate.

"Long story. Detective Tutuola." Dana tipped him a brief nod. She had always liked the man, and she would have preferred giving him the courtesy of an explanation. But as her daddy used to say, want in one hand and shit in the other. "Who has seniority in this—"

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

A female voice this time. Dana hadn't noticed anyone else in the room, a gross oversight that was totally unlike her. She chalked it up to being shaken by what she'd seen in the bullpen, and turned with a sharp retort on her lips. It died out when she saw the little blond detective she just barely recalled from her last summons to the precinct. Dana couldn't remember the girl's name (Roland, maybe?), but she did remember the hero worship in those blue eyes every time they were fixed on Olivia Benson.

It had amused Dana—Benson was woefully oblivious to the adoration—and annoyed her at the same time—if any cute, sassy Southern girl got to make eyes at Olivia, it should be Dana herself. She'd just never found the right moment. And now . . . Olivia looked like a boneless, lifeless rag doll the men were twisting and posing for their sick pleasure.

The blonde had been watching the rape on a laptop, which her eyes kept straying back to, and she looked as if she'd recently done some heavy-duty bawling. Her entire face was puffy and red as fire. She looked like a grief-stricken child sitting there in that oversized NYPD sweatshirt, and Dana softened her expression accordingly.

"I'm here to help you get your captain back alive, Detective," she said. Expecting that to be that, she glanced to Fin, who now regarded her with less apostolic amazement and more officerial suspicion. But before she could continue, the little blond girl had to put in her two cents again.

"Like hell ya are. She sent your ass to prison for killin' a pregnant woman. I don't know how you got out already, but you ain't FBI anymore, sister. So just turn your baby-killer ass around and get the hell outta here. Go on, git." The detective swiped at a stack of files in front of her, scattering them across the table. They coughed out several loose sheets of paper that flapped in Dana's direction like oncoming birds.

Well, the girl had sass, Dana would give her that. And the accent was pure Georgia sticks if she had ever heard one. They probably had some kinfolk in common; she had lots of family over that way. But Southern roots and the possibility of being related weren't enough to get on Dana's good side, especially with an attitude like that.

"Now, you listen here, baby sister, I'm—"

"Hold up, hold up." Detective Tutuola raised his hands, one palm facing the blonde, the other pointed at Dana. There was an authoritative tone to his voice that she didn't recall hearing during their past encounters. "I think she's still FBI, Rollins. I dunno how. But check out the jacket, and she's got a squad out there." He jerked a nod at the plate glass window and the other agents setting up headquarters in the outer room. "And since I'm Liv's second, I gotta ask: how the hell are you here, Lewis?"

Rollins. That was the blonde's name. And Tutuola had moved up the ranks since last time; good for him, he was a solid cop. "Look, Detective, Sergeant—" Fin answered Dana's questioning glance with an affirmative nod. "It's a long story. Suffice it to say, I'm obviously not a murderin' baby killer. I needed to get into prison undercover, and it had to be believable. Now that assignment is over, and I'm on to the next."

"She's not a goddamn assignment," Rollins snarled, shooting out of her chair like she was spring loaded. She stood quivering with fury from her white-blond head to her clunky tennis shoes—odd attire for an on-duty detective—and appeared for a moment as if she might launch across the table herself and throttle Dana.

Instead, she cast a forlorn look at the laptop, where the men were switching positions, laughing and jostling Olivia between them in a macabre, feverish orgy, and choked back a sob. "She's my wife," the blonde said in a thick, catching voice, then crouched beside the table, gripping the ledge, and rested her forehead on her hands. She shook her head and cried with such vehemence it sounded as if she were laughing hysterically. "She's not your g-goddamn assignment, she's m-my— she's my—"

The rest was swallowed up by tears, but Dana had heard the important part. Wide-eyed, she glanced to Sergeant Tutuola and received another nod of confirmation. "They just celebrated their one-year anniversary a couple months ago," he said in a hushed tone. "Got a new baby and three other little kids at home."

"Oh my Jesus." Dana's hands flew to her open mouth, covering the gap with her fingers. She was almost never left speechless, but that had done it. The horrors on the video feed were awful enough on their own; knowing they were happening to Olivia Benson was ten times worse; knowing they were happening to a mother who had four little ones depending on her was unfathomable.

And Olivia was married. To a woman. Any fantasies Dana had about riding in on a white horse to rescue the captain were swiftly and efficiently snuffed out. She prided herself on not being the jealous type—territorial, yes, but nothing so petty as jealousy—yet in that moment, she felt stung and somehow betrayed by her friend. She'd thought they would go on married to the job and dancing around their attraction to each other for at least the rest of their careers, if not their lives.

One look at the wretched creature on the laptop screen and the gutted wife below, and Dana was back on track. She wouldn't mourn the loss of that dream life any more than all the other lives she might have lived, real or imagined.

No, ma'am, she would not.

"My God. I had no idea. That is just—" Dana shook her head grimly. There truly were no words for it; anything she chose would have sounded like she was making light of the situation. And that was unacceptable. "I'm so sorry, Detective Rollins . . . "

"Amanda," the sergeant said softly, when Dana looked back for assistance.

"I'm so sorry, Amanda. This must be the worst kind of hell for you. I didn't mean to imply that Bens— that your wife is just another case. I assure you, she is not." Dana bent down and gathered the handful of papers the detective had knocked onto the floor. She stood and placed them on the table carefully, as if it were Amanda she was handling and not the rap sheets of those devils hurting Olivia. "I have the utmost respect for her, and I'll do everything in my power to get her back to you and your babies."

Amanda had turned her cheek against the back of her hands, peering over at the livestream and taking deep, juddering breaths. She tried to exhale steadily, doing some sort of breathing exercise, but she had already worked herself into a state, like a child who couldn't come down from a tantrum. "H-how'm I suh-supposed to trust y-you?" she asked, between the heaving and sniffling. "You're a liar."

After a glimpse at the screen, where a guy with more tattoos and piercings than unmarked skin was wiping his ejaculate off of Olivia's face with a cloth, Dana gentled her voice another octave. "Honey, I don't think you have much choice. All I can do to prove I'm legit is bust my ass to find your girl. And that's what I'm here to do."

Dana considered adding that, even if she were a jilted ex who had murdered her lover's girlfriend and their unborn child, she was still the best damn G-woman to step foot out of Virginia. She nixed the idea as quick as it came. Neither cop was in the mood for her bravado just then, and despite what schoolmates and colleagues had always thought of her, she did know how to rein in her larger than life personality.

Sniffing hard, Amanda rose to her feet like the air intake had boosted her. She was a skinny little thing, the only baby weight that remained concentrated to her breasts. (Dana assumed that meant breastfeeding, though she honestly couldn't say; she'd never done such a thing—or had children, for that matter.) "Ok-kay. What do you need from m-me?" the detective asked, her eyes locked on Olivia.

The captain looked as though she had deserted her body entirely, and it wasn't any wonder, with what the men were doing to it. The kid in the cap had joined in now, too. The Sandman presided over all, sometimes instructing, sometimes participating, but always making sure Olivia's face was turned to the camera.

Dana kept her eyes on him. The others were just puppets getting their strings pulled, albeit willingly. Gus Sandberg, however, was the puppeteer in this theater of the damned. There might be financiers and artistic directors with far more power than he, but in that lonely, lowly room with Olivia Benson? He was god.

"Tell me everything you know about that fucker in the leather jacket," Dana said, pointing to Gus. "And how he ended up with your captain."

. . .

Unfortunately, neither Amanda or Fin knew much about the man known throughout the criminal circuit as The Sandman—less than Dana, in fact. He had been on the FBI's radar for some time, though it was in the past seven years that his empire had grown to troubling proportions. He'd also become far more difficult to catch, in part because he was key to bringing down the bigger fish. If the Bureau brought him in, they risked scaring off a supplier whose reach was global, not just Manhattan based.

In the meantime, the smaller fish had gotten away.

The cops had far more information on Sandberg's goons, which included two of his sons. No big shocker there, these guys loved to pass on their legacies of sin and corruption. But it was the muscular Latino man that showed the most promise as being a lead. Firstly, because Amanda had a connection to him (Dana got the sense that the sergeant and detective were leaving out parts of the story, but trusted that they weren't withholding anything critical—not with Olivia's life on the line), and secondly, because he had connections.

Sondra Vaughn ran her own little criminal enterprise out of Sealview Correctional, and everybody knew it. Everybody except the NYPD, it seemed. To be fair, it was out of the one-six's jurisdiction, and until now, there hadn't been any reason for the incarcerated woman to come to the attention of Manhattan SVU a second time. As for Anton Nadari, Vaughn's ex-lover, he was living the high life from his luxury cell in Sing Sing. Money really could get you everything, including special treatment in prison. Couldn't stop you from being a lowlife, though; Nadari had as much pull now as he did on the outside, if not more.

"You're looking into this Riva guy, then?" Dana asked, studying his mugshot on paper instead of his likeness on screen. He was the one currently in Benson's mouth. "And his association with Vaughn?"

"Got one of our officers on her way to Sealview now," said Tutuola. He only glanced at the livestream sparingly and for the briefest of moments. He cleared his throat and balled his hands together at chest level each time. "Might already be there. She's good. If Vaughn's involved, Kat'll get it out of her."

"She's involved," Amanda said darkly. Her eyes hadn't left the video feed of her tortured wife the entire time she'd detailed where the investigation stood. "This is her MO. Rape as revenge. It's the kind of crime women think up."

Hell hath no fury, Dana thought, but kept that tidbit to herself. It was obvious from every word out of Amanda's mouth, every tearful shudder, every heartsick expression as she guarded the laptop like a junkyard dog, that she blamed herself for her wife's predicament. And she was right about Vaughn—women weren't typically the criminal masterminds, but when they were, God help the poor soul who wronged them. Or that poor soul's wife.

"No disrespect to your officer, but how 'bout we send one of my guys out to Sealview to help lean on Vaughn?" Dana wasn't really asking—she had the authority to do it, and she would send someone, with or without the cops' approval—but it was better to stay on good terms with the people you had to work alongside of. Especially when one of them was personally involved in your case. "Might sweat it out of her if she thinks she's facing criminal charges."

The sergeant and detective gave their consent, and after Dana whistled out the door for Agent Marquez and instructed him to assist Officer Tamin in her interrogation at Sealview, she turned back to them and took a deep breath.

"Okay, here's what I know," she said, mostly addressing Fin. The Rollins girl was lost in the video stream again. "Your captain was abducted by a group of traffickers my people call Dreamland. They're located in Manhattan, but harder to lure out than those fellas in Afghanistan. The leader, the one y'all know as Sandman, is extra slippery. Moves more product in and out of this city than you would believe. Y'all took down Johnny Drake, I followed that trial . . . "

Actually, she'd still been in Bedford at the time, but she had seen the newspaper articles and news coverage that mentioned Manhattan SVU as the squad that unseated Johnny D from his throne as king pimp of New York City. After the undercover gig had ended and Dana eventually got involved in the trafficking division, she had retroactively studied the case, just to get a feel for what she was going up against.

"Well, Sandberg is just as bad, if not worse. His girls—" Dana caught herself about to say something that would be deeply insensitive to bring up in front of the spouse. (If Amanda couldn't stand to hear her wife called an assignment, she sure as shit wouldn't be able handle the news that many of Sandberg's girls were so psychologically damaged they ended up committing suicide, even after rescue.) She rerouted as quickly as if she were cutting a sharp corner on her chopper.

"He gets 'em from all over, 'cause he has some serious connections. That's actually how I ended up on this case. Sandberg might have a lot of clout here in the city, but even he's kissing someone else's ring. Got a guy we're looking for—"

"What'd you just say?" Amanda asked out of nowhere. It was the first indication she'd given that she heard anything other than Olivia's occasional muffled cries, which sounded much the same as the noises torture victims made after a round of waterboarding—not that Dana had ever participated. Same concept, though: the men were drowning Olivia on dry land.

"That we're looking for a guy—"

Amanda shook her head and made an impatient gesture for Dana to move it along. "No, the part about kissing a ring?" She pried her eyes away from the laptop long enough to glance over her shoulder, an odd expression on her pale face. It did look as if she had seen a ghost, but given her viewing material, that was understandable. "I've heard that somewhere before."

"Oh." Dana glanced at Fin, like he might know where this would lead. The sergeant was staring at Olivia's body—it was hard to reconcile the lifeless prop on the screen to vital, vibrant Olivia herself—and massaging his knuckles compulsively. "It's a saying," she said to Amanda, trying not to sound as impatient as she felt, standing there discussing fashion accessories. "And the guy really does wear a signet ring on his pinky. Celtic symbol of some kind. Likes to burn it into the skin of his girls. Been the only identifiable mark on some of them when they end up in the morgue."

Not until Amanda blanched a few shades whiter did Dana realize what she'd said. It was too late now to backtrack, and she wasn't the type to stutter and stammer after a faux pas. The best thing to do was just keep going. "He's a hard sumbitch to catch because he knows law enforcement like my mama knew the Bible. Thanks to you guys."

"Huh?" Fin finally looked away from his captain, his eyes a tumultuous black when they found Dana. Fairly calm on the outside, he was a raging storm within.

"He's one of yours. NYPD, that is." Dana hitched a thumb at the squad room, as if it housed the entire New York City police force in its walls. "Spent too long undercover with trafficker scum and it turned his head. Guess he sampled the merchandise one too many times and got a taste for it. Now he's the biggest cheese in the East Coast flesh trade. You can bet he had a hand in this." She gestured to the haggard, tear-stained, empty-eyed face on the laptop, then snatched her hand and her gaze away.

Sergeant Tutuola's lips curled into a sneer. "This asshole got a name? I'd like to find his training officer and rip off that dude's ball sack. Cram it down this other guy's throat when I find him."

Yes, Dana had always liked Mr. Tutuola. "Indeed he does. Fella by the name of Declan Murphy. Figures he'd be Irish, they're a bunch of—"

Before Dana could finish the less than P.C. sentence (she didn't really have anything against the Irish, and she doubted the man with the last name Tutuola and a penchant for ripping off ball sacks, and Rollins, the second most Southern female in the room, would take offense), Amanda spun her chair around so forcefully it bashed against the table.

"What the hell? Is this all a fucking joke to you?" The detective was visibly seething, her chest heaving as if it contained a much larger creature about to claw its way out. And from the looks of it, that creature wanted to grab the nearest sharp object and jam it into Dana's carotid. "Fin, get her outta here. She's nothing but a damn liar. Prob'ly idn't even real FBI anymore, just here to get her kicks."

Deeply confused, Dana glanced at the sergeant for clarification. She had known reintegrating with the SVU squad would be tough, especially since the only one present whom she had history with was Fin, but she didn't anticipate being cussed at and thrown out of the room—at least not after they realized she was there to help.

"Rollins . . . " Fin spoke in Amanda's direction, though his eyes never left Dana's. He sounded wary, dubious, but he nodded as if he saw something in Dana's face that answered his questions. "I think she means it. There's no reason for her to lie about that. And it makes sense."

"Fin," Amanda said, the betrayal she felt evident in her rising tone. She flung her arms wide on either side of the chair. "How the hell does that make sense? Murphy's good police. He ain't some lowlife trafficker."

Fin cast an apologetic look at the detective. His elbows were tight to his sides, his hands still polishing each other like he was washing them. "I'm sorry, Amanda. I know you two got history. But I seen it plenty before. Watched a lot of good cops go bad working narcotics. They think they got it all under control until it bites 'em in the ass."

"That's drugs, it's not . . . " Amanda gestured at the laptop, looking mournfully back at it. She released a shuddering breath at the sight of Olivia surrounded by all those sweaty, grunting men. "Not this."

"You know how deep Murphy goes when he's UC. Remember all those girls who told us he pimped them out last time we arrested him? It's a thin line, and he probably crossed it one too many times."

"He said those girls were lyin'! He said he never touched them! He said—" A green tint finally put some color in Amanda's wan cheeks, and she glanced at the trash basket near her feet. She tucked her hair behind her ears several times, bending slightly forward as if she had a runner's cramp. "He's Jesse's daddy, Fin. He can't be a sex trafficker. He can't be responsible for this."

Brow knitted in concern for his colleague—who went on muttering he can't, he can't while clutching her stomach and repeatedly rocking forward in the swivel chair—the sergeant looked to Dana urgently. "Are you sure he really turned? Could he be trying not to blow his cover? We had a guy a few years back get accused of raping a prostitute, but it was a setup. Turned out he just went into the room with her and talked."

Dana had no idea what she'd walked into here at the one-six, but she got the feeling she wasn't going to make any friends during this assignment. "Negative. Murphy does a helluva lot more than talk to his girls. Bureau's had an eye on him for about eight years now. At first it looked like he was just building up his reputation, getting in good with the right folks, trying not to blow his cover, as you said. But then he came back from Serbia with a whole mess of girls supposedly rescued from a brothel there. My ass. He brought 'em back to the states to pimp 'em out himself. His communication with NYPD went dark around that time. Been AWOL ever since."

Met by absolute silence, except for the nauseating sounds coming from the laptop, Dana glanced back and forth between the cops. She might as well ask, or God knew how long they would all just be standing around like they were getting milked. "Who's Jesse?"

"She's Amanda's kid. And Liv's," Fin said quietly, when the detective made no attempt to answer. It looked as if she were crumbling on the inside, her slender frame outwardly sagging beneath the baggy sweatshirt. "Murphy's the . . . biological father. He was commanding officer of SVU for about two seconds."

The response was so unexpected, so awful, it took Dana a few moments to register what she had heard. She knew Murphy had gotten around quite a bit in his career—both of them—but she didn't recall reading anything about his stint with SVU, and she certainly hadn't come across any information about him having a daughter. With Olivia Benson's wife. He really was a chameleon, as his mandatory psych evals consistently stated.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph." Immediately after the words left her mouth, Dana bit her tongue out of habit. Her mama had always gotten after her for taking God's name in vain. She had a feeling The Big Man would forgive her this one (who wouldn't swear after a revelation like that?), so she said a silent prayer of repentance to Mama and pushed on. "I had no idea y'all had worked that closely with him. Or that he—"

A hard, warning look from Amanda made Dana choose her next words carefully. "Had any personal stock in this . . . travesty."

They were the wrong words nonetheless.

"He doesn't," Amanda said hotly, practically rising from the chair in her vehemence. There was murder in her devil-blue eyes. "He's never even met her. Jesse. He doesn't give a damn about her or me. We got drunk and stupid one night, and I was— I used him. For my own reasons. But he used me too. He knew my—"

The detective couldn't seem to finish a full thought, let alone a full sentence. She raked her fingers through her disheveled blond hair, catching on snarls and yanking through them the way Dorothy Lewis used to comb bubblegum out of six-year-old Dana's pigtails.

"He's never reached out to you about his child?" Dana asked, trying not to sound dubious. Her own daddy had been a Virginia coal miner who died of black lung before he got to see her graduate the academy; she remembered him as a quiet, somber figure, but one whose love and dedication to his family never wavered. Even when he was in a hospital bed, coughing up blood and black mucus.

Not all fathers were that devoted, she knew. Still, it took a possessive and controlling sort to do the work Declan Murphy had appointed himself for, and men like that usually held onto their offspring and personal relationships with an iron fist. Especially the women. "Not even once?"

"Jesse is my kid. Mine and Liv's." Amanda brought her fist hard against her chest, then even harder against the table. "He doesn't have any claim on her, we dissolved his parental rights when Liv adopted her." She gasped the second she heard herself, hand flying to her mouth, eyes flying to the laptop screen. "You don't think that's why this is happening? He wouldn't. He only reached out to me the once, before Jess was even born, and then he disappeared back to . . . Serbia. Oh, Jesus."

Dana clasped her hands behind her back, waiting grimly as the poor little blonde put the pieces together for herself. She did in fact think that was precisely why this was happening to Olivia. The captain had become so much collateral damage (and if the men didn't give her a break soon, this might become a recovery mission, rather than an abduction case). Best to let Detective Rollins come around to the idea on her own.

"Oh, Jesus," Amanda said again, and did not feel the need to bite her tongue. She kept tearing at her hair, though. Several strands were entangled around her fingers like golden cobwebs. "He went there to bring back girls to pimp out. The sonuvabitch gave me his phone number in case I needed anything, then went back to that?"

The detective's head lolled backward, her eyes on the ceiling, and for a second it looked as if she were about to direct a prayer heavenward. "If he is doing this because he thinks I took Jesse away from him, then it's my fault. That . . . Liv." Her hand wavered in front of the screen at which she pointed. "I talked her into dissolving his rights. I told her it wouldn't matter. I told her it wasn't the same as her growing up without a daddy. I con-convinced her— I said it would all be okay."

Despite speaking out loud, Amanda clearly was not talking to anyone in the room. She began to sob again, tears streaming along her temples and into her hairline. She took huge, gasping breaths, coughing them out, until she had to tip her head back down or risk choking. Her hand was still outstretched at the laptop, and she touched Olivia's tortured body with her fingertips.

The men appeared to have finished with the captain, at least for the moment, and mingled in the corner of the shot like addicts chatting after an NA meeting. Olivia was left to languish belly-down on the desk where they had just been raping her. From the looks of it, she didn't even have the strength to lift her head.

Fin observed the scene—Amanda trying to reach out to her wife, Olivia in such profound shock she could hardly blink—with deep sorrow, shaking his head as if he couldn't believe the injustice of it all. "I'm sorry, Amanda," he said, and gestured for Dana to follow him out of the room. "I gotta go talk with Agent Lewis some more. See if we can figure this thing out. I'll update you as soon as—"

"Oh my God, what's he doing?" Amanda leaned forward and squinted at the screen like an old, myopic woman whose hearing was also failing—she didn't appear to have heard Fin at all. And it wasn't any wonder. Gus Sandberg was approaching Olivia with a knife similar to the ones the black ops guys used. Small, efficient, and deadly. "Oh my God. Don't you fucking touch her, you son of a bitch!"

The wife went on railing at the Sandman, her sergeant trying to no avail to quiet her, but for Dana it all faded into background noise. She was certain she was about to see Olivia being raped with that knife, and the thought made her insides feel loose and watery. Try as she might to keep the voice at bay, she heard it whisper, You got a velvet throat, honey. She shook it from her head and found herself backing towards the door, preparing to run.

But the room and all its occupants suddenly froze as Sandberg descended with the knife, each stroke of the blade swift and brutal. Olivia didn't even cry out, although she probably couldn't with her head at that angle. Sandberg had not used the knife to penetrate her, but instead grabbed Olivia's long braid, jerked her head back with it, and began sawing through the hair like he was cutting rope. "Christ Almighty," Dana breathed, halfway between relief and horror. Amanda was moaning as if the blade had plunged into her gut.

Seven or eight inches of hair came free in the man's hand with only a few quick swipes—that knife was damn sharp—and Olivia's head whiplashed forward from the abrupt separation. Her body jerked once in response, like she was dreaming about falling, then settled bonelessly back against the desk. She whimpered only when Sandberg trailed the frayed ends of the braid along the back of her shoulders and commented, "I like your tattoo, Olivia. It suits you. I'm sorry about your hair, but I have my orders. It will make a lovely souvenir for your wife, don't you think?"

Olivia flinched back when he shook the severed plait in her face, prompting her to answer. She mouthed what looked like a yes, her nod even fainter, and let her eyes drift shut against anything else that might be shoved into her face. It reminded Dana of the way small children thought they couldn't be seen if their eyes were closed.

She wished she could close her eyes and block out this miserable damn mess too. But she had a job to do, and if she did it well enough, Olivia would be freed from the hell she was in. (Nice try, Lewis. You know she will never be free of this, even if you get her out alive. The hell is inside her now, same as it is in y—)

"Sergeant." Perhaps Dana spoke too abruptly, but she needed to get out of the small, confining room and into the bullpen where she could bark orders and lead the charge, whenever that might be. She felt for Amanda, she really did, but the detective was useless to the investigation right now—a distraught and sobbing spouse, more hindrance than help. Frankly, she didn't even belong at the precinct until this was over. "May I have a word?"

Manhattan SVU was already pushing the limits of protocol just by allowing Fin, a longtime colleague of Olivia's, to head the search for its captain. Dana would let that one slide because it was a small division and they needed all the help they could get, but the hysterical wife had to go.

She said as much to the sergeant after he told Amanda he would be back to check on her soon (no response) and reluctantly bowed out of the room. "Detective Rollins should not be here, Sergeant. She'd be better off at home with her kids than seeing this." Dana gestured to the flat-screen on the wall, but she could have pointed at any nearby electronic device. Olivia's haunted, hollow eyes stared out from all of them.

"I know. But you try making Rollins do something she don't wanna do." Fin quickly put up a hand to stop Dana when she reached for the interview room door, prepared to take on the task. "Hold up. She ain't gonna listen to you. She's already been through hell with Liv. You can't keep those two apart, I'm tellin' ya. If she's here, at least we can keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn't go off looking for Liv by herself."

Dana raised her eyebrows, as if the idea of a female officer taking matters into her own hands was unheard of, though she had done just that on numerous occasions. She'd gone after her own rapist and would have killed him if not for her badly trembling hands and that jackass Stabler taking the bullet instead. She still wished she hadn't missed.

What might she be willing to do in Amanda's place? To rescue—and avenge—the woman she loved?

"And these dumbfucks contacted her first, so we need her here in case they try again. Or in case they decide to grab her next." Fin cast a troubled glance back at his detective, visible through the plate glass, still weeping and tearing at her hair like Jewish mourners rending their clothes at a funeral. "I know she ain't okay, but she'd be worse at home. And I'm gonna call someone for her. She ain't gonna like it, but . . . "

"Okay, Sergeant. You convinced me. I'll leave her be." Dana cuffed the man lightly on the arm, trying for her usual camaraderie and ease, but only able to muster a halfhearted smile. "Let's you and me find Benson."

Fin nodded and fell into step with her. "Hey, Lewis?"

"Yeah?"

"Just call me Fin."

. . .