“Yes. She’s mine.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
There was a long pause, and when Damien’s voice came back, he sounded amused. “It’ll be good not to be the only one tormented by a mate. Congratulations.”
Malachi grinned, reaching over to play with a piece of hair that was tickling her nose. “My Ava adores me. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Ha!”
He bit his lip to hold in the laughter when she frowned in her sleep and batted at his hand. Adoration, indeed.
“I’ll let you off the phone. Drive carefully. Rhys should be back tomorrow night. He left Göreme just a little bit after you left Kuşadası.”
“It will be good to see him. Has he made any progress with Ava’s genealogy?”
“He sounded like he’d made some kind of breakthrough, but he didn’t say what. Just that he had a few more questions for her.”
Malachi frowned. “Fine.”
“And I’m going to suggest she go see the mysterious Dr. Sadik.”
“Not without me.”
Damien paused, then said, “We’ll talk about it when you get back.”
“Not without me, Damien. It’s not going to happen.”
“She saw him for weeks with no danger.”
“We don’t know that. How do you think they found us tonight?”
“It’s hardly out of their normal hunting grounds. Perhaps it was a coincidence?”
“I don’t believe in a coincidence that leads six Grigori to corner me in an alley while I happen to have Ava with me.”
“You’re newly mated, and thus you’re paranoid. It’s completely understandable.”
“And I’m completely right. She’s not going to his office without me.”
“We’ll talk more tomorrow. Until then, take care.”
“I’ll see you later.”
As he hung up the phone, the question plagued him. How had the Grigori found them? Not just in Kuşadası, but in that particular restaurant at that particular hour? It couldn’t be a coincidence. He glanced at Ava, still sleeping securely. He didn’t think she’d called Dr. Sadik again, so how had it happened?
He slowed the car and pulled over near a roadside market, then he grabbed her mobile phone from the center console. Could Sadik have tapped into the network somehow? Doing so would indicate he was far more connected than Malachi or Rhys had initially suspected. Perhaps it was simpler. A tracker of some kind. A simple GPS chip would have allowed him to track Ava anywhere she went. He flipped her phone over, looking for any indication it had been tampered with.
“What are you doing?” Her sleepy voice didn’t distract him as he looked at the edges of her mobile. No scratches or marks indicated that the case had been manipulated or modified.
“Do you have one of those location apps on your phone so you can find it online if you lose it?”
“No. I turned off all the location services except for maps. Carl put one on and it pissed me off, so I shut all of them off. Why?”
He muttered, “How did the Grigori find us?”
“What?”
“At the restaurant tonight. How did they find us?”
She sat up straight. “I don’t know.”
“You haven’t called Sadik, have you?”
Ava rolled her eyes. “I still don’t buy your suspicion of him, but no, I haven’t.”
Another thought occurred to him. “Did Dr. Sadik ever give you anything?”
“What?” She rubbed at her eyes. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Think, Ava. It might have looked innocent. Like a trinket.”
“Well… nothing he could use to—”
“What did he give you?” His interest spiked. “Something harmless. What was it, love?”
She shrugged and reached into the purse near her feet. “It’s nothing. I’d kind of forgotten about it. It’s one of those nazar-amulet key chains. To ward off the evil eye, you know? Dr. Sadik told me to keep it with me. For luck.”
From a pocket, she pulled out the vivid blue glass. Around four centimeters wide, it looked like any of the tourist trinkets hanging from every shop in Turkey, only it was backed with metal he suspected doubled as an antennae. The white and blue circles stared back at him, accusing him of paranoia. Malachi held it up to the light.
“I thought it was kind of silly, but I put it in my bag and I haven’t really thought about it since.”
“I’m sure he was counting on that.”
In the darkest blue of the glass, there was an almost translucent chip with a wire leading toward the metal frame.
“There.” He held it out so Ava could see. “Do you see? I think it’s a chip.”
She blinked. “Like they put in dog collars to find them if they’re lost?”
“A simple GPS chip. As long as you have this with you, he could track you.”
He saw the color rise on her cheeks, but her eyes were cold. “Son of a bitch…”
Malachi grabbed her hand. “You trusted him. I know. It’s not—”
“That asshole!”
“He betrayed you, and you’re—”
“I’m gonna kill him.”
Now it was Malachi cautioning patience. “We need to find out more before you do.”
“This thing—” She tried to grab the nazar, but Malachi closed his fingers over it.