DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten (the Charlie Fox crime thriller series) by Zoe Sharp, Joel Goldman Read Free Book Online Page A

turned into me automatically with a yelp of hurt surprise. I stuck out my foot and tangled it between his ankles. He went crashing to his knees. I followed him down, keeping the armlock in place, and reinforced it with a knee in the small of his back once he was there. I didn’t even slop any liquid out of the champagne flute I still held in my left hand.
     
    I looked up, aware of a sudden buzzing silence. Blake Dyer was frozen, white-faced, but I guessed that this was an unpleasant reminder of the last time I’d worked for him. I’d taken out a potential threat at another high society gathering. Hell, at least I didn’t shoot this one.
     
    Tom O’Day was staring down at me with a look of total bemusement on his face. His bodyguard, Hobson, might have just been told an off-colour joke in mixed company. He’d allowed a tiny smile to crack his stony face. Hard to tell if he was suppressing something bigger or simply didn’t find it funny.
     
    Sean, I was gratified to see, had at least got himself in close to our principal, even if he was showing no emotion at all. I hoped people would read that reaction as calm rather than inertia.
     
    And then, into that shocked hush, came the sound of a semiautomatic hammer going back. I slid my eyes sideways without moving my head, saw the muzzle and front sight of what was probably a Beretta, just visible in my peripheral vision.
     
    “Let him up,” said a man’s voice. A British accent, north London, gruff with anger.
     
    I released the lock and rose in one movement, moving back quickly. It’s been my experience that men who’ve been taken down by a woman often try to get their retaliation in really promptly. In which case it’s always wise to be out of range.
     
    In this case the young man groaned a few times, flopping around until he managed to get his loose arm back under control. Conversation started up again, a little too loudly in the way it does when people are more excited than shocked by what they’ve just seen.
     
    To my surprise, it was Tom O’Day who came forwards and scooped a hand under the young man’s elbow. It was only as he came to his feet and the two of them stood next to each other that I realised the startling family resemblance.
     
    Oh . . . shit.
     
    “I think you should apologise,” O’Day said.
     
    “Of course,” I said at once, contrite. “I didn’t—”
     
    “Not you—him,” O’Day interrupted, eyes twinkling. “Jimmy?”
     
    “Dad!” The young man’s voice emerged as a squawk. He had his father’s facial structure without his confidence, height or breadth. “ She’s the one who attacked me !”
     
    “You came charging over here with a face like thunder, boy. In a room full of bodyguards, you’re lucky she didn’t break your arm.”
     
    “Well, how was I supposed to know that’s what she was?” Jimmy O’Day threw me a sullen look. There was a long pause, during which time he tried for defiance and his father beat him down with age and experience. I got the feeling their clashes usually ended the same way .
     
    Eventually, Jimmy muttered, “Sorry.” His gaze shifted across to where the star guest had barely paused during the interruption to his grand entrance. The only change was that the blonde, Autumn, had disentangled herself and was heading over, concern on her lovely face. Baptiste was self-absorbed enough to have hardly noticed her departure.
     
    “Jimmy, what happened?” she asked. “Did you fall?”
     
    Tom O’Day harrumphed. “Boy’s a damned fool,” he said.
     
    His son made an effort not to appear sulky in front of her. So, he still had male pride. “No, I was pushed.”
     
    “Lucky she didn’t break his arm,” Tom O’Day repeated, ducking his chin in my direction. Whatever dignity Jimmy had regained, O’Day had just taken it away from him again.
     
    Jimmy’s eyes flashed, then slid to the man who’d shoved a Beretta in my face. “No, she’s lucky Vic didn’t shoot