Zulu (3/3) Book 2

Chapter 33: Simesihle

M E L U S I

I guess it's my turn to update you about what's been going on the past 3 months.

It was Khayalethu's birthday and he was turning 30 years old. He didn't come home nor was he in anyway reachable. It's been hell not knowing where my little brother was. Whether he was safe, if he was clothed, eaten? [Sigh].

We thought giving him the head of security job would protect him by getting him less involved in this harrowing family business, little did we know that we had enabled him to master the power of surveillance. He is literally untraceable and since he has been gone, the entire family is left defenseless.

This is all Nxumalo's fault. I blame him vele. From Slindile getting raped to Khaya having to abandon his own family.

And speaking of which, it was his birthday too 5 days after Khaya's birthday. He was officially a 32 year old, but you'd swear he is 21 because of all the stupid decisions he makes on a fucken daily.

Those two were always in competition when it came to their birthdays. It was a competition to see who would get better gifts, go on the most incredible trips, party the hardest and so on. Basically, who has the biggest headline between the youngest Zulu brothers.

To think that Hailee introduced this mentality, because before she arrived, Nxumalo never cared about his birthday since he felt it was only about my late sister anyway. But Hailee made his birthday special every year by celebrating him. She introduced all of them, all of us, to celebrating our birthdays every year, hence the competition on who can throw the biggest birthdays between those two.

And on that note, Hailee is alive and back in the country. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard. I remember the day like it was yesterday. I was in my home office when Mpendulo came rushing in with a tablet in hand to let me know. I had no idea how she knew, rather, I underestimated how powerful social media is. We were so relieved and elated to know that she was okay and nothing had happened to her.

However, she hasn't been the same Hailee I know. She found out about the Slindile and Nxumalo drama and I heard he would have died had it not been for Langa.

It was the first time in history that all Zulu mansions were quiet on the birthdays of the most popular Zulu members. That caused the media to raise questions about whether or not there was drama. It inspired them to go digging and they found out that Khaya no longer lives with us or in his house and has completely disappeared even from his social media.

But we didn't worry much about that because our people could handle that narrative, as long as they don't find out about the root cause of our division, we could handle anything else.

As for Nxumalo yena, I couldn't stand him, and avoided him any chance I got, but I had nothing against Hailee. So I decided to go see her in her mansion.

When I arrived, her friendly helper greeted me warmly and took me to her second lounge where she was just staring out in her beautiful garden.

"Sisi, you have a visitor." she says as we enter the room.

Hailee removed the head that was resting on the back of her hand to see behind her who the guest was. When she saw that it was me, she smiled brightly and got up from her seat.

"Mel!" she walked toward me with her arms wide open.

I embraced her in a big hug, holding tight just to confirm that she was really there. I felt a ball of emotions form because of how surreal the moment was, but I composed myself.

I held her from a distance to examine her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." her smile fades a little. "How are you?" she asks as if trying to rid of a thought.