Race (20 page)

"All my life, all I've been doing is racing," Noah murmured. "But today, Ronan has betrayed me again. I didn't put a bomb in the car."

Chantelle stared at him, shocked. If their was no bomb in the car, then it was Ronan who had to face his own fate in the end. Even Alice had to. He hadn't known that Alice would turn against him like this, out of all people.  He was right. She should have gone to Hollywood. If she was alive, anyway.

Ronan laughed, but then almost passed put in shock when he saw Chantelle stride into the room too, looking beautiful and fresh.  Alice gasped because she thought that Frank had killed her, but he hadn't, and then Ronan just tried to shrug it off. Chantelle sat down next to Noah and put her arms around him.

"I'm sorry, Ronan," Chantelle smirked. "The man that you  gave the contract to of killing me, died himself, the poor bastard." Her face was outlined with a devilish grin.

Ronan chuckled. "Think of it as a gift from my way," he grinned.

Noah folded his arms as Chantelle continued to smile. Alice did not manage to say a word.

"And you're still alive right now," Noah began, "because I want to know why you so badly wanted to hurt me. When I found out that your plan was worth one hundred million dollars, I turned that plan into two hundred million dollars.  In the eyes of people I was all ready dead and you got your one hundred million dollars." Noah lifted up his gun again. "So if I killed you as well then there'd be two hundred million dollars in the bag for me." He put his gun down. "But what I thought is that I knew you were too smart for this." He got up on his feet. "I never even knew that you and Alice had met before. Then after I died you even put this thing up that Alice was my wife, so that the police wouldn't interrogate you or have anything against you, and then
all of the money would have gone in to Alice's bank account." Noah stared at Alice's guilty face. "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."

Up on a higher level, Harry arrived in a normal dark blue car with Mini. He walked out of it and saw the flames below him.

"Wow!" Harry commented, as Noah and Chantelle walked away again. "The smaller brother is a smaller brother at the end of the day, but the older brother is someone who's probably just dropped down from heaven to get rid of all evil." He grinned to himself.

Mini stared, shaking her head. "Sir, did you know that as you said that, the flames started to burn out until they completely finished?" She opened her mouth, but closed it again, as she didn't know what to say  next.

"No, Mini,"  Harry remarked. "This story isn't over yet." He threw the box of dried apricots in and out of his hands. "There's still some of this story left."

CHAPTER FORTY NINE

THE NED BANK

Money was frantically being printed packed in to bags at the NED Bank of South Africa. Chantelle walked out, with two security guards beside her, and then they helped her pack the money in to the boot of Noah and her's car. Noah closed the boot and the security guards walked away. He lifted his cap up a little and he and Chantelle smiled at each other, as if they'd never stop smiling. They drove off.

CHAPTER FIFTY

THE END OF THE TALE

Chantelle and Noah were driving slowly and calmly. Noah opened up the window of his car and threw out his hat, chuckling. Chantelle wrapped her arms around him, kissing his cheek. A small, shy smile formed on Noah's lips. She kissed him again on the cheek, until Noah just gave up and stopped the car, wrapping is arms around her as they kissed each other passionately on the lips, as if they would never pull away from each other. His tongue slid into her mouth and he felt a groan in the back of her throat. Chantelle moved closer to him, sitting on his lap with her legs either side of him, deepening the kiss. Noah's lips were soft, so soft. They tasted of salt and sweetness and happiness. There was no other man that she could ever want. The way the'd made love flashed n her mind, and she could do nothing but crave for it again.

Since Chantelle's dress was so low cut and loose, it seemed to slip off with great ease. Noah's hands slid over her arched back, and Chantelle felt the clasp of her bra pop open. She continued to kiss him fervently and passionately, not wanting to stop, and she was feeling pulses of electricity running through my body. She arched her body closer to his, her breathing becoming louder and faster as her heart hammered rapidly against her chest. His breathing mirrored hers, and his hands stroked down her back, reaching the sensitive small area of her back until she squirmed into him even more. Her hands rushed down his body, and she traced the perfect planes of his chest with her searching hands: his muscles were perfect, every outline, every little detail of them. His chest was so smooth and muscular it made her sigh with pleasure. He reached for her bra straps and slid them off her shoulders, throwing her bra to the corner of the stable where it landed with a light thud. Chantelle's hands found his belt, which she quickly unfastened, becoming impatient with the buckle. Finally, it came off and he slid the jeans off. He pulled her on top of him onto the straw, and she briefly let go of him to remove her knickers, that minute seemed to last forever. As soon as she was done, he pulled her back to him and kissed her neck so passionately her breath caught. She moaned with pleasure, not wanting him to stop. He rolled them both over and started slowly to progress with the kissing down to her shoulder, working softly down to her breasts. His tongue tenderly traced the shape of her nipple, then he continued on down to her tummy until he got to the tips of her thighs. He stroked the insides of her thighs, then agonizingly slow, he started kissing her below there. She moaned again, this time louder, and he stopped all too soon. His lips were at her mouth again and she could feel him inside her, his own stomach pressed against hers. He gasped, letting himself take a breath, but just another minute later, she felt him entering her again, and then he was thrusting with all the force he had. Her body reacted to his, and they were both rocking until they were both hot and sweaty. Not that they stopped. She felt herself climbing higher towards climax, and felt him deep inside her, filling her with pleasure so intense that she couldn't help but scream his name. Her body was shaking, and she couldn’t breathe at all. His moans were so loud, it turned her on even more, and she couldn’t contain her pleasure. He was so perfect. He kissed her again, beginning softly, but getting harder and harder and harder and harder…

Then, somebody's car stopped right in front of them, and Noah and Chantelle pulled away from each other abruptly, not knowing who was watching them.

"Aah," Harry commented, as he walked out of his car and shut its door. He had a gun in his hand, and he held it calmly, a devilish grin forming on his face. Mini walked out of the car too, to join her boss.

Noah didn't quite understand what was going on. He and  Chantelle got out of their car too, to see Harry and Mini.

"Come in, big brother, come!" Harry beckoned to Noah. Harry turned to Mini. "Mini, in their car, they have two hundred million dollars. One hundred million dollars is his own money, and the other one hundred million dollars is his brother's money, who just died in that massive explosion along with Alice." Harry looked at his gun, laughing. "Should I kill Noah and Chantelle, and steal all of their money? Well, in the world's eyes, Noah's all ready dead." Harry raised his gun.

Noah took a few steps closer to Harry, and forced him to lower his gun by using his hand. "Put the gun down, Harry," Noah said. "I'm only afraid of good people who are about to do wrong." It was true: any good person that Noah met who turned bad, would turn so bad that all hell broke loose. Harry put the gun in his pocket and burst out laughing: he had only been joking. Noah grinned too, and both of them embraced for a hug. The story began to unfold.

"The plan is brilliant. First you marry the brother's girlfriend, then you make up all this drama about the alcohol, and then you get me to have an affair with your brother again. And then finally, there's the suicide drama. And then an accident." Chantelle explained Ronan's plan to Noah. The truth was that she'd been on Noah's side all along, but had played Ronan's part to get more information off him.

"The plan is brilliant," Noah said, folding his arms. "Ronan's been taking care of every small thing. But he's forgotten one thing. I am his older brother."

Chantelle smiled at Noah. "But what's your plan now?"

"Ronan has put so much hard work into his plan,"  said Noah. "I don't want to make him upset by changing it all. The plan will stay just as it is. There'll only be one small change." He looked at Chantelle in the eyes. "I'm not going to be the one who's going to die.  He's going to be the one who's going to die."

Noah picked up his phone.
"Yeah, it's Noah here ... I'm going to Cape Town for two days ... I want to meet you."

"Yeah?" Inspector Harry Rodgers answered at the other end. "Yes, it's OK. We'll meet in the evening at the night club beach."

Noah and Harry met at the night club beach. All around them, people were walking around in bikinis and tank tops, and there were hardly any other men there except from the two of them.

"And how are you going to examine this dead body?" Noah asked, as they both discussed their plan of having Noah pretend to be dead. "In the easiest way that you can prove my dead body."

"Don't worry, partner," Harry chuckled. "When there's money, then you can do anything."

"Bye," Noah replied, nodding, and just as he was about to rev up the car again and make his way back to the stud farm, his phone began to ring. He looked at the phone and the picture and saw that it was Ronan who was ringing him. Noah grinned to himself, and then looked at his watch. "Very punctual," he muttered. Sighing heavily, he answered the phone, trying to put as much enthusiasm as he could into his voice. "Hello brother!"

"NOAH, YOU BASTARD! THE AFFAIR THAT CHANTELLE'S HAVING IS WITH YOU! I'VE FOUND OUT EVERYTHING, IT WAS YOU, YOU COCKROACH!" Ronan was yelling dramatically, trying to find the foulest words to shout down the line but got stuck with the word cockroach.

Noah laughed to himself. "Listen, Ronan, what you're thinking is nothing to do with anything. I can explain everything. Where are you?"