“What’s up?” Ritchey asked.

Jax kept his arms loose at his sides. “We’re looking for Mona.”

“Mona Fritz?”

“Like there’s another Mona I’d come here looking for. And this isn’t the first time I’ve come here looking for Mona,” Jax said, surprising me. But then I remembered him saying he and Clyde had done this before. “Don’t pull crap. You know how this works.”

It worked a certain way?

Ritchey kept digging at the skin by his throat, but a certain gleam crept into his eyes. “I ain’t got no part in Mona’s shit.”

Jax took a step forward, dipping his chin. “I’ll only ask you once, Ritchey.”

“Man, I ain’t—”

“One time,” Jax warned.

Ritchey didn’t answer, and then Jax sprang forward, grasping the front of Ritchey’s shirt and lifting him onto the tips of his bare feet.

Holy crap, this was going to get physical.

My mouth dropped and then I moved forward, keeping my voice low as I reached their side. “There’s a kid on the couch sleeping, Jax.”

“Shit,” muttered Jax, but his hands didn’t come off the guy. “You got Shia here, in this rat hole?”

“His damn mother skipped out. I’m doing the best I can.”

His biceps flexed. “Let’s take this into the kitchen and you’re going to play nice. For Shia, okay?”

We took it into the kitchen, or what might have been the kitchen. It didn’t have a sink, just a gaping hole where one should be. Out of the corner of my eyes, I thought I saw something brown and disgustingly large scurry over the wall near the fridge.

“Mona ain’t here,” Ritchey said finally.

“You mind if I check that out?”

“Have at it.” Ritchey stepped to the side and leaned against the counter. “But I’m telling you. She ain’t here and you ain’t the first person to come looking for her.”

I stilled. “We’re not?”

“Who else has been looking for her?” Jax asked, not moving.

Ritchey’s watery eyes narrowed on me. “There’s something about—”

“Eyes on me, Ritchey.” When he obeyed the demand, Jax didn’t look any more relaxed. Unease formed in my belly. “Who came looking for Mona?”

“Some dudes. Some bad fucking dudes,” he replied, folding his scrawny arms across his frail-looking chest. I thought this probably wasn’t the best conversation to have in a room that a small child was sleeping in, but he went on. “Guys who work for Isaiah.”

Oh. Bad news.

“We already know that,” Jax replied calmly.

“There’s some talk,” he said after a few moments. “Mona’s in deep.”

“Another thing we already know.”

Ritchey grimaced. “Yeah, but do you know she was the go-between to what was close to three million in heroin for Isaiah? And she was supposed to turn that stuff over a week ago?”

I almost groaned. My worst suspicions were confirmed. The drugs belonged to the uber drug lord and not Greasy Guy.

“Word on the street is that someone else has got the shit and Isaiah wants to hear it from the horse’s mouth that she ain’t got the shit no more.” Ritchey hacked out a dry laugh. “Man, if I knew that stuff was at the house and she wasn’t there, I’d have been all over that myself.”