Race (19 page)

"I'm not in the mood for your bitter jokes," Ronan remarked. His face was straight and serious.

"You know, by looking at Ronan's mood, I've just remembered a song," Harry commented, which was quite irrelevant in Mini's eyes. Ronan sighed in a heavy frustration.

"Sir, I don't understand. Which song are you talking about?" Mini asked.

"I'll explain," said Harry. "The one hundred million dollar insurance policy is a really big flower. If, to eat that flower, Ronan murdered Noah, then the flower will be eaten by Noah's wife, Alice. And if this truly is an accident, and Ronan is innocent, then Alice will still be eating that flower." Harry burst out laughing.

"Why do you keep on telling us the same thing over and over again?" Ronan shouted angrily, as Harry offered Chantelle a strawberry. "We're not interested in the money!" Ronan carried on. "Come on,  Chantelle." They both departed from the church gardens.

Harry roared with laughter. "The guava's are bitter!" he chuckled.

"Sir, you're not eating guavas, you're eating strawberries," Mini said pointedly, proud that she'd corrected one of Harry's mistakes.

"Thank you," Harry snapped. "Shall we go now?"

"Yes, sir," Mini agreed, smoothing out her dress as she nodded.

"And you ... Mrs Alice ..." Noah said, touching her face harshly as she gasped. "
Touch me, touch me, kiss me, kiss me
," he mocked. "You're such a good actress, you know?" he said bitterly. "You should even go to  Hollywood." Chantelle laughed and Noah sat down. "I had to wait until the money would be deposited into Alice's account. In all of this waiting, I found out that you didn't just do this all for money. It's also because in your heart and mind you had poison building up for me. Your whole life, you wanted to make me lose." He leaned his face closer to Ronan's. "In an act of love, I lost once deliberately just for you."

"ENOUGH!" Ronan roared. He got up on his feet. "IT'S JUST THAT THING THAT I HATE! THIS LOVE! THAT FAKE LOVE THAT YOU KEEP ON THROWING ON ME BECAUSE YOU WANT THE FACT TO DIG DEEP INTO ME THAT I AM YOUR STEP BROTHER! YOUR STEP BROTHER!" His voice became laboured. "
You deliberately lost
," he mocked. "I WANTED TO SHOW YOU HOW MUCH I'M CAPABLE OF!"

Noah stood up, his face raging with anger. "You never won because all you ever thought about or concentrated on was making me lose. I never lost because all I ever thought about was winning. Even at the present day, you're really failing if you're trying to make me lose again."

"Yes, I lost," Ronan admitted, stuffing his hands in his pockets, never leaving his brother's gaze. "But what did you think? That you would give me a lecture and I'd collapse at your feet begging for mercy?" Ronan coughed a little. "Do you wanna kill me? Well, come on then. KILL ME!" he roared, taking Noah's hand and making him point the gun at his forehead. "COME ON!"

Noah stared at his brother for a long moment. "That is the exact poison that I want to get rid of from you. All of your life, all you've been thinking about is making me lose. Then, that's fine." He lowered his hand from Ronan's forehead. "Today, we will hold another race. A final race. In our childhood, we always raced on our bicycles. Today, we'll race with our lives on the line. The person who wins ... will win everything. Everything."

Chantelle sprung up from her seat. "What are you saying,  Noah?" she interrupted. "You're gonna give him another chance?!"

"I know what I'm doing, Chantelle," Noah snapped, and turned back to face Ronan. "What do you say, Ronan? Two hundred million. All, or nothing."

After exchanging glances with everyone in the room, Ronan slowly but surely nodded his head. "The race is on."

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

ALL ... OR NOTHING

It was time for the race. Noah arrived at the racing site where Ronan all ready was. Ronan and Alice were standing outside of their blue racing car when Noah arrived with Chantelle. Noah arrived in a yellow racing car with blue stripes on it.

"Wow, what a sports car," Alice commented.

Noah stared out of his window. "Are you ready?" he asked.

Ronan grinned, putting his jacket on. "Anyone can win in this car," he remarked.

Noah walked out of his car, chuckling. "The race car doesn't win. It's the person who drives it." H threw the keys over to Ronan.

Ronan smirked, and then Chantelle and Noah went into the blue car, while Ronan and Alice went into the yellow one with the blue stripes on it. Ronan looked out of his window and laughed a little.

The boys revved up their engines and the race began.

They drove and drove around the trak at speeds averaging over one hundred and fifty miles per hour, but one never got ahead of the other. Ronan began to try a different tack. He overtook Noah by driving inn front of him, but then Noah frustratedly moved to the other lane, and before any one knew it the cars were both clanging into each other.

Soon, Noah was ahead, and he was driving rapidly. But then, a bend came, and he needed to use brakes. He pushed down the brakes in anger but they wouldn't work. He tried again for good measure but it was no use. Chantelle gasped, and before they both knew it, the car was starting to lose control, and was still moving rapidly at a high speed.  Noah tried to pull the gears but they wouldn't work either.

"What happened, Noah?" Chantelle cried.

"No brakes!" came Noah's answer.

"What?!" Chantelle shouted.

Noah tried his best to keep the car steady, and it was eventually paying off, but his car started t slow down. He was now neck and neck with Ronan again.

"Oh, big brother!" Ronan called out of his own window, with Alice giggling at this side. "Everything all right with the brakes?" He roared with laughter. "See you in hell! I'm going to hell too, but in about forty or fifty years!" he smirked, and waved at his brother, as Noah continued to just stare at him in shock.

Ronan drove on. "WOO HOO!" he exclaimed, with Alice smiling at him. Suddenly, his phone started to ring. It said 'Noah calling' on it.

"It's Noah," Alice pointed out icily.

Ronan pressed the green button on the phone to answer it. "Oh, Noah, my soul and love, do you have any last words or something that you want to say to me?" Ronan laughed.

"You've said the wrong thing, Ronan,"  Noah remarked. "You're not going to go to hell in forty or fifty years. You're gonna go to hell in just about five minutes."

Ronan chuckled. "Oh yeah? And how's that going to happen?"

Noah smirked. "There's a bomb in your car."

That shut Ronan up for sure.

"Do you remember the trigger I pushed when Nicholas's car drove?" Noah said.

Noah and Ronan were parked in their beautiful white racing car behind a black gate. Outside the gate, the man that had raced Noah’s horse, stepped out of his blue truck, grinning. His name was Nicholas.

Nicholas walked a little further up the pathway, and saw that Jacob was sat in his own car, waiting expectantly for him. Nicholas nodded at Jacob and joined him in his car.

“As promised,” said Jacob. He opened up his briefcase, which was filled with stacks and stacks of money.

“Thanks,” said Nicholas, taking the briefcase from Jacob. Then, he walked back to his own truck. Noah and Ronan watched him from their window.

“Well?” Ronan asked his brother..

"Well?" Noah repeated. “Well, now, it’s time for the explosion." He gave his brother a devilish grin.

As Nicholas’s truck drove, Noah and Ronan’s car overtook him. They drove at a steady pace ahead of Nicholas’s car, and then Noah took out an activator from his pocket. He pushed the button, and behind them, Nicholas’s car flew up and burst into flames.

Ronan smirked. The brothers grinned at each other and then they made their way back to the stud farm, hands in pockets and walking with swag.

Ronan was rendered speechless. He reached for the brakes, but the Noah said something else.

"Don't turn on the brakes now, Ronan. If you use the brakes and your speed goes below one hundred miles per hour, then your car will fly up. Now neither I can stop it, or you." He paused. "I'm the one who's brakes aren't working, and you can't even use yours." He chuckled lightly as Chantelle continued to stare at him with an intrigued expression.

Ronan had never been so frightened in his life. But that didn't stop him though.  He was still going to do this race no matter what.

Noah began to race like he had never raced before in his life. He raced so fast that he was quite ahead of Ronan now - but since Ronan couldn't use his brakes, he had nothing left to lose. Ronan picked up his speed too, so fast that he over took Noah.

Then, a whole load of buses were ahead of them.

"Noah!" Chantelle cried.

"Hang on!" Noah called out, and he turned the car over so it would drive on one side of the wheels whilst Chantelle screamed. They fitted through the middle of the buses with ease, whilst Ronan was struggling, and knocking over cones and things in the road to get past them, causing a havoc.

Noah continued to drive, but Ronan was now considerably ahead of him. Noah overtook the speed that the car was capable of to catch up, and then a huge truck with a boat attached to the end of it overtook Ronan. Ronan drove around it whilst Alice continued to scream, and the boat from the truck fell smack down with a deafening noise.

Noah was now considerably ahead of Ronan, but something got in his way. A huge load of men on little motorbike styled trucks were ahead of them. Ronan drove right round to the other track, and Noah kept at a steady pace behind them. Ronan looked back, and then looked back in front, and suddenly, both him and Alice were screaming. Their was a caravan right in front of them on a ramp - and they were going up on that ramp. They ripped through the caravan and their car flew into the air. When it fell back down, there was a massive CLANG and a huge ROAR of flames. Their car was now soot black and burning. It jumped up and then back down with the flames, until the full car was entirely consumed by them. Then, the car skidded right into a fuel tank, and the minute it hit that fuel tank, the fuel tank that the truck was in set on fire too, but had an even more bigger explosion.

In all of the havoc, Noah began to lose control of his car. It began to skid down a small lane right into a huge load of water barrels. The car came to an abrupt stop, and the water barrels skidded down their cliff and fell into the sea. Chantelle and Noah were both panting, breathless, and from the corner of their eyes, they caught sight of the burning car. Alice and Ronan were gone. They were truly gone.

Noah and Chantelle walked over to the explosion. The flames were starting to reduce, and they stared at the car that Ronan and Alice had sat inside. Noah remembered Ronan's words.

"This house was first my dad's friend's. Me and Noah always came to play here. We would always race on these roads with our bicycles. And that's how mine and Noah's racing began." Ronan remembered his childhood.

"Come on, pedal faster, Ronan, faster!" Noah exclaimed as the two little boys cycled down the road. "Come on, faster. Faster! Ronan, try to catch me! Catch me!"

"Noah always won," Ronan continued. "Daddy would always celebrate his victory with a party." He spoke in a tone of jealousy. "I didn't like it. I didn't like it all. But I never cried. I only thought how Noah thought if things worked differently. But Noah always won Daddy's trust. When Daddy died, he gave away everything to Noah in his will. The business, the property, the money. You name it. I was the second class citizen in my own home." He paused, tears in his eyes. "Whenever I wanted something, I would go to Noah, and he would give me whatever I wanted. But side by side he always gave me the impression that he was better than me. That he was the older brother and I was the younger one. That was the love poison that stayed in my blood. But I won that poison. In the race of life, I beat him. I beat him, goddammit."