ASHES ON THE HIGHWAY

Chapter 70

They left for the honeymoon four days after the wedding, once Okafor confirmed all necessary statements had been filed and the compound’s security had fully stood down from crisis footing back into ordinary vigilance.

The departure itself felt almost surreal.

For months, every trip outside the compound had involved armored vehicles, contingency plans, or someone checking the road ahead twice before anyone else moved.

This time, Ghost simply tossed Reaper the keys to the SUV and grinned.

"Don’t answer your phone unless someone’s actively dying."

Viper folded his arms.

"And if someone is actively dying, I’m handling it. Stay gone."

Reaper raised an eyebrow.

"You two trying to get rid of me?"

"For exactly fourteen days," Ghost replied without hesitation. "Longer if you can manage it."

The exchange drew laughter from everyone gathered to see them off.

Even Elena smiled with the easy warmth that had returned to her over the past week.

"You deserve this," she told Rowe, pulling her into one last hug. "Both of you."

Rowe hugged her back tightly.

"We’ll be home before you know it."

"No rush," Piper called from the porch. "Seriously."

"You people are terrible," Reaper muttered.

"We’re rested," Ghost corrected.

"There’s a difference."

"You’re sure you’re comfortable leaving," Rowe asked, watching Reaper pack a duffel bag with more hesitation than she’d expected from a man who’d handled every previous crisis with unshakeable decisiveness.

He checked the contents one final time before zipping it closed.

"Ghost and Viper can run this place without me for two weeks," Reaper said, though his tone carried genuine effort to convince himself as much as her. "And honestly, Rowan, I think we’ve both earned this. A break from constant vigilance, even temporary."

She slipped her hand into his.

"I think so too."

They chose somewhere far removed from desert highways and motorcycle clubs entirely—a small coastal town in Baja California, chosen specifically for its distance from anything resembling the chaos that had defined their entire relationship.

The drive itself felt peaceful.

No one followed them.

No radios crackled with urgent updates.

No security convoys surrounded them.

Just miles of open road, music playing softly through the speakers, and long conversations that wandered wherever they pleased instead of constantly returning to strategy and survival.

By the time they reached the coast, Rowe already felt lighter than she had in months.

The first three days passed in a haze of genuine, uncomplicated relaxation that Rowe had almost forgotten was possible—long walks along empty beaches, meals that didn’t require scanning exits or calculating threat assessments, sleep that came easily instead of fitfully interrupted by old vigilance.

They wandered through local markets hand in hand.

Watched fishing boats drift across the harbor at sunrise.

Spent entire afternoons reading beneath umbrellas simply because they could.

No one expected anything from them.

No one needed saving.

"This is strange," Rowe admitted on the fourth morning, watching Reaper cook breakfast in their rented villa’s small kitchen with an ease that felt almost foreign given months of watching him coordinate security briefings instead.

He stood barefoot, humming quietly while flipping pancakes with surprising confidence.

She smiled.

Somehow this version of him felt even more dangerous to her heart than the intimidating club president.

"Strange how?"

"Good strange," Rowe clarified. "Just... quiet. I don’t think I remember what quiet actually feels like anymore."

Reaper crossed the kitchen, pulling her into an embrace that carried none of the urgent, desperate quality of their earlier relationship, only easy, comfortable warmth.

"Get used to it," he said. "I intend for quiet to become considerably more normal for us going forward."

She rested her forehead against his.

"I’d like that."

"So would I."

The silence that followed needed no explanation.

It wasn’t empty.

It was peaceful.

They spent the remaining days exploring the coastline, learning each other in the particular way that peaceful, uneventful time allowed—Rowe discovering Reaper’s genuine, unguarded laugh when a local fisherman taught him to properly clean a catch; Reaper learning that Rowe hummed old songs her father used to sing while cooking, an unconscious habit she’d never fully noticed herself.

One afternoon they rented bicycles and spent hours following the coastal paths overlooking the ocean.

Another evening they sat around a beach bonfire with strangers who never once asked what either of them did for a living.

For perhaps the first time in years, Reaper wasn’t a president.

He was simply Jax.

And Rowe loved that version of him just as fiercely.

"Tell me something about your childhood," Rowe said one evening, settled against his chest on their villa’s small balcony, watching the sun sink into the ocean. "Something that has nothing to do with the club, or your father, or any of this family’s complicated history."

Reaper considered the request with visible surprise, as though genuinely searching his memory for something untouched by the weight they’d both carried for so long.

"I used to collect rocks," he said finally, something almost sheepish in his admission. "Geodes, specifically. My mother took me hunting for them in the desert before she died. I had this whole collection, categorized by color and formation type."

Rowe turned to look at him with unmistakable delight.

"That’s adorable. The terrifying president of the Iron Reapers, secretly a rock collector."

He groaned dramatically.

"I knew I shouldn’t have told you."

"You absolutely should have."

"Don’t tell anyone," Reaper said, mock-serious. "I have a reputation to maintain."

"Your secret’s safe with me," Rowe promised, laughing freely in a way that felt like finally exhaling after months of held breath. "Do you still have the collection?"

"Somewhere in storage," Reaper admitted. "Haven’t looked at it in years. Maybe we should dig it out, once we’re home. Add to it, even. Been a long time since I let myself care about something that simple."

"I’d like that."

"You would?"

"I’d love it."

She smiled softly.

"Everyone deserves something that’s only theirs. Something with no history attached."

Reaper looked back toward the ocean.

"Maybe that’s what we’re building now."

Rowe filed the admission away with genuine tenderness, recognizing in it the particular vulnerability of a man finally allowing himself to imagine an ordinary life alongside the extraordinary one circumstance had forced upon him.

The remaining days slipped by almost too quickly.

They watched sunsets.

Shared lazy mornings.

Argued playfully over whose turn it was to make coffee.

Collected shells they both pretended not to care about.

The ordinary moments became their favorites.

They returned to the compound two weeks later, tanned and rested in a way that felt almost unfamiliar after months of accumulated crisis, to find the club had settled into a genuinely peaceful rhythm during their absence.

The gates opened without urgency.

No one rushed toward them.

Instead, Ghost leaned casually against the clubhouse porch with a mug of coffee.

"Told you we’d survive."

Reaper looked around the quiet compound.

"I hate how right you are."

"Everything ran smooth," Ghost reported during their first briefing back. "No incidents, no lingering threats from Reeves’s dismantled faction. Frank and Reeves both remain in custody awaiting trial. Detective Okafor says the cases against them are about as solid as prosecutors ever get."

"And Daniel?" Rowe asked.

"Settling into his own inheritance claim nicely," Piper reported, having apparently grown considerably closer to her half-brother during the two weeks of their absence. "He’s planning to fully dissolve what’s left of his old faction, redirect those loyal to him toward legitimate business ventures instead."

"That’s good news," Reaper said, genuine relief evident in his voice.

"There’s more good news, actually," Elena added, unable to fully contain her excitement. "Doc’s clinic officially received county certification while you were gone. He’s now fully licensed to operate independently, no longer needing club protection to practice medicine safely."

Doc looked almost embarrassed by the applause that followed.

"I was just doing my job."

"Now you get paid for doing it legally," Ghost teased.

The accumulated good news washed over Rowe like a physical wave of relief, evidence that this family’s long, exhausting war had genuinely, finally given way to something resembling sustainable peace.

That evening, after dinner, she wandered slowly through the compound.

Children played near the chapel.

Members worked on motorcycles simply because they enjoyed it.

Someone grilled dinner outside while music drifted softly through the warm evening air.

Nothing demanded immediate attention.

Nothing threatened to fall apart.

The peace felt real.

"I don’t quite know what to do with myself," Rowe admitted that evening, settling into their now genuinely peaceful compound quarters. "No immediate crisis, no lingering threat requiring constant vigilance. It feels almost unfamiliar."

Reaper wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they sat together on the porch.

The same porch where they had once planned for battles.

Now they watched the sunset instead.

"Get used to it," Reaper said again, echoing his earlier promise with visible satisfaction. "I intend for this to become our actual normal, Rowan. Ordinary life, ordinary joy, ordinary problems that don’t involve murder conspiracies or rival club warfare."

Rowe laughed softly.

"I’ll happily argue about groceries instead."

"I was thinking laundry."

"Now that’s a real marriage."

He smiled.

"The best kind."

Rowe let herself believe it, drawing comfort from the genuine peace settling over the compound, over her marriage, over a family that had finally, painfully earned the right to simply exist without constant threat looming over every choice.

Whatever ordinary problems awaited them going forward, she found herself genuinely looking forward to facing them—together, honestly, and finally, blessedly free from the shadow of buried secrets that had defined the first Chapter of their story together.

The future no longer felt uncertain.

It simply felt open.

And for the first time in a very long while, that was more than enough.

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