Daddy - An SVU fic

5.No fight left

She had no idea how much time had passed but she'd fallen asleep there on the floor after her sobs had exhausted her. She still wasn't sure that she hadn't suffered a concussion, the pain in the back of her head still just as fresh as it has been when she'd first opened her eyes in this room before the sun had come up.

For a long moment she didn't move from the fetal position she'd curled herself into; she simply lay there quietly, barely breathing and absently listening to the sounds beneath her ear that was pressed against the floor while her eyes followed a small beetle across the room. She watched it intently as it crawled under the door and into the room, seemingly fascinated by it as it made its way across the floor. Her eyes stayed with it while it scurried beneath the bed, heading no place in particular, just going about its day.

"All this time and you still never told me what happened to you"

"That's because you don't need those images in your head..."

...such a stupid thing to fight about" she thought to herself. Thinking back, she wished that she had opened up about it, maybe it would have helped her deal. She wondered why she felt more comfortable talking to a virtual stranger about the horrors she'd suffered than she did the man she'd cared so deeply for; loved. Maybe it was because deep down she knew that they wouldn't last because nothing ever lasted. Sometimes love just wasn't enough... and she'd learned that lesson more times than she cared to remember. Slowly, she blinked her eyes and allowed them again to focus on the beetle under the bed.

***

"I'm telling you, I haven't seen Faith in over a year!" The man yelled, tired of trying to convince the detectives of this. When they turned up nothing at Faith's apartment, Amanda did some further digging and found the young woman's marriage license from 2012 and petition for divorce that was filed just 14 months later. They quickly tracked Marco Acocella to the posh Manhattan nightclub he owned - he had been in the middle of getting the place ready for tonight's crowd when they hauled him in for questioning.

"Until you beat her and killed her last night!" Nick yelled

"What? No! I...Faith's dead?" he asked, seemingly hurt and surprised by the revelation

"Because you had no idea..." Fin scoffed before he got in the Young man's face and lowered his voice to near a whisper. "You listen to me, you already looking guilty for your ex wife's murder, you don't want to be charged with killing a cop on top of that. Now I get it, couples go through things...maybe it got out of hand, Benson intervened and you lost it."

"I...I didn't..."

"Maybe you had help but I believe you're smart enough to not hurt her; maybe you just wanted to scare her. Come on man, you tell us where Sergeant Benson is and I will personally talk to the DA; get you a real good deal. I can make them understand why you felt driven to do what you did"

'I don't know what you're talking about!" Marco insisted, tears filling his eyes. "I cared about Faith, I would never do anything to hurt her, I would never do anything to hurt anyone; search my record, you won't find so much as a traffic ticket...I'M NOT A CRIMINAL!" he sobbed

"Only when you rape and beat her right?"

"I never laid a hand on her, and I don't know anything about a cop! Why aren't you people listening to me and going after the real killer? Faith and I only got married because my visa expired!"

"Greencard marriage..." Nick said

"Yes! She agreed to do it and I paid her twenty five thousand dollars. We lived together for a year until I got my citizenship and after we divorced, I let her keep the apartment and I continued to pay her rent. I swear to you, I never hurt her and I haven't seen her since we divorced!" he was scared to death and in tears at this point.