Chapter 27 - Jose Mortelli
published: Thursday, 30 April 2020
Annabeth clammed her phone between her ear and her shoulder, her hands preoccupied with pulling off her heels.
"Annabeth?" came Helen's voice through the phone.
"Hey," Annabeth groaned as she delighted in the feel of her uncaged feet. "I swear to you, Piper's shoes are torture instruments. My feet feel like they're bleeding."
Helen laughed. "Well, okay."
"This is my obligated call to tell you that I'm still alive before we go to Piper's house," Annabeth told her with an eye-roll. "You don't need to worry."
Helen hummed disapprovingly. "I'll always worry, Annabeth. Have fun, and be home for dinner tomorrow!"
The phone line clicked as she hung up. Annabeth sighed, moving to pocket her phone.
Gravel crunching echoed through the alleyway behind her. Annabeth paused, spinning on her heel as she scanned her surroundings. "Piper?"
When there was no answer, Annabeth swallowed nervously, gripping her phone tightly as she set down her heels.
"Hello?" she called out. Her voice reverberated from stone wall to wall. Gulping, Annabeth grabbed her shoes again and started forward, only to be met with a burly, bald man.
Her eyes widened in recognition; he was one of Mortelli's henchmen, that loan shark who gotten her stabbed.
A hand came up to clamp over her mouth before Annabeth could yell, her phone ripped out of her grip. Her muffled shouts still portrayed her fury as something swung down and slammed into the back of her head, blacking out the world.
+++++
Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Would you stop that?" Piper snapped, shooting a fidgeting Leo a glare.
"Sorry," he muttered sheepishly. "We've been waiting her for ten minutes. How long does it take Annabeth to make one phone call?"
Percy rolled his eyes. "I'll go get her." Shoving his hands in his pockets, Percy slowly made his way to the alleyway Annabeth had been in earlier, kicking stones as he went.
"Annabeth?" he called. His voice echoed from wall to wall, but no reply came. Frowning, Percy tried again, "Annabeth?"
He could've sworn that she was here a minute ago.
"Guys, she isn't here!" Percy yelled back, receiving groans from the rest of his friends. "I—" He cut himself off abruptly, eyes narrowing as he spotted a phone lying on the ground. Casing with the swirly marble patterns — Annabeth's phone.
"What?" Percy murmured under his breath, leaning down to pick it up. He turned it over in confusion.
"Where is she?" Jason said breathlessly as he jogged up to him.
"I have no idea," Percy said truthfully, handing him the phone. "This is her phone, isn't it?" He spun around in a circle, scanning the alleyway. No sign of Annabeth at all. "Maybe she dropped it on her way to find us and got lost?"
Jason raised an eyebrow. "Annabeth?"
Percy sighed. "Good point."
"What is taking you so—" Hazel stopped short. "Where's Annabeth?"
"We don't know," Percy told her helplessly.
"Well, unlock her phone," Hazel suggested. "What was she doing?"
Jason pressed his thumb to the home button, his fingerprint unlocking the phone with a soft click. He opened up the call application.
"Made a call to Helen a few minutes ago," Percy read off the screen. This was getting weirder and weirder by the second.
Jason pulled out his phone, dialling the same number. "Helen?"
Percy could hear the muffled voice of Annabeth's stepmother over the phone. "Jason? What's up?"
"Did Annabeth say anything about coming home today?" Jason asked.
Helen paused for a second, bewilderment leaking through her voice. "No. She said she was about to go home with Piper. Why? Is something up?"
"No, no problem," Jason said hastily. "She's just by the punch bowl, I see her now. Thanks, Helen."
As he hung up, Percy pulled Annabeth's phone out of his grip, an idea popping into his head. He double-clicked the home button curiously.
"Voice memos," he said weirdly. "Why would she use that?" Percy scrolled to the page and tapped on it, opening up a single voice memo, taken a few minutes ago.
The moment his finger pressed play, Percy froze up at the raspy voice that came through.
"I don't take unpaid debts lightly," a man crooned.
Percy's heart leaped into his throat in horror as he recognised it as none other than Jose Mortelli's voice. "Oh my God," he whispered, his knees shaking weakly.
"You failed to pay me in cash, so she'll pay with her life," Mortelli hissed. "Goodbye, Percy Jackson."
The line clicked off from the ten-second recording.
Percy tilted his head up to see Jason staring at him, fear written across his every feature. "That wasn't..." Jason trailed off, looking like he was about to be ill.
"Yeah," Percy said feverishly. "This-this can't be happening."
"What?" Hazel asked, bewildered. "Who was that?"
Percy leaned heavily against the wall, his stomach churning sickeningly. So a crime lord after him had taken Annabeth hostage. Was she even still alive?
"Mortelli," Jason said miserably. "The loan shark Gabe owed money to."
"He...he took her?" Hazel repeated. "Annabeth? I-What—" She cut herself off frustratedly. "No, this isn't happening. This is real life, not some kind of-of crime drama!"
"We have to call the police," Percy said abruptly, stumbling out of the alleyway, his phone already in his hand as he dialled 911. His head swirled; Annabeth was gone. She was missing. Oh God, what was he going to do?
"Percy?" Hazel said anxiously as she hurried after him. "I thought the police weren't an option."
"They are now," Percy bit back the terror in his heart. "I'll risk my own life but not Annabeth's. There isn't anything else I can do now — this-this is completely out of my hands—"
Jason snatched the phone from his hand and hung up. "Doing this over the phone?" he demanded. "No, that'll just confuse everyone."
"We have to do something!" Percy cried helplessly.
Hazel reaches out and steadied him. "Look," she tried to sound as optimistic as possible. "This is a ridiculous situation right now, but Jason's right. The nearest police precinct isn't far away. Five minutes drive — tops. Jason, get the name of the alleyway and the time when we last saw Annabeth..."
The next ten minutes were a blur in Percy's head. Words left his mouth in sentences he hadn't been conscious of stringing together. His subconscious lagged behind his brain, mulling over the fact that Annabeth was in danger now.
Because of him.
Percy's head was about to burst when they pulled up at the police station. This was the one place he'd dreaded to find in the last ten years. One wrong word and the situation with Gabe would get worse.
But, God, Percy would take a hundred beatings if it meant that Annabeth had even a slim chance of being alright.
"Is there an officer we can speak to?" Percy blurted out once they reached the front desk. "Please, it's important." Hazel and Jason gave him surprised looks. He hadn't said a word on the drive over, too lost in thought.
"I—sure," the man at the desk stammered, dialling a phone. "What does this pertain to—"
"I'll take it from here, Jennings," a firm voice came from behind them. Percy spun around to see a tall man, a detective's badge adorning his jacket. He scanned the tension between the three teenagers and their stiff postures. "Anything I can help you with?"
Percy swallowed. Where did he start? His friends were waiting expectantly, knowing he should take the lead in this.
"My friend's been kidnapped by a man named Jose Mortelli," Percy confessed. "We don't know—"
"Mortelli?" the detective said sharply.
Percy nodded vigorously. "He's a loan shark. My—" He hesitated. "Someone sent me to tell him that they couldn't pay their debt, and Mortelli ambushed us in an alleyway. We fought our way out, but he's back for revenge."
"Woah, woah, hold on," the man held a hand up. "Mortelli? Jose Mortelli?"
"Yes," Hazel said impatiently, handing over Annabeth's phone with the recording on it.
Percy waited with bated breath as the detective listened, his expression growing more unreadable by the second.
"Hey, what's going on?" another detective, an African-American woman this time, walked up behind him.
The male detective turned to him, a sparkle in his eye. "We've got a lead on Mortelli."
Percy wanted to scream. This wasn't good. Annabeth was in danger, didn't they get it?
The woman's eyes widened in response. "Oh my God." She stammered, "Let's get you to give a proper statement—"
"Please, we need to help my friend," Percy pleaded. "I think she's in danger — did you hear him on the phone?"
"I did," the first detective reassured him. "Don't worry, we're gonna do all we can." He turned to the woman. "I'll take his statement, you get Captain Gray and the Sarge up to speed. Maybe get FBI on the line—"
"FBI?" Hazel echoed incredulously.
The detective turned on them, wincing. "Yeah, I'm afraid Mortelli isn't a loan shark. He's a notorious crime lord and runs a drug cartel. We've been after him for the longest time — even had a task force on him last year." He beckoned for Percy to follow him. "You seem like the centre of all this, wanna come with me?"
Percy exchanged wary looks with his friends, but there wasn't really anything more he could do. A crime lord? Drug cartel? This was so much more than anything he'd expected. What exactly had he gotten Annabeth into?
As he trailed after the detective, Percy took in all that was the police precinct. Uniformed officers littered the first floor, but the second storey was mainly people in casual-work clothes — the detectives.
The detective leading Percy paused every now and then to exchange a couple of words with a colleague, but eventually he slid into a rolly-chair, gesturing for Percy to sit down across from him.
"I'm Detective James Hart," the man introduced.
"Percy Jackson," Percy returned.
"I've got Brian doing a voice trace on Mortelli's little message, and Sabrina — the woman you met earlier — checking any of his old hideouts nearby," James informed him. He studied Percy's expression. "You okay, kid?"
Slumping in the chair, Percy felt the exhaustion and bewilderment really wash over him. "I don't know," he admitted, honestly just wanting a nap. Or caffeine.
"I'm really sorry you had to deal with this," James sighed, pulling out a complicated-looking form. The words swam in front of Percy's eyes. "You mentioned a previous run-in with Mortelli?"
Percy nodded. "I was supposed to tell him about a late return on some loan. He had two thugs with him to rough me up, but my friends came just in time to get us out of there."
"Was one of these friends the person who was abducted?" James asked.
He nodded again. "Annabeth Chase. We were heading over to another friend's house after homecoming, and she left to make a phone call. By the time we realised she was missing, it'd been seven minutes since anyone had seen her."
"So this grudge Mortelli has against you," James continued. "Is that the reason why Annabeth was taken?"
Percy shook his head. "I don't know," he said helplessly. "I think so, and I hate myself for it. When he attacked us last December, Annabeth...punched him in the nose and broke his leg."
James snorted. "Annabeth sounds like a badass."
Percy felt the corner of his mouth tug upwards slightly. "She is."
"Why were you fighting him in the first place?" James questioned. "Did you borrow money from him?"
Percy shook his head.
"Right, you were doing it for someone else." James frowned. "Who?"
The blood pounded in Percy's ears.
Gabe, he wanted to scream.
The image of his mother at home alone with Gabe flashed across his mind.
"I can't say," Percy managed at last.
James furrowed his eyebrows. "What? Why?"
Percy paled. "I just can't. Please," he tried to redirect. "Do you know where he's taken Annabeth?"
"Who made you go to Mortelli in their place?" James asked again. "Was it a classmate? A family member?"
"Please don't," Percy said, his voice cracking. He couldn't take this anymore. The worry about Annabeth was nagging at him, not to mention the fear at being found out.
"Sorry," James said immediately. He ran a hand through his hair. "It's okay. You don't have to tell me."
"Thank you," Percy said weakly. "I really wish I—I'm sorry."
"No, it's fine," James said sincerely. He leaned against the back of his chair tiredly. "I should be thanking you, really. This is the first solid lead we've had on Mortelli in months."
He glanced at Percy. "Hope Cap doesn't get on my back for telling you, but you should know that someone will probably approach you to sign a form to officially aid us in this."
Percy blinked. "What?"
"Mortelli has a grudge against you and this Annabeth," James pointed out. "If he's after you, we can catch him."
"I'll do anything," Percy said instantly. "To get Annabeth back. To help you arrest him."
"It's not that easy," James said warily. "We don't have enough evidence against him. The task force and the FBI's been building a case against him for years, but they can never seem to get it right. If they make a mistake, Mortelli gets off scot-free."
"You said he'd be after me," Percy said suddenly. "Couldn't you use me as bait?"
James gave him a strange look. "You are far too eager to jump into this. Do you have a death wish?"
No, I have nothing to lose.
"Hart!" Sabrina barked, slamming a paper file on his desk. "Abandoned warehouse fifteen minutes away. A elderly care home nurse nearby said he saw movement inside."
"Why is it always an abandoned warehous?" James grumbled. He gave Percy an apologetic look. "It's not always like a horror movie, I swear."
"We have a problem," Sabrina sighed. "If we rush in, full force, they'll just take the girl and run. Probably kill her immediately."
"Want to get a negotiator in?" James suggested.
"Please," Sabrina snorted. "Mortelli doesn't negotiate. You know that."
James spun around in his chair, deep in thought. "Well, my friend Percy here had a potentially dangerous yet useful idea earlier."
Sabrina groaned. "Oh, don't let James convince you to do the same stupid things he does."
"It was one time, and I took that bullet to save your life," James protested. "Should've let it hit you, clearly."
"Shut up," Sabrina told him.
"And in regards to that, it wasn't even my idea to use him as bait," James said indignantly.
"I'm not going to use a 16-year-old as bait," Sabrina snapped.
Percy interjected before they could continue bantering. "First, I'm 17. Secondly, he's right, it was my idea."
"You want to walk into a warehouse alone, where Mortelli could shoot you instantly," Sabrina deadpanned.
"He wouldn't be alone alone," James insisted. "We'd wait outside where Mortelli couldn't see us."
"I'll do it," Percy offered. "I'll do anything to make sure Annabeth's okay." He winced. "It's my fault she's in this situation."
"Don't blame yourself. It's unhealthy," Sabrina told him. She turned back to James. "I'll tell Sarge, get a team there ASAP."
"I'm coming," James informed her. "Please?" he added.
"I'll only go if he goes," Percy said helpfully. James sent him a furtive wink.
"Oh, look at you," Sabrina said exasperatedly. "Already a bad influence on a kid." She eyed them. "Fine. I'll bring it up with him."
James offered Percy a low high-five under the table. Percy obliged, feeling the hot bubble of anxiety in his chest slowly start to deflate.
"She'll be fine, right?" Percy said nervously. "Annabeth, I mean."
James clapped him on the back comfortingly. "We'll try out best," he promised.