Beyond Retribution

Boa was having a first-class, grade A, shitty day.

Stupid shit kept cropping up the last two weeks in and around the Serpents-owned strip club. Nothing too serious, but just enough to be a pain in the ass. Since Boa didn’t believe in coincidences, he’d be bringing it up at the next church meeting.

On his way back to Vegas, while cruising along Boulder Highway, some smart ass in a Lamborghini decided to tail Boa, then zipped past him so close he almost laid down his bike. The jerk-off paced him, but as soon as Boa slipped his hand into his cut, his eyes widened seconds before he sped off. Boa gave his Kimber a loving pat.

Nothing said “Get the fuck away from me” like a 1911.

Other than that, Boa was having a fan-fuckin-tastic day.

All these screw-ups messed with his brain and had him angling his bike into the McDonald’s on Sahara on this 95-degree fall day in Las Vegas. With any luck, the blonde with the bangin’ body would be working, but of course, because he was having a shit day, he found two guys with bad skin and a woman in her sixties behind the counter instead.

Yup, it was a fuckin’ lousy day when Boa couldn’t order a hot and juicy while ogling a hot and spicy.

He could almost taste that Big Mac, large fries, and chocolate milkshake sliding down his throat as he waited in line. Yeah, his personal trainer would say he was “eating his feelings,” and once upon a time in the bad old days when he was the fat kid everybody made fun of, that was true.

Now at six foot six, weighing in at two-forty, and pierced and tatted from head-to-toe, nobody made fun of Boa.

He’d just nabbed the warm bag of his greasy, two-thousand calorie lunch when a blood-curdling scream echoed through the restaurant. He spun around in time to see a woman drenched in what looked like a supersized soft drink. She frantically tried to wrangle three kids out of the booth also dripping in the thirty ounces of sugar and syrup.

He was about to head out to his bike and unwrap his junk food when the woman straightened, and her profile made him look closer. Shit, it was Madeline. Madeline, the stripper from the Shangri-La with the knockout body. Madeline, who helped the Serpents take down a notorious MC president. That Madeline.

His booted feet sent him in her direction, and a few seconds later, he was standing in a puddle of Coke.
“I told y’all not to be horsing around and causing a fuss,” Madeline scolded in a heavy southern drawl. He’d only had a few words with her in the past but never detected any accent.

The boy, who looked to be nine or ten, paid her no mind and continued to swirl the spilled soda over the Formica tabletop with a smirky smile while two other younger boys complained their fries and hamburgers were drenched and soggy.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Madeline squawked each word louder than the last.

“Hey,” Boa’s deep voice cut through the chaos. Madeline flinched, and now he had four pairs of big brown eyes staring up at him.

“Boa? Geez, you scared the shit outta me. I figured it was the freakin’ manager telling us to leave.” She shot a look to the boys. “Again.”

The oldest one, defiant and challenging, held Boa’s glare.

“I’ll bet you begged your mama to come here today, right?”

The two younger ones nodded their heads, but the older one continued to scowl at Boa.

“And now ’cause you all were acting out, it’s ruined.” Boa waved his hand over the uneatable food. “That ain’t right, and you should be apologizing to your mom.”

Madeline remained still and quiet as the younger boys each mumbled, “Sorry.”

Boa shot his mean mug to the older one, who finally spit out an apology too. Yeah, this kid was a handful, but there was something admirable about him that tugged at Boa, something the biker hadn’t learned until much later in life.

“Now go up to the front and nicely ask the girl for some rags to clean this up, and we’ll see what we can do about getting some new food.”

The two little ones scurried out of the booth, whereas the older one continued to hold Boa’s gaze for a few extra seconds, as if he didn’t trust this good luck. Smart kid.

Madeline narrowed her eyes and cocked her head like she was just as confused as her oldest son. The little he knew about her told him she couldn’t afford to waste food. According to the talk around the Gold Mine, these three kids all had different daddies, one of them up in Ely State Pen.

Her last job had her stripping at the Shangri-La until the Serpents torched it in a turf war. Supposedly, Cobra gave her some money for her part in setting up the sleazy owner, but feeding and housing three kids on her own had to be tough.

An uneasy silence settled between them. Boa sensed her skepticism mixed in with a hint of pride, probably where the older kid got his spunk.