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A necklace glittered at Santiago’s neck, and his shirt shifted just enough to give Alastair a look at the pendant hanging there.

At the symbol on it. One he immediately recognized.

“Grab him,” Alastair told Ferus, and as one he and four other Shifters moved forward.

“Wait, what is?—”

“Out,” Alastair snarled at the other patrons at Santiago’s booth. They didn’t need to be told twice, some nearly climbing over the others to get out of the way.

Santiago moved deeper into the booth, protesting, but Ferus grabbed him by the leg and yanked him unceremoniously out and onto the ground.

“Alley,” Alastair snarled as the Shifters grabbed his cousin, ignoring his shouting and struggling.

They had to drag him through the entire club to get there, but that was part of the lesson. A reminder to the patrons, lest they forget who they were fucking with.

This was his club. And if Alastair wanted to drag someone kicking and screaming across the dance floor, he fucking would.

Santiago didn’t pause in his protesting, not until Ferus flung him out the club door into the alley, where he landed hard against the concrete.

“What the fuck, cousin!” Santiago snarled, coming to his feet, his chest puffed out. The lame attempt to appear intimidating was lost on Alastair, who looked at Santiago like he was something he’d found at the bottom of his shoe. Santiago barely came up to Alastair’s shoulders, and in power level, the two weren’t even on the same planet. He was as intimidating to Alastair as a gnat.

“You’re banned from the premises. Come here again, and I will personally rip your throat out.”

“You have no right, I haven’t done?—”

“I have every right,” Alastair snarled. He took a step closer to his cousin and was pleased when the younger Vamp flinched and stepped backward away from him. “You forget who you’re speaking to, cousin.”

Santiago held his hands up, shifting tactics. “Hey, man, sorry, I didn’t mean any disrespect. Let’s talk about this, I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding, okay? I know we can come to some sort of?—”

Alastair was on him in a moment, and Santiago’s head cracked against the alley wall where Alastair had thrown him, before slumping to the ground.

“You came to my club,” Alastair said, his voice low and dangerous. “You brought this shit”—he pulled a baggie from his suit pocket and shook it in Santiago’s face—“into my territory. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

Santiago groaned on the ground.

“And you know what gets me, cousin? Not that you would do it under my nose, but that you were stupid enough to mark the bags with the same symbol as that stupid fucking necklace you wear.”

Santiago started to protest again, but Alastair was done with him.

“If I see you here again,” he repeated, turning back to enter his club, “I will kill you, cousin. That’s not a threat, it’s a promise.”

As the club door shut behind him, Alastair called out mockingly over his shoulder.

“Send father my regards.”

Jasper had another whiskey ready for him when Alastair entered the club. Whatever disturbance Santiago’s trip through the club had caused was already forgotten, and the dance floor pulsed with bodies and lust. Memory was a fickle thing in a place like this, where pleasure reigned, and a bit of fear could just be fuel to the fire.

“I’m going to my office,” Alastair told Ferus, handing Jasper the now empty whiskey glass. “And I swear to the Goddess herself if you disturb me for anything—and I fucking mean it, Ferus, even if the fucking building is on fire—I will drag you out of this club just like him, and I will leave you broken in that fucking alley.”

Ferus’s lips twitched with what could have been a smile.

“Fuck you,” Alastair said. “Fuck you and fuck that twinkle in your eye, Ferus.”

“Yes, sir,” Ferus said, and Alastair left with a snarl.

He should have felt something after throwing his cousin out on his miserable ass. Not guilt, fuck no, but something. Relief? Accomplishment? If Santiago had been the one supplying devil dust to those low-level dealers in his club, then the problem he’d been struggling with over the last few weeks was solved.

But he didn’t feel accomplished, and he sure as hell didn’t feel relieved. He had an itch under his skin that he needed to scratch.