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He stood there staring at him for a brief second, but when Boris didn’t respond, Grim slammed it into his chest again. He removed it and waited for a moment for Boris to speak. When he didn’t, he took the end of the prod and pressed it against the dude’s balls.

Boris started thrashing side to side as he tried to break free from his restraints, but it was no use. He wasn’t going anywhere. Ignoring his little fit, Grim started after him again but stopped when Boris cried, “No, no! I tell you.” Grim lowered his hand and cocked his brow, waiting until Boris said, ““Ve are looking for code. Must find the code.”

“Code to wait?”

“De account.”

“Come on, now. You know I’m gonna need more than that.”

Grim started towards him with the prod, and Boris yelped,“Da money! Must find code to get da money!”

And there it was.

Boris was just a driver. He wasn’t made for this kind of torture, so I wasn’t surprised that he folded so quickly. Grim stepped back as he asked, “Where did the money come from?”

“I’m not privy to such information.”

“What makes your boss think the girl has the code?”

“I know not. I’m just da driver. I do as I’m told.”

Grim lowered the prod, and we both watched as Boris’ shoulders sagged with relief. Knowing what would happen, he’d done his best to keep his mouth shut about his new connection with Volkov, but in the end, he was just like all the others—he sang like a canary.

Grim left him hanging from the ceiling as he walked over to me and asked, “You think Tallie knows anything about this code?”

“She hasn’t mentioned anything to me, but I’ll certainly ask about it and let you know.”

Grim gave me a nod, then started down the hall. “I’ll let you know if I get anything more from the guard.”

“Appreciate it, brother.”

It would be a couple of hours before Grim would have anything from the guard, so I decided to stop in and speak to Prez and Shep before I headed back to the house. When I got to Prez’s office, he was sitting at his desk, talking with Shep and Memphis. As soon as he spotted me in the doorway, Prez leaned back in his seat and asked, “How ya holding up, brother?”

“I’m hanging in, but barely.”

“And Tallie?”

“About the same. She and the kid are settling in at my place, but I can tell they’re on edge. This whole thing is wearing on them.”

“I can imagine. Grim making any progress with the driver?”

“Yeah, apparently Volkov is looking for some code to access some money somewhere, and he thinks Tallie or her mother has it.”

“Does she?”

“I highly doubt it, but I won’t know until I ask her.”

“Might want to ask the brother, too.”

“Why? You know something I don’t?”

“I’m not sure.” Shep’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about his line of work?”

“Not much. Just that he travels around doing some kind of tech stuff.”

“He’s a financial software engineer.” Knowing I didn’t have a fucking clue what he was talking about, Shep went on to add, “He designs software for international banking systems.”

“Yeah, and?”

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