CHAPTER 18: NOTHING REVEALED (EVERYTHING DENIED)

PERCY

The next day, we interrogated the gang member Thalia and I had captured. It was drawn-out and frustrating, mostly because the questioning only made us more and more certain of the fact that he likely knew nothing more about the inner workings of Gabe's vendetta against the New York gang than we did. Even when I painted his face black and blue with bruises, we couldn't prise any more information out of him.

I spent the rest of the day organising some reconnaissance efforts that my squad would carry out and overseeing the training of some newer recruits that'd arrived in our base. The day melted away faster than anything. By the time I stumbled back into my room it was late and I was bone-tired. Still, I knew I had a lot to do before I could sleep so I made myself some black coffee, grabbed the files I needed and headed down to my office.

My head was filled with loose ends and broken connections that I knew all led back to my stepfather, but the hard part was tying them all together. Hopefully, there were answers to be found in the pages of these files and reports, so I sat at the desk in my office with my mug of liquid caffeine and began to pore over them, searching for something—anything. I desperately wanted the solution to jump out at me, but it didn't.

Time passed without my discretion, punctuated only by the endless ticking of the clock on the wall and the restlessness that slowly settled into my limbs. Before I realised it, it was two in the morning. I'd made a sizeable dent in the conceivably bottomless stack of files beside me and my brain was losing the ability to process information. Outside my office window, I could hear the cold, breathy wind that was blustering through New York, and silvery moonlight was falling in shafts through my blinds and pooling on my littered desk. As I began to re-read the same paragraph detailing an old negotiation with Gabe's gang for the eighth time, I let loose a groan and smacked my head down on the table a couple of times. "Fuck me," I muttered, with feeling.

My somewhat miserable self-pity session was suddenly interrupted by the sound of my office door creaking painfully open, and then by that of a familiar voice. "Why in hell are you still awake?"

I glanced up. Standing in the doorway was one of the other officers leading the operation—Nico di Angelo. "Looking for leads," I answered, rubbing the heels of my hands into my tired eyes.

"At two in the morning?"

Glaring at him, I returned to my files. "Yeah. And?" Wordlessly, Nico came and sat down opposite me. To my confusion, he picked up a file and opened it. "What are you doing?" I asked.

Nico raised a brow in my direction. "What does it look like? I'm helping."

A little shocked but still grateful, I replied with, "Oh. Thanks." The air was heavy with the rustling of paper for a few moments before I gathered the presence of mind to speak. "I'm looking for any more clues related to Gabe Ugliano. The interrogation gave us nothing, so I'm trying to work out what we haven't yet figured out."

Nico nodded slowly, making his long bangs fall in front of his face. "Okay. But what makes you think you'll be the one to work it out? These reports have been scrutinised hundreds of times."

I let out a shaky sigh. "I don't know. A different perspective, I guess? I know Ugliano's patterns, the way he works. Now that we've confirmed it's him behind this shit, I want to find out why."

A furrow worked its way into Nico's forehead. "You know his patterns? How come?"

It dawned on me that not everyone here knew who I really was. I mean, why would they? Carefully, I said, "Well, I worked with him pretty closely when I was a kid."

Nico leaned back in his chair. "You're the Butcher's runaway kid? Why the fuck didn't anyone mention that?"

"Not his kid, his stepson. And it's safer for me if I keep it on the down-low, especially now I'm here. But apparently the secret's out—Thalia and I found out during the mission yesterday that Ugliano knows I'm in New York." My voice trembled on the last bit, despite how hard I tried to keep it steady. I really wished it wasn't so obvious how scared I was of my stepfather.

Nico's gaze was disarming, reading my expression easily. "Must be weird, to be back again after so long."

"Yeah."

"Do you think...do you think maybe Ugliano's been targeting us because he knew you'd joined the Paris branch?"

The idea had crossed my mind. "Maybe. It would make sense. After me and my mom booked it, he tried for years and years to get his hands on us." I sighed, dragging a hand through my now-short hair. "I don't know. His failure to find me is a humiliation, that's for sure. If I were him, I wouldn't rest until I showed the world how powerful I really am."

Nico nodded slowly, his charcoal eyes absent in thought. I watched as he twisted the silver skull ring on his finger round and round, mindlessly. "Sounds like he could be, you know, building up to something," he murmured. "Will's suspected for a while now that the New York branch has been infiltrated and could be on the edge of falling apart, but he was never sure who was behind it."

"Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he's been designing an attack plan that'll be fatal for us in the long run," I agreed. "Laying groundwork, creating layers of corruption…those things were always my stepdad's forte."

Nico exhaled. "I imagine our operation's about to get a lot less straightforward than I'd hoped when I first took it."

I was silent for a second before I spoke. "How did you end up taking it? Have you always been on the New York branch?"

He shook his head. "No, I actually transferred from Italy—Rome, to be exact. I lived there with my sister, Bianca."

"How'd you two get recruited?"

"Our dad went to prison so times got tough. Bianca and I both had criminal records, which kinda makes it hard to get a job, you know? We were lucky some friends on the Rome branch managed to hook us up."

"Did Bianca come with you to New York?"

Nico's shoulders hunched a fraction. "Uh, no. She was admitted to hospital over there after getting shot during a mission. A bullet grazed her brain tissue."

I winced. "Shit. What state's she in?"

"Stable, but unresponsive. Her coma was originally medically induced but her brain activity dropped so low that the doctors can't coax her out of it."

"How long's she been under?" I asked.

A flicker of agitation crossed Nico's previously stoic expression. "Three months."

"Jesus."

"I know. I wish I could've stayed in Rome with her, but my transfer wasn't optional." He heaved a sigh. "Anyway. After the officers who first led this operation with Will got murdered, it was moved to higher priority. I asked if I could join it as an officer, and Will put in a good word for me." He gestured vaguely at himself. "So here I am."

Nico and I scoured the files for a good forty-five minutes after that, talking about nothing and everything. It was strange to me that I'd become comfortable with him and the others so quickly—social interaction had never been my strong point, but it was nice to have somehow gained friends to fall back on. In the past, I'd always only ever relied on myself for fear of knives in the back.

Eventually, I hit on a lead. I found myself reading over a file that detailed a group of assailants that had attacked one of our drug changeovers in Queens a few months ago. None of them had been captured, but it was believed that they'd belonged to Ugliano's gang due to the fact that a surviving witness had noticed a tell-tale black SPQR tattoo on one of their necks. "Here, look at this." I passed the file to Nico. He skimmed it as I continued. "Makes sense that the assailants were SPQR. I remember Gabe having a strong influence in Queens, due to the number of his forces that were stationed there."

Nico thought for a second. "There's a coke run scheduled around that area in a few days. You think it could be a prime target for Ugliano?"

"I doubt it. After Thalia and I intercepted his forces in Harlem yesterday, he's gonna be way more careful about where he makes his moves." Something occurred to me. "Unless there was a reason. Unless he had a real, tangible incentive to strike this drug run in particular."

He drummed his black fingernails on the desk. "What are you saying?"

"Think about it. Now we know for certain that Ugliano is aware I'm in New York, so close to his forces, we can play it to our advantage. He'll be waiting to apprehend me at the first opportunity he gets. Maybe if someone accidentally leaked the information that I'd be negotiating at the Queens drug run, where he's strong..."

Nico's eyes widened. "I bet he'd send some real important officers to oversee the attempt to capture you. Interrogating a few of them could be invaluable—they'll know so much more about the inner workings of SPQR than a mere recruit."

"We'll work this out in a briefing tomorrow with Thalia and Will." I glanced up at the clock—somehow, it was already three in the morning. I stood up. "Let's get some sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow."

Nico grinned at me, his teeth sharp and white against the darkness. "If this works," he said, "we might finally unravel this mystery once and for all."

When I made it back to my room, I got ready for bed in an ambling kind of way. My mind was moving at a snail's pace because of how tired I was. I slipped under my sheets, now shirtless and in some pyjama pants, and pulled the new laptop I'd been given onto my lap. I intended to just check my emails to see if I'd received any word from Paris, but for some reason, I found myself typing in Annabeth's email. A moment passed while I stared at the blank draft. What the hell was I doing?

Before I could second-guess myself, I started typing. I poured my 3AM self out onto the page, talking about everything from the truth of how much I missed her to how I'd nearly finished The Rose Society. When I signed off, my finger hovered over the Send button for a moment before clicking it with finality.

Somehow, my universe didn't collapse upon itself. I doubted she'd read it anyway.

Over the next few days, we spent most of our time planning the Queens mission. Using Will's connections, we spread word that I'd be negotiating the drug run to most of our underground sources in the city, ensuring that the leak of information seemed accidental. Despite the fact that it'd been my idea in the first place, I was still wracked with nerves about the whole thing. Using myself as bait for my stepdad's forces would've completely and utterly terrified my past self, and even now I was trying to keep my panic under control. Everything was being planned perfectly, and we were leaving no loose ends untied. Nothing was going to go south, but that knowledge couldn't stop me from worrying.

The mission was tomorrow, and we had a meeting with two officers that were in charge of the actual coke run in ten minutes. From what Thalia had told me, they too had been looking into the whole situation with SPQR for a while now, too—some of the New York branch's drug warehouses had been raided, and some of our own recruits had been killed in the process. Seeing as the drug supplies were under their jurisdiction, they also had a stake in the mission and had some more information to run by us.

Thalia and I were sitting in the briefing room, waiting for Will and the officers we were corresponding with to arrive; Nico was busy carrying out recon with his squad. I was bouncing my knee, unable to stop myself while Thalia looked over her reports. She glanced at me irritably, putting down her papers for a moment. "Stop fidgeting. I can't think."

"Sorry," I replied, and made a valiant effort to still my leg. Will walked in the door a few seconds later, followed by the two officers we'd been expecting. One was a tall guy with white-blonde hair and a scar over one of his eyes, leading from his brow to halfway down his cheek. And the other—the other was Annabeth.

She looked just as beautiful as I remembered. Maybe even more so. Her curly hair was pinned up in a messy bun atop her head, and her lips were tinted by pink chapstick. What was she doing here? Was she one of the officers working with us, or was I just hallucinating?

"Annabeth," I stuttered. All of a sudden I felt ridiculously self-conscious, like someone had stripped away my skin. They both sat down as she appraised me hollowly. The other guy—Luke—took off his jacket, laying it on the chair behind him. He was wearing a tank top underneath, and with a shock of surprise I noticed he had a large, black-ink wing tattoo draped down the back of his right arm. It was identical to Annabeth's and on the opposite side to hers. They must've gotten it together, implying they had history of some kind. It unsettled me.

"Hello," Annabeth said, emotionless. "This is Luke Castellan. As you know, the two of us have been organising the drug supplies and movements for most areas of New York." I glanced at Thalia, who gave me an apologetic look.

"It's good to meet you guys," Will replied, an ever-pleasant smile on his face. "So, I thought this evening we could go over the plans we've laid down for the Queens trap tomorrow, but I'm also aware that you two have some information to share which you recently came across."

Annabeth and Luke exchanged a glance, as though silently talking to one another. Stupidly, I found myself wishing that Annabeth and I had ever been able to communicate so straightforwardly and easily as that, without blatant misunderstandings and accidentally hurting one another.

Luke cleared his throat, leaning forward to rest his steepled fingers on the table. "Alright," he started. "For a while now, many of our drug runs, negotiations and warehouses have been attacked by an unidentifiable gang. They seemed to want to undermine the New York branch, maybe even cripple it. We've done what we can over the last couple months, but without knowing the identities of our assailants it's been damn near impossible to predict their next move. But," he paused, "now that you and your operatives seem to have traced the attacks back to SPQR, we're hoping to turn the tide."

Annabeth cut in. "The situation is only going to escalate unless we take immediate action. I believe that there's corruption on both our side and theirs, like undercover recruits hidden amongst our squads and turncoats who used to work for us that now use their connections to assist Ugliano. We have little chance of digging out all of these moles, so I'm certain that we need to go on the offensive and start making SPQR scared of us again."

I tapped my nails on the table, thinking over her words. "So, what do you propose we do?" I asked. "The mission we're carrying out during your drug negotiation in Queens tomorrow ought to expose Ugliano's intentions, but past that…"

Annabeth's slate-grey eyes were callous against my own. "We need to carry out a large-scale covert operation," she said. "Try and seize control over Ugliano's influence. Our New York branch has been deteriorating for a while now due to SPQR's efforts, and this could be our chance to re-establish our position as the major underground power in the city."

"And if the Queens mission tomorrow goes to plan, the new intelligence we gather might be the first foothold we'll need to attain that goal," Will mused. "But even if we manage to capture and interrogate several of Ugliano's officers, we'll still be limited. I doubt any of them will be privy to any of his long-term plans against the New York branch. The most we'll get out of them will be the inner practicalities workings of SPQR and hopefully some of the immediate actions they mean to take."

"I know," Annabeth admitted. "And the actual locations of most of his headquarters remain a mystery to us. But we were hoping…"

"That might not be a problem," I said. "Although it was a long time ago that I worked for him, it's unlikely much has changed. I know where a lot of his bases are, where Ugliano himself holds briefings with his officers. I can write up a report tonight detailing as much as I can remember."

At that, Luke's gaze slid over me. It was cold, almost nauseating. "That's right. You're his stepson, aren't you?"

I shifted, uncomfortable. "Yeah. So what?"

Luke smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "No reason. Just…I was wondering how strong your allegiance to him still is."

Anger crashed through me faster than I could think. "What allegiance?" I spat. "I want him taken down more than you do. In fact, I'd love to bury him six feet under."

"Sit down, Percy," Annabeth interrupted.

I realised I'd stood up subconsciously. I sat back down, still glaring at Luke who looked satisfied to have gotten a rise out of me. "Whatever. My point is, I have more of a reason than any of you to want us to be successful. Don't test me."

Luke raised his hands in surrender. The gesture was almost mocking. "Sorry, Jackson. Didn't realise I'd struck a sore spot." He carded a hand through his fair hair. "Anyway, I figure we should start planning this new operation as soon as we have the info from the Queens mission tomorrow. We should start with a week of reconnaissance, then go from there."

Thalia nodded slowly. "Sounds reasonable. Nico and I can start carrying out some interrogations amongst our own ranks. If we manage to sniff out a few moles and gain some more intel, weakening SPQR will be way easier."

"I'll need to take all this to the higher-ups to get clearance to go forward," Will added. "We'll need as much support as we can gather to pull this shit off."

"I'll handle the recon," I decided. "Once I've drafted up all the locations of SPQR's bases, I can work out an itinerary and organise my squad. I'm fairly certain that we'll need to focus the majority of our efforts in Manhattan and Queens."

The others nodded, except for Annabeth. "Wait," she started. "My squad specialises in reconnaissance. I should lead that mission."

"It makes more sense if I do it," I insisted. "I know how Ugliano ticks."

Thalia rolled her eyes. "Lead it together—you may as well combine forces."

I raised a brow in Annabeth's direction. "Got a problem with that?"

She shook her head. "No," she responded, somewhat stiffly. I wanted to ask why the hell she was acting like this, but now wasn't the time.

The meeting went on for a while. Thalia, Will and I briefed the others on the technicalities of how the Queens mission would unfold, and they talked about how they'd need to alter the scheduled negotiation during the drug run according to our correspondence. Annabeth and I couldn't begin to plan our reconnaissance until I'd drafted notes on all the locations and proceedings I remembered from my time with SPQR, so we tabled that discussion for another time.

Soon enough, we'd finished. Annabeth and Luke left to head back to their own base, Luke's arm slung over her shoulder as they talked quietly. I felt frustrated; it was like everything that'd happened between us in Paris was somehow null and void. I headed back to my room with a sigh, digging my hands into my pockets. Hopefully things would get clearer over the next couple days.

The pressure of a hand on my shoulder startled me as I was walking down the hallway to my room. I spun around to see Thalia. She looked concerned. "Hey, you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry."

Thalia's lips were pressed in a grim line. "It was shitty for her to behave like that. Not even acknowledge you."

"Honestly, Thalia, it's fine. She doesn't owe me anything."

"Maybe not, but it's not okay to pretend you don't even exist. I should talk to her."

"No, don't." I exhaled sharply. "I know why she's doing it. She thinks if she turns her back and decides she doesn't know me anymore, then everything will go back to how it was."

Thalia frowned. "But it won't."

I dropped my head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. "I know that."

Thalia took my sleeve, guiding my attention back to her. Her voice was gentle when she spoke. "She's just trying to protect you, Percy. It's stupid, but that's what's going through her head right now. She doesn't want to hurt you or—or make you resent her."

I closed my eyes. "I don't resent her. I could never. It's just…it's not Annabeth's responsibility to keep me safe. And she's deluded if she thinks staying away will keep me out of the line of fire."

Thalia let go of my sleeve, giving me a warm smile. "After you draft up that info on SPQR, get some sleep, yeah? You won't be doing yourself any favours if you're dead on your feet for the mission tomorrow."

"Okay," I said quietly. "You too." As Thalia left, I unlocked my room and stepped inside. I had a lot of work to do.

Thanks for reading! can I just say I have so much love for those who've been reviewing? y'all have a special place in my heart xx

I wrote most of this chapter while listening to the 1975's new album, NOACF. This chapter's title is one of the song names lmao (I'm not even sorry). The album's hella vibey, so go give it a try if you haven't listened to it yet!

If you have, which are your fave tracks? I really like Tonight—it kinda sounds like a fried, melted pop song. If You're Too Shy is great as well. Also, I fell in love with The Birthday Party back when it was released (the goddamn lyricism. fuck me). Frail State of Mind is an amazing social anxiety anthem, related way too hard :') And Jesus Christ 2005? MY BI ASS ALMOST SOBBED. thank u matty healy.