Secret Love

Chapter 9

"Business? What business?...The business of conniving me out of my money!" Senzo shouts angrily.

Xolani says dishonestly, "You've got it completely wrong. I never meant to take your money. It was all an enormous mistake,"

Sihle, Fezile, Lindo and Sphamandla gaze at their treacherous uncle with vexation. The predicament he had put them and their father in was fresh in their minds.

It has never been a characteristic of Xolani Ndlovu, the youngest and only brother of Senzo, to be honest. Through everything he's done, he's lied. It was always his habit to start fights in school with other boys and not complete his schoolwork on time as a young boy.

From the age of thirteen onwards, he began to participate in a lot of 'extracurricular' activities such as bunking school to gamble on street corners, shoplifting, underage sexual activity and drinking, selling contraband to his fellow pupils on the school premises.

Senzo being the oldest had to bear the brunt of having to take care of his younger brother. This was because they had both lost their parents at a young age and only had their elderly maternal grandmother to raise them both.

The three of them lived in extreme poverty. In an adobe matchbox house, scraps were all they had to feed on since there was no money. During that time, they were vulnerable, and there was a constant fear of the Apartheid police ambushing them and taking the boys away for execution. The two boys were forced to grow up very quickly when their grandmother died at the hands of her white employers.

Xolani had become as tenacious as a rock and Senzo a determined young man. The former focused on getting an education and working manual labour to support the family, while the latter thrived as a criminal, taking the easy way out. By the time Xolani was twenty years old, he was a menace to society. It was post-apartheid, and everyone in the township they had lived in, knew of all his misdeeds.

Prison was like a second home to him as he was constantly in and out of the place. The last time he got out of prison, which was five years prior, Senzo took him under his wing and made him a partner in his business. This was because Xolani had convinced him that he had changed and no longer wanted to do crime.

At that time, Sendlo (Pty) Ltd had just made it as a listed company on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange with revenue of over a hundred million rand which was a life-changing result for the architectural company. After twenty years of starting the business from scratch, Senzo and his family could finally enjoy the fruits of his labour. Having made it big in the business world, the Ndlovu family had transformed from normal to renowned overnight.

Xolani's envy was as green as grass over his brother's success and his appetite for cash was as ferocious as it could be. He wanted more than a piece of the pie. All of his brother's possessions were in his sights, and he planned to take them all. A deal that never materialised almost led him to siphon off ten million rand from his brother's company. He could've gotten away with it if it weren't for the time-tested procedures established to mitigate fraud and error.

Xolani was dismissed from the company instead of facing jail time and prohibited from contacting Senzo or his family ever again. And now five years later, he has returned and stands proudly in his brother's home office. As if he had never done anything wrong that would cause his elder brother to disown him. In this case, blood was no longer thicker than water and Senzo no longer wanted to be a fool for his brother.

"Unesbindi sokuza lapha(You have the audacity to come here!)" Lindo speaks up, the veins from his neck looking like they are about to pop out, Sphamandla and Sihle prepare to hold him back, in case he charges at Xolani like an angry bull.

"Ngiyazi mshana(I know, nephew)," Xolani replies coolly, keeping his eyes on Senzo who is restraining himself from attacking him.

"Angiyena umshana wakho(I am not your nephew)," Lindo expresses with scorn in his tone.