The Tides We Carry
520 Words
The moon hung low over the Indian Ocean, casting a shimmering path across the waves toward the beach house where Ayaan and Zuwena sat in silence. The launch of the Dereza Civic Fellowship had marked a turning point for them bothnot just in business or politics, but in identity. Yet the silence they now shared wasn’t one of peace. It was anticipation.
A storm was coming.
Zuwena’s fingers brushed along a carved wooden box that had arrived anonymously that morning. Inside, beneath a layer of velvet, was a data drive labeled simply: “Horizon Code.” A script written in her father’s handwriting accompanied it:
“In case you ever needed to know the truth.”
She hesitated before plugging it into a secure offline terminal. A single folder appeared. Inside were files contracts, memos, recordings linking Nassor Group’s original seed funding not just to her father’s legitimate projects, but also to shadow operations. Off-the-record alliances. Arms trades disguised as infrastructure. Surveillance tech sold to authoritarian regimes.
It was the kind of truth that could tear empires down.
Ayaan read in silence beside her, expression unreadable. “If we release this... they won’t just come after the company. They’ll come after you.”
Zuwena’s voice was steady. “Let them.”
The next day, in a meeting with their legal counsel and board, Zuwena laid the evidence bare. Gasps and denials echoed around the room.
“We clean our roots,” she said, “or we choke on them.”
Ayaan added, “Transparency isn’t weakness. It’s survival.”
It was unprecedented: a billion-dollar firm volunteering itself for ethical audit, prosecution of past wrongdoings, and reparations to communities affected by its darker chapters.
Investors fled.
Stock plummeted.
But something else happened too: thousands of messages poured in. Young activists. Academics. Tech leaders. Former critics. People ready to help rebuild a company that was brave enough to confront its past.
Meanwhile, Elene Tesfaye released her own exposé—only it backfired. She’d tried to reveal Nassor’s secrets, but Zuwena had beaten her to it. Instead, leaks exposed Elene’s ties to mercenary data brokers, vote rigging, and energy monopolies in West Africa.
The media flipped. “The Queenmaker Becomes the Pawn.” “Africa’s New Corporate Renaissance.” “Zuwena Dereza: The Billionaire Who Chose Truth.”
But none of the headlines mattered to her as much as the quiet call she received one evening. It was from a woman in Bagamoyo, whose village had lost access to clean water because of a failed Nassor mining deal ten years ago.
“We heard your speech,” the woman said. “We never thought anyone would care. Thank you.”
Zuwena wept silently.
Weeks later, as part of reparative justice, Nassor Foundation announced a 10-year rebuilding planclean water, education, digital inclusion, and community ownership stakes in all future projects.
At the first town hall meeting in Mwanza, a young girl named Halima asked Zuwena, “Are you scared?”
Zuwena knelt beside her. “Every day. But fear doesn’t get the last word. You do.”
And then she handed Halima a pen.
- Writer
