Sine Qua Non: A dark stepbrother romance

Anthony, who had serenaded her with a reggaeton version of Black Magic Woman on a beach in San Diego that still made her misty-eyed when she thought of it now. Most of her belongings were still boarded up in her San Francisco hovel, which was now leased in his name, so the room was a strange, frozen blend of the way she had left it in the late two-thousands and what she had brought back with her from the city. The realization hit her like a slap, and so did this strange rush of power when she saw the desperation in his face as she got to her knees. Her face was solemn but there was a restless energy in her movements; it was as if she had been a wilting blossom that had just been placed in a new glass of water and finally allowed to bloom now that she’d shaken off her mother’s poison.