46. Epilapter
FORTY-SIX
EPILAPTER
T he city bleeds past the window in streaks of rust and crumbling brick, an endless motion of nostalgia. Alvaro hasn’t said where we’re going, and I haven’t asked. Not directly. Maybe because I’m afraid of the answer. Maybe because part of me already knows. He just told me to get in the car and trust him—which should make me nervous. But it doesn’t.
With one hand on the wheel, Alvaro drives us through the city. He’s quiet and focused, his other hand tapping out a rhythm against his thigh, like he's keeping time with some silent thought I can’t hear. But I know him. He doesn’t drive out into the middle of nowhere just to clear his head. There’s a reason for this detour, and it’s starting to settle under my skin like a splinter. The kind that festers.
There’s still so much he keeps to himself, even two months on. I can’t blame him, though. We’ve been through hell and back, so gaining his trust is something I’m prepared to do. I’ll do whatever it takes. Even if it means ignoring the secrets he keeps from me.
‘Heaven Upside Down’ by Marilyn Manson plays on the stereo, the dark beat filling the atmosphere. I slide my gaze between my little deviant, Alvaro, to the scenery passing by. Pigeons scatter from the curb as we pass under a bridge. The late afternoon sun blinks through the trees as we emerge, casting gold rays across the dash. But I can’t enjoy it. My nerves are too busy playing jump rope, each bounce cracking through a fresh wave of tension.
Alvaro glances at me sideways, a secret tucked into the corner of his mouth as he raises a brow. “You gonna stop brooding and just ask?”
I watch as his mouth lifts at the corner. “Figured if I waited long enough, you’d crack and tell me.”
“Bold assumption,” he grumbles, eyes trained back on the road.
“You love the sound of your own voice,” I chuckle.
“Not as much as I love seeing you squirm.”
I shoot him a look, but there’s no heat in it. The banter's easy. It makes the silence that follows feel like a deeper breath before something big.
The sound of waves crashing somewhere in the distance, soft but steady, are like a heartbeat. The air is salty, damp, and tinged with something vaguely metallic. Familiar.
My chest tightens. I know this place.
We turn off into a street. Not just any street, though. Rows of red brick houses face one another, split by a perfectly straight road. Gardens bloom with a variety of flowers, every color of the spectrum boasting vibrantly. Cars sit parked in the driveways, mundane family cars that have been cared for like a precious gem.
Alvaro parks the car in front of a house. A house that I haven’t seen in years, yet it feels like it hasn’t changed at all. White shutters frame the windows, a wind chime hanging from the porch, the same one my mom insisted on keeping even when it annoyed the whole neighborhood.
My breath stutters and I look to Varo for an explanation.
He looks at me—really looks at me—and his voice is softer than I expect, caressing the worry that’s churning in my stomach. “You told me the last time you saw your parents, it wasn’t how you wanted it to go.”
My throat goes dry, and try as I might to swallow past the shock, his words have me suspended in disbelief. Because Alvaro Bonanno, my brooding, dangerously sexy and lethal Varo, has done something for me that I never imagined would ever happen. Sure, he has a good side, a side that tempers his constant state of moodiness. But this is next level. This is thoughtful, a side I’ve never seen of him. It steals the breath from my lungs.
I look back at the red door, the paint chipped wood in dire need of repainting. The same door I slammed without a single word of goodbye to my parents, all because they couldn’t accept me. It still wrenches my gut just thinking about the last words that were said between me and my parents. It was the main catalyst to me distancing myself. Not just because of my case with the Russians, but because I couldn’t look at my parents for one more second and lie to them.
“It’s not that they don’t love you,” he says calmly, his inked hand resting on mine that seems to be a stark contrast to the light he’s shining on the situation. “They just don’t understand. Now’s your chance.”
My stomach knots in a slow, nauseating twist. I don’t say anything. I know he’s right.
After the rescue mission that Alvaro sent to get me back, we had to spend several hours under the glare of Axel Bonanno, who didn’t give a shit that his son was gay, just that he kept a secret from him. It made me see that not everything is black and white, there are gray areas, shaded with uncertainty, the kind that lingers long after the words have faded. I’ve longed for the kind of relationship Alvaro has with his father, to be accepted. And it’s put a lot into perspective.
“You told me once that you said the worst part wasn’t the argument. It was never knowing if they would accept you, if you’d just given them the chance.” Alvaro strokes a finger over my knuckle. The gesture is gentle, grounding. It tethers me to this moment, stops me from drifting too far into memory. “Now’s that chance.”
I stare at the house. The porch. The damn windchime. I can still hear the way my mother used to hum when she watered the garden. My father’s boots on the steps as he watched her, admiring how she lost herself in attending to her roses. The muffled sounds of the life that I cut myself out of.
I told Varo everything. He didn’t really give me much choice after doing some digging into my background. And once things started to unravel, I spilled every gut wrenching detail. From the argument between my parents that provoked me into leaving and never looking back, to the guilt I felt on a daily basis because I never knew when I’d see them again. Every emotion comes flooding back, forming a thick lump in my throat.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Alvaro continues. “But either way, I want you to know that I’ve got your back.”
“Do they know I’m coming?” My heart thuds so hard I swear I can hear it. I don’t know what I’m more afraid of; facing them and being accepted, or having them slam the door in my face.
Alvaro nods, giving me a half smile. “But they also know this isn’t going to be easy.”
“What if they don’t accept me?” My vulnerability has my voice cracking. I’ve never allowed anyone’s opinions to change me, never let it affect my sexuality because this is me. You either accept it or not. But the moment I walked out of that door was the same moment I realized that if my parents can’t accept me, then nobody else’s opinion matters.
Alvaro laces his fingers with mine and brings them to his lips. “Then you still have a home, with me.”
My heart seizes in my chest, my eyes burning with happiness. That’s the thing with Varo—he never says things unless he means them. And when he does… it’s everything.
Before I can wallow in fear and pity, Alvaro steps out of the car. He rounds the Mercedes, pulling my door open and taking my hand before I lose my nerve. The gravel path crunches under my boots, and I swear the air here smells the same. Like rosemary and rain. Like coming home and holding your breath all at once.
Halfway up the path, the door opens, revealing my mother.
Time stops.
She stands there, her apron firmly in place. She’s smaller than I remember. Her hair is all silver now instead of the light dusting of gray hairs I remember. Her blue eyes are bright with expectation, her pink painted lips wide. “ Moy mal'chik! ”
She springs down the porch, arms outstretched as she welcomes us both.
“Mama,” I croak, crashing into her. Arms lock around my shoulders, hands trembling as they cling to me. Relief swallows me up, a kind of happiness I never thought I’d feel. I look up just in time to see my father appearing in the doorway, his once broad shoulders a lot frailer than they were five years ago.
“Miles,” he nods, his eyes casting further down the path.
I turn to see Alvaro watching with something soft in his eyes. He doesn’t come closer. He doesn’t interrupt. He just waits.
Because he knew.
He knew more than anything that I needed this, and I can’t thank him enough.
* * *
T he living room smells like lemon polish and fresh bread. It’s bright in here—sunlight cutting across the hardwood floor. Not a single speck of dust litters the surfaces, and it makes me smile because nothing’s changed. The same plastic covered couch. The same coffee table with the ring stains from my dad’s beer cans. Same framed photo of us on the mantel, from the year I graduated high school. My face is thinner now. My eyes are tired. I don’t recognize that boy anymore, and I wonder if they do.
Taking a seat on the couch, the silence isn’t awkward, but it’s not comfortable enough for me to relax. My gaze flicks to the window, where Alvaro is chain-smoking, probably to distract himself from pacing a hole in the porch. He insisted on giving me space, but I know he's close enough to hear if something goes wrong.
“Still no sugar, right?” Mom asks me softly as she enters with a tray of drinks. She sets it down on the coffee table, handing out mugs to us both.
I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Yeah. Still the same.”
Silence falls again, heavy and thick. Then I shift a little on the couch, clearing my throat.
“We thought we’d never see you again,” Mom says, voice breaking slightly. “We reported you missing and?—”
“I know,” I whisper, guilt suffocating me. “It all came at a bad time, and I didn’t know if I could come back. I didn’t know how.”
“You’ll always have a place here, son.”
I blink back, surprised by the warmth in his tone.
“You’re still our son,” he adds, like it’s the simplest truth in the world. “Nothing’s going to change that. Not time, not distance. Not who you love.”
They both watch me carefully, waiting. I look back at Alvaro, who’s stamping out his fifth cigarette since we got here. I chuckle before taking a breath and looking back at my dad.
“His name’s Alvaro. He—he helped me. Saved me, more than once.”
There’s no judgement between my mom and dad, just acceptance, the one thing I’ve needed all along.
“Is he kind to you?” Mom asks.
I let out a shaky laugh. That’s the question of the century. The last thing I’d call Varo is kind, but that’s not because he isn’t, it’s because there are so many more words to describe the man I love. “He’s grumpy as hell,” I say, taking a sip of my tea. “But yeah. He’s good to me. Even when I don’t deserve it.”
Dad chuckles, low and hoarse. “Well, he’d have to be strong to keep up with you.”
Mom reaches over and brushes my hair back like she used to when I was a kid, her fingers soft, her voice softer. “Don’t leave him standing out there alone, Miles. We’d love to meet him.”
I nod, my heart thudding as I stand. When I step outside, Alvaro’s leaning against the porch railing, eyes watching the road like he’s expecting some kind of invasion. He looks up when the door creaks, his green gaze hopeful.
“Well?” he asks.
“They want to meet you.”
His brows raise. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” I smile, holding my hand out to him.
Something in his shoulders loosens, like he didn’t realize how tightly he’d been holding on. Then he’s reaching for my hand, tangling our fingers together. “Then let’s not keep them waiting,” he murmurs.
We walk back inside, and for the first time in years, I feel something like peace starting to take root in my chest. We spend the evening catching up, my parents learning about how we met—albeit, we leave out many of the details—keeping it simple. As far as my parents are aware, Alvaro runs a business on behalf of his father, and I just happened to bump into him. They don’t need to know anything about the Federovs, or The Five, even though this is my life now.
It’s bittersweet visiting my parents, attempting to make up for lost time. But ultimately, mending the relationship because time is short. My father hasn’t got much longer to live, and while it kills me to know that I lost so much time with him, I’m glad I got to see him.
When the day ends and we’re saying our goodbyes, I feel a surge of pride and happiness flood my body.
My mom wraps her arms around Varo’s waist, surprising us both. “Thank you for bringing our boy back to us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” she murmurs.
Varo’s cheeks turn a shade of pink. Though he doesn’t know Russian, I’m certain he understands what my mom is saying.
My dad clasps my shoulder with a firm squeeze that says everything he can’t quite put into words, and my mom kisses my cheek for the first time in six years like she’s been saving it all this time.
Heading back down the path, I slip into the passenger seat, the scent of rosemary still clinging to my hoodie. He gets in beside me, his hand finding mine without a word. We don’t need to say anything. The peace I feel sitting next to him, with my parents waving from the porch behind us, is enough. For now.
As we pull away, the house gets smaller in the rearview mirror, but it doesn’t feel like I’m leaving something behind this time. It feels like I’ve reclaimed something I lost.
Alvaro hums quietly along with the radio. ‘Better Now’ by Post Malone plays out and Varo’s thumb brushes over mine, reminding me that he’s not going anywhere. Once he shifts gears, his eyes are on the road, the radio soundtracking our journey back home.
Home.
I smile at that, because it’s been so long since I felt anything remotely close to that. Every time I look at Varo, I’m reminded of where we started. I’m reminded of what we’ve had to face, to battle, the war we’ve come to win. Though it’s not quite over, I know with certainty that I can do anything with Alvaro by my side.
We’re maybe ten minutes out when my phone buzzes in my lap. I frown, glancing down.
Unknown number.
The preview flashes on my screen: an image. Blurry. Dimly lit.
I tap it open, already bracing for something I don’t want to see.
Then my breath snags.
The message appears first.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK WITH US.
A picture follows. A girl with her wrists bound in front of her, face smeared with blood, eyes wide with raw, unfiltered terror. A piece of duct tape covers her mouth. Her blonde curls are matted and tangled, her cheek bruised and swollen, but she’s unmistakable.
Gracie.
My fingers go numb. The phone nearly slips from my hands and I suddenly forget how to breathe.
“Milo?” Varo rasps. He glances over, instantly concerned.
I turn the phone so he can see and his jaw tightens. “Motherfucker.”
That one word carries enough venom to kill. The peace is gone, yanked from under me like a rug. My stomach churns with dread as Alvaro floors the gas, the city skyline rising in the distance like the mouth of a storm.
Gracie’s in trouble.
And we’re already playing catch-up in a game where the rules don’t matter.
Not to them.
Not anymore.