Crowned Crew Heights POV & Stories - E. M. Moore Page 0,4

with fists if necessary. It’s all just a precaution since if the guards do their job correctly, I’ll never have to use those things for myself. But, when I become leader of the Crew, I can’t just sit back.

I need to make an impression.

I sit in the computer row that faces the timid librarian. Hiding my research is just easier so I don’t have to go through the whole procedure of shutting her up if she happened to look over and notice I’m looking up how to make a bomb.

I already devoured The Anarchist Cookbook. I aim to start small, make sure I figure out how to not kill myself in the process of learning explosives, and then get better and better. The knowledge could be extremely useful for the Crew. Imagine not even having to come face-to-face with your enemy? You just take them out from a distance and be done with it.

Sounds a hell of a lot easier than getting your hands dirty.

I start my usual searches when an ad pops up at the top of my screen: Searching for someone?

I press my tongue against my teeth. The question drags another thought of mine to the surface. A war I’ve been having with myself since Mom defected. It’s stupid, but I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since she ran away.

I want to find her.

Dad kicked my ass for suggesting it once. In all honesty, I didn’t even get as far as suggesting it. I simply said Mom, and he whirled around and bitch slapped me, telling me to never call that cunt whore my mother again.

My body still aches from last night. I tell myself that’s why I click on the flashing link. The Crew doesn’t just let people leave. There was a huge search when my father realized she left. To defect is to basically beg to get shot in the temple, and that’s not to mention the fact that she got out made my father look like a fool.

The prospective gang leader’s own wife defected. That’s just asking for insubordination.

He recovered nicely, putting a kill order out on her straight away. I was young, but not stupid. I understood what was going on. If he ever found her, he’d kill her.

We never found her.

Her leaving changed him, though, and a part of me wants to drag her back to the Heights to show her what she made him do. Plus, if I were the one to retrieve her, maybe my father would stop calling me weak.

I type her name in the search box and get a bunch of people who aren’t her. Apparently, there are Marx’s all over the United States. Since she defected, she wouldn’t have kept our name anyway, so that was an empty attempt.

I lean back in my chair, frowning at the screen. The woman whose name I spelled out didn’t love me. She never did. She left me here. What kind of fucking mother leaves her child? Marx’s don’t fucking do that. The trash on the streets do. The whores. The drug-dependent weaklings.

She’s worthless.

With the explosives research all but forgotten, I type in a few different names I think she might go by, including her maiden name and her mother’s. I come up with nothing. Fueled by hurt and rage, I end up Googling private investigators. I can’t use any of the Crew guys to do this. My dad would kick my ass—again—without even asking why I’m attempting to find her.

I shoot off a quick email from a dummy address, making sure the PI agency knows this exchange needs to be in strict confidence.

As soon as I send the email, my stomach tightens. This could absolutely be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. Downright rage that she abandoned me wins over in the end. I don’t know what I’ll do if I find her, other than tell her what I really think of her. If I bring her back, I’ll have to live with the consequences of killing my own mother, but it’s not as if she felt bad for leaving me, so I shouldn’t care.

I stand from the computer and shove the chair in. The metal back bangs off the table’s edge, and the librarian jumps. She eyes me over unplucked eyebrows, and I merely sneer at her. As far as I can tell, I’m the only one who ever uses the damn library unless it’s the weak kids eating lunch in here, so they don’t