One by One: A brutal, gritty revenge thriller that you won't be able to put down.

by Robert Enright

  They both knew what was coming. Matt Drayton had to die.

  Matt took another pull on his cigarette and both men watched the smoke twirl its way upwards.

  “Well, keep working at it. Seriously. Every evening just shadow-box. You need to nail the technique before you nail the power.”

  Alex smiled at his young student, a sixteen year-old who had found a new lease of life since he began attending the Muay Thai classes a few years ago. Alex loved to see how the discipline could not only change someone's ability but also their whole way of life. It's why he loved doing what he did.

  The young student nodded and then quickly walked across the matted dojo to the bench where his bag rested. Alex watched him as he collected his things, the posters of 'Discipline' and 'Control' proudly decorated the walls. The young lad slipped through the doors and Alex took a moment to stretch. His muscular arms reached upwards and he arched his back, feeling the strain of three two hour lessons pouring out of him.

  He slowly walked over to the mats, picking up the few remaining shin guards that he’d brought out for the evening session.

  As he collected them in his arms, he thought of Dianne back at home, her feet up and radiating a glow that only comes with pregnancy. Her hand slowly stroking the solid bump growing with every day.

  He smiled, embracing the idea of parenthood as every day drew it closer. He opened the door to the storeroom and stepped into the dark. There was no need to find the light switch, Alex knew where every piece of equipment lived and he followed his memory to the container filled to the brim with safety equipment.

  Footsteps.

  He arched his head to the door, but his view was restricted. He heard hard shoes clatter against the wooden floor serving as the entrance to his dojo.

  “Give me a minute!” he called out, stuffing the shin guards down with the others before pulling the lid down firmly.

  “Alex Thornley.”

  The voice boomed across the room and invaded the store cupboard, the words thick with a London accent. Alex marched out.

  “Sorry sir, but the dojo is closed.”

  Alex emerged into the bright lights of his dojo and stopped in his tracks. Across the mats was a well-groomed man wearing what he could tell was an expensive suit. His red tie exploded against his crisp white shirt. His arms hung at his sides, hands clasped behind his back. His dark brown eyes locked on Alex.

  Behind him, a much larger man slowly closed the door to his workplace, ensuring they were completely alone. His arms pulled the sleeves of his polo shirt to their physical limit and the rest of it clung to an impressive frame.

  “I'm not here for a fucking lesson.”

  Alex didn't respond as the suited man's face snarled in his direction. He knew who was standing before him. The police had been to see him after the reports had come in that Lucas had brutally murdered two of the people rumoured to have been involved with the death of his wife.

  The officer had told him of the family's stature, of what they were capable of and why any information he could give them would be invaluable. Alex took a few steps onto the mats, each step shrouded with caution. As he did, the hulking sidekick took a few steps forward also, stretching his colossal arms behind him and then cracking his neck. Alex knew he was a fighter just by the way he stood.

  The two of them stared down, roughly eight feet of padded matting the only thing separating them. The man in the suit took a few steps to the side, his stare still latched firmly onto Alex.

  Alex raised his arms up, his fists clenching and he bent his elbows. He slid one foot in front of the other, knee slightly bent as he prepared for the onslaught.

  As the larger man took a few steps towards him, a gunshot rang out around the dojo that encased the noise and expanded it.

  Alex felt the bullet rip through his thigh, the burning pain following as he collapsed to the mats, blood spraying out in a wild pattern. He refused to make a noise, biting his lip as he winced in agony.

  “What the fuck?” Tommy angrily turned to his brother, who held the gun proudly in his hand.

  “I didn't come here to watch you two girls dance now, did I?”

  Curtis smirked at his enraged brother, before turning his attention back to Alex. The gun swayed in his hand as he ordered his brother to find a chair. Alex slowed his breathing down, maintaining calm as the pain flowed from his leg in a steady, constant stream of blood. He knew there was no point calling for help.

  He knew why they were here.

  He closed his eyes and thought of Dianne, her radiant smile and the beautiful bump.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  “I imagine Harry and Lewis begged for their lives, huh? Lewis definitely.”

  Matt slouched against the desk, the cigarette delicately poised in his functioning hand. His other lay lamely on his leg, a mishmash of broken bones and shards of glass. The smoke danced gracefully upwards to the tube lights that hung symmetrically from the ceiling above.

  Lucas didn't answer as he twisted the cap of the red, plastic petrol container and began to casually flick the pungent liquid over the nearby work bench.

  “Deep down that’s what people do, right? Whatever they can to survive.”

  Lucas stopped in his tracks, the petrol sloshing in the canister as he turned to face the floored Drayton. He studied his face and found the expression disturbing. It wasn't fear or hatred. It wasn't desperation.

  It was acceptance.

  “Is that why you did it?” Lucas's voice was cold, his words punching like a verbal boxing glove.

  “Did what?”

  “Chase my wife and lure her to a fate that no one should face.”

  Matt shook his head in disgust, taking a deep drag on his cigarette. The smell of petrol was growing and he carefully stubbed it out on the concrete beside him.

  “I did it because I'm weak.”

  Lucas stared at him, his eyes urging him to continue.

  “That's why we all did it. Time and time again.” Lucas wasn't even sure if Matt was confessing to him or to himself. “Curtis had always been there when we were growing up. I don't know exactly what our piece-of-shit dad had done to him, he would never say. But whatever it was, it left a scar that no amount of time could heal. It changed him.

  “Over the years he just became this monster of a man who craved power. Oh he was generous. The golf range, ‘The Hive’, this place. He paid for it all and gave us the keys. I guess when you look back on it, it wasn't really worth it.”

  Lucas stared at Matt, who began fishing another white cigarette from his box. There was no fight in him. Lucas poured more petrol out, this time over a small, wooden kitchen table and the matching chairs. The liquid slapped against the wood in thick, random splashes. As the canister finished, he dropped it to the concrete with a loud clang and began unscrewing the cap of another one. The smell grabbed his nostrils and clung on for dear life.

  “Worth what?”

  Matt took a deep pull, the smoke floating over his thoughtful face.

  “Our lives.”

  Lucas nodded, agreeing with the words of a man he was there to kill. A few more clouds of smoke rose gently into the room.

  “The man had people willing to take a bullet or do time for him. For our name. I guess even though we were family, we were just the same. He wanted to feel powerful and he got us to bring him women like he was ordering a fucking pizza.”

  Petrol splashed the body of an old motorbike sitting in the corner of the garage, its only use gathering rust.

  “I hate you for what you did to Ashley, but she was just the same. She would see these girls, these 'easy opportunities' and send them our way...”

  Matt trailed off, shaking his head as he recollected the vile deeds of days gone by. Lucas poured a trail of petrol out into the centre of the garage floor and then tossed the empty canister onto the already doused workbench.

  “Your wife deserved better than what we did.”

  Lucas watched as the remorsefu
l man took a final puff and then carefully extinguished his cigarette beside the other. He looked up at the vengeful widow before him.

  “And we all deserve to die.”

  The two men locked eyes for a moment and a silent agreement was shared. This had to happen and both of them knew it. Matt drew his functioning hand across to his other pocket, fishing out his mobile phone. He lazily held it upwards and Lucas's shoes sloshed in the petrol as he strode forward. He calmly took it, sliding it into his own pocket to keep Helen's wedding ring company. Lucas took a few steps to his left and bent down, spraying rain drops into the petrol that shimmered on the ground.

  He picked up the gun that Matt had so desperately scrambled for.

  “You called the police that night, didn't you?”

  Matt looked up at Lucas, the pain surging from his shattered hand and mangled knee evident in his eyes. He nodded slowly, knowing it would do little to change what was coming.

  “You tried to save her?”

  Matt shook his head slowly, his eyes closed.

  'I tried to give her a fighting chance. I knew how it was going to play out. Same as the other girls. I thought they may be able to save her if they got there in time.”

  Lucas slowly rubbed the thick stubble on his wet chin, the gun hanging loosely in his other hand. He looked around the room, the fumes surging at him with a forceful potency.

  He pulled the clip from the bottom of the gun and flicked a bullet out. It spun in the air, splashing as it hit the petrol slowly absorbing the ground beneath them.

  “Every woman you took.

  Another bullet.

  “Every life you helped end.”

  Another.

  “Destroyed countless others.”

  Three more pinged from his hand, bouncing recklessly into the room behind him.

  “I have killed your family for what they have done to mine.”

  Another splash.

  “And I will finish the rest of them.”

  He flicked one more bullet until only one, solitary piece of silver sat in the clip. He slid the clip back into the gun, clicking it into place. Standing roughly nine feet away from Matt, he slowly bent down and placed the gun on the floor. One bullet left.

  One chance at an easy way out.

  “You tried to give her a fighting chance. Consider this yours.”

  Matt's eyes began to water, the realisation that his life was about to come to an end shaking his body. He nodded at Lucas, accepting the offer and Lucas nodded in return. He then reached into his pocket and retrieved the lighter he had expensively procured from yesterday's student and rolled the metal wheel.

  The flame danced within its small, metallic armour and Lucas tossed it casually onto the workbench. Flames immediately engulfed the wooden top, flickering and swaying with violent beauty.

  Lucas saw them spread down the legs and burst across the floor of the garage as they flickered with mesmeric grandeur. He turned and briskly walked towards the sanctity of the rain, the sting of the fresh air in his lungs most welcome.

  The room sweltered, the heat from the flames beginning to cause serious discomfort to Matt who knew he had no chance of following Lucas out of the door.

  His body would be turned to ash and would wash away like the stain on the earth he’d become.

  He thought of karma and how he’d always known a day would come when he’d face the horrors his family had bestowed upon others.

  The world would always restore the balance. This was his.

  He painfully pushed himself forward, his clothes thick and heavy with petrol. As he dragged his limp, broken leg through the petrol, the flames quickly pounced on him. They spread across his back and he gritted his teeth as his skin began to burn.

  A few more feet and the pain was becoming excruciating, his skin charring as the fire began to dominate him.

  Smoke billowed out from the garage, the thick black clouds being carried by the harsh winds of London.

  He reached out with his good hand, the flames encasing his sleeve as he did.

  His fingers clasped onto the gun.

  As Lucas walked hurriedly down the alleyway towards the main road, he heard the unmistakable echo of a gunshot. He stopped for a moment but then continued his march, as the fire grew in stature behind him.

  Alex spat blood onto the mats as his jaw rocked from another meaty right hook. Tommy shook the impact of the punch from his wrist as he stepped away. Curtis sat on a chair opposite, as Alex hung slightly to the right of his.

  “Where can I find him?”

  Alex sniffed, swallowing the blood swashing around in his mouth. He sat back up, lifting his battered face up to meet Curtis's.

  “I don't know.”

  There was little fear in his voice or in his eyes. It riled Curtis who nodded to his brother. Another face-shaking right hook, another spray of blood slapped against the mats.

  “You’re beginning to try my patience, Alex.” Alex wobbled on his seat but straightened himself. “Again, where is he?”

  Alex stared at Curtis, the cut above his eye gently dribbling blood down his quickly bruising cheek. His other eye was already beginning to swell.

  “Are you scared, Curtis?”

  “You are really starting to try my patience.”

  “Because if this is some sort of attempt to impose your power or dominance, you do realise that it’s failing?” Curtis scowled in his direction. “All it’s doing is revealing your desperation.”

  Tommy took a step forward, his lethal arm primed and ready to swing again. Curtis held up a hand, stopping his destructive brother.

  “Enlighten me, please.”

  Alex chuckled slightly before drawing up the blood in his mouth and spitting it to the side. It crashed on the mats and flared out across it.

  “Do you think that attacking me will stop him?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “You're right. It won't. There is more to Lucas than you know and if you think you’re playing a game of 'my violence can beat your violence' then you’ve already lost.”

  Curtis shuffled uncomfortably on his seat, the gun resting lazily in the hand on his lap. Tommy stood behind him, arms folded and back straight.

  “So what, he is some sort of crazed psychopath? I've already gathered that much.”

  “Oh he isn't crazy. Not at all. We used to discuss why he needed to curb it, why he needed to train and why he sought an outlet for what was inside him. When you go through an upbringing like Lucas's, when your only way out was to fight, it's very difficult to turn off.

  “Lucas was adamant he wouldn't go back to the person he was, or to feeling angry all the time. Not when he had the life he never believed imaginable.”

  Curtis lit a cigarette, snapping his metal zippo lighter shut. He leant forward, shrouding Alex in the smoke he exhaled.

  “We all have a bad past, mate. You can either run from it or embrace it.”

  “Is that what you did, Curtis? Embrace it? Use it as an excuse to rape and murder women?”

  Curtis smiled proudly, the disgust in Alex's voice amused him.

  “I used it to build a future that revolved around me. And one that will end with Lucas joining his wife again.”

  “I'm sure he has his own mapped out. You're right, he did run from his past. However, unfortunately for you, you have made him confront it after all these years and that's why you’re here and that's why you’re so scared.'

  Curtis blew more smoke into the brightly lit dojo as his eyes bellowed with rage. The blood on the mats shimmered.

  “I'm not scared of violence. I've been around it my whole life.”

  “Not like this, you haven't.” Alex swallowed more blood, his thigh throbbing with pain and pumping blood down his leg. “Violence is like a storm. It's a natural occurrence that causes untold damage. It can rip everything apart – lives, families, everything. And like a storm, sometimes violence can have so much power behind it, it becomes unstoppable. Admirable in the sheer, un
repentant chaos it brings.”

  Curtis dropped his cigarette to the floor and stamped his expensive, Italian shoes on top of it.

  “It becomes a thing of beauty.”

  Alex held Curtis's stare as well as he could with the swelling obscuring his vision. Curtis ran a hand nervously over his jaw, looking around the room. The bright lights illuminated the well-maintained dojo, everything sat in its rightful place. On the wall, the large posters took centre stage, displaying their message proudly. Curtis scoffed at them. Alex continued, defiant to the end.

  “So you do whatever the hell you want with me. I won't beg and I won't die an unhappy man. But it won't save you Curtis. It won't stop what’s coming for you.”

  Curtis returned his attention to Alex, the lack of fear in the man causing him to angrily stand up. The chair flew backwards, almost crashing into his imposing brother.

  “You can spew all the high and mighty bullshit you want, it's not going to change anything. Lucas is going to die a slow, painful death and I will be the reason for it.”

  Alex felt the pain ringing in his jaw, in his head. He tried to smile.

  “I would say you got the wrong person who’s going to die, but you got the reason right.”

  Curtis, snarling and snapping like a rabid dog, leant forward, mirroring Alex's eye-line. His rank breath stank of the odour of a hundred cigarettes.

  “You think that because you’ve given him discipline and control, he’ll survive? These fucking principles mean nothing.”

  “I never gave him control.”

  Curtis stood up straight, the gun hanging at his side. He raised his eyebrows in slight confusion.

  “What?”

  “I said I never gave him control.” Alex looked up, forcing himself to battle the pain to make eye contact. “I gave him discipline, sure. I trained him, taught him to channel it. Direct it. But it was Helen who gave him the control. His Helen, who you took from him. You let him off his leash.”

  “And I will put him down.”

  “Everything that’s happened, Curtis, is on you. You may not believe in discipline or control. You may not believe that you could ever be afraid or that you’re even mortal. But you should believe in the fact that laying a finger on her was the biggest mistake you ever made.”