Irish Throwdown (What Happens In Vegas Book 4) by Matt Lincoln (motivational novels TXT) 📗

guy’s symbol and address clearly printed on it. It’s like whoever’s doing this isn’t even trying to cover their tracks.”

“You think we’re being set up?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t know,” I responded honestly. Charlie was regarding me intensely, and it reminded me of something I’d been wondering about since yesterday. “Why did you get so emotional about Aiden Gooden?”

“What?” Charlie raised an eyebrow at me.

“The kid whose mom came at you with the hose,” I responded. “You seemed really worked up about that particular case. You didn’t get that emotional at any of the other houses while explaining what happened to the families and collecting the bottles. What was it about him?”

Charlie frowned, and I wondered if I was being too nosy. He didn’t really like talking about himself, but we’d become better friends over the past year we’d spent as partners.

“His mom said something about everyone turning on him,” he sighed. “When they heard the cops had found drugs in his system, everyone acted like he was scum that didn’t deserve to live. The only one who stood by him was his mom.”

He stopped speaking. His eyes were glazed over as if he remembered something, and I waited patiently for him to continue speaking.

“When I was seventeen, my girlfriend accused me of getting her pregnant,” he revealed. “It wasn’t my kid. I don’t know whose it was, but it sure wasn’t mine. We’d never slept together, so it couldn’t have been mine. I lived in a small town, though. Everyone was always in each others’ business, and word spread fast. Before I knew it, everyone was labeling me a scumbag who got a teenager pregnant without even being married.”

“He reminded you of yourself,” I concluded.

“Yep,” Charlie nodded. “Everyone was saying I should marry her to ‘make things right.’ Her dad didn’t like me, though. He said there was no way he was letting his daughter marry some thug from the low-class side of town. My mom was the town druggie, and I already had a bad reputation just for being her son, so it was easy for the entire community to believe whatever negative rumors they heard about me. Then my own mother kicked me out of the house. She told me that if I was old enough to be a dad, I needed to get a job and take care of myself. I couldn’t get a job. By then, everyone knew me as the drug dealer’s kid who knocked up his girlfriend and then refused to even see her, even though her dad was the one stopping me from seeing her. No one would hire me.”

“That’s horrible,” I gasped, unable to contain my shock. I knew that Charlie had spent some time on the street. He’d mentioned stories about the trouble he’d gotten into as a teenager, but I had no idea he’d been through such an awful ordeal.

“I guess,” Charlie shrugged. “In hindsight, it was good that it happened. I felt betrayed at the time by my girlfriend, my mother, literally everyone in town who shunned me just based on rumors. However, if it hadn’t happened, I never would have met Harry. I probably would never have become a cop or a federal agent, either. In the end, I’m grateful that they all pushed me away. I would have ended up stuck in that backwater town otherwise.”

“Wow,” I replied. It was crazy to think that such an awful experience had such a huge positive impact on Charlie’s future.

“Anyway,” Charlie continued, “that’s why I got so emotional, I guess. It made me happy that Aiden’s mom defended him even when everyone else had turned on him. I really wanted her to have hope that he would wake back up.”

We lapsed into silence then, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. I was glad that Charlie had trusted me enough to share such an important, if sad, moment in his life with me.

I woke with a jolt a little while later, unsure when I’d fallen asleep to begin with.

“Finally,” Charlie groused as we touched down on the runway. I glanced out the window and saw that it was pitch black outside. I glanced at my phone to check the time and discovered that it was just after nine in the evening. That made sense, considering we’d left at night and had spent nearly a full day flying, coupled with the fact that Dublin was eight hours ahead of Las Vegas.

The inside of Dublin International Airport looked like any other airport I’d been in during my missions, but the outside was a sight to behold. The structure looked like something out of a science fiction movie. Two massive, domed terminals lined either side of the road, with a sloping, convex bridge stretched between the two sides. The smooth, shiny sides of the building reflected green and purple light against the dark night sky.

We were met at security by a member of the Garda Siochana, the name of Ireland’s national police force.

“Good to meet you, fellows.” He smiled at us pleasantly. “How was your flight over?”

“Long,” Charlie replied honestly.

“I can imagine,” the man replied. “Anyway, I’m Officer Charleston. Just came to help you get everything cleared through. I trust you understand that gun laws are quite a bit stricter here than they are in the States?”

“Yeah, we’ve been briefed on it,” I replied.

“Excellent!” The man beamed. “Well, just keep in mind that while you’re authorized to carry your weapons with you, we will require that you be accompanied by a member of the Garda at all times.”

“Of course.” I nodded.

He finished explaining the local policies and protocols to us, which mainly consisted of not shooting unless we absolutely had to and remaining with our assigned Garda officers any time we were on the job.

“Well, that’s about it,” he concluded. “I’ll let you go and get settled then. It’s pretty late. Come by the station tomorrow, and we’ll get you set up with your liaison.”

We went our separate ways then, and Charlie and I headed out