It started as an agreement. She'd pretend to be his girlfriend so he wouldn't be pressured to date when he didn't want to. But what if it turns into something real?

"What the hell are you doing here?" he pressed out with a strained voice. Olivia couldn't remember hearing him sound like this, ever. Cassandra, the smile melting off her face, stepped back again and straightened her back. "I represent Dylan Cooper." Rafael's lips twitched and Olivia grew more and more confused by the second. "You don't practice in New York," Rafael argued, his expression growing from whatever shock he had lived through to...angry? Yes, Olivia decided, questionably, snippily, angry. Highly unlike Rafael Barba angry. A case with almost no evidence, an ex-girlfriend he hadn't seen in ten years, and the overwhelming feeling the universe was out to get him. Will he be able to solve the case and save his heart, or will the old pain destroy him?

ADA Rafael Barba prided himself on being unshakable in the courtroom, a man of logic and precision who thrived under pressure. But when Lieutenant Olivia Benson called him to the hospital late on a Sunday night, her voice tight with urgency, his world tilted off its axis. The victim wasn't just another case-she was Sophie McCoy, Jack McCoy's brilliant and fiercely independent daughter. Worse still, she was his Sophie, the woman he'd been secretly seeing for months. As the weight of the situation settled over him, Barba realized he wasn't just fighting for justice this time-he might be fighting for his own freedom. Secrets, lies, and the thin line between love and betrayal threaten to unravel everything as Barba is thrust into the most personal and perilous case of his career. All SVU characters belong to Dick Wolf.