Chapter 5: Damage Control
838 Words
Later that afternoon, while sipping tea on her private balcony, her assistant knocked.
“Ma’am. A Mr. Dlamini is here.”
Zanele checked her watch. “Send him in.”
Thami entered with a folder under his arm and that crooked smile that always said I know something you don’t.
“You’re enjoying this a little too much,” she said, gesturing to the chair across from her.
“I won’t lie. Watching you reclaim your crown? Worth every minute,” he replied, handing her the folder. “The wire trail from Mauritius? It gets better. Kay made two calls to a secondary contact in Botswana. Guess who it connects to?”
“Who?”
“An old rival firm. One that’s been trying to poach your biggest retainer client.”
Zanele’s eyes narrowed. “They were planning to sell me off.”
Thami nodded. “Piece by piece.”
She looked down at the folder, then back at him. For a moment, her guard slipped—not enough to be seen, just enough to be felt.
He was watching her the way he used to, back when they were both rising associates arguing over corporate ethics in law school cafes and finishing each other’s rebuttals before the professors could interrupt. She remembered one late night at Constitution Hill, under campus lights, when his hand brushed hers as they exchanged case notes. Nothing had come of it. But something had started.
Now, all these years later, she felt that flicker again.
The warmth in his eyes. The steadiness in his voice. The way he never tried to dim her fire—only handed her matches.
She looked away, clearing her throat. “We’ll make a public statement. Hostile acquisition. Let’s see how loud they scream when the hunter becomes the hunted.”
Thami raised a brow, amused but reading her well. “Anything else you need from me?”
She stood, smoothing her dress. “Not feelings. That’s what I don’t need. Not now.”
He chuckled softly but didn’t push. “Message received.”
---
Later that night, as she typed her final letter to Mandla, her mind briefly wandered.
To the night she and Thami had won their first moot court together. Champagne from paper cups. Laughter echoing through stairwells. A kiss she almost allowed—but didn’t.
She had been scared then.
Now, she wasn’t scared.
She was focused.
And focused women don’t fall—not for sweet memories, not for soft voices, and certainly not while the empire still needed rebuilding.
She pressed send, then deleted Mandla’s contact.
The city blinked outside.
Zanele leaned back.
Not closure. Not yet.
But control.
---
Later that night, after sending the letter to Mandla and backing up the latest legal files, Zanele poured herself a second glass of merlot—not to drown anything, just to breathe through it. The city skyline pulsed faintly through the windows, Sandton glittering like a silent witness to all she had survived.
She changed into an oversized T-shirt, tied her hair in a loose scarf, and curled up on the leather couch in the quiet of her lounge. A fire crackled softly in the corner. She picked up the novel she had abandoned weeks ago—something lyrical and slow, a balm for her brain’s battle-hardened edges.
Ten pages in, her body gave in before her mind did. Her eyes fluttered shut. The book slipped from her fingers.
---
In the dream, she was back at Constitution Hill, on a balmy Joburg night years ago. Law school days. Deadlines and caffeine and underground fire.
Thami was with her, in that familiar stairwell—the one they used to sneak away to when lectures ended and ideas were still too hot to put down.
He was older now in the dream, the man he’d become, not the boy she knew.
“You’re always fighting something,” he murmured, his hands steady on either side of her face.
“I have to,” she said.
“No, you don’t.”
He kissed her.
It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t charged with desperation. It was quiet. Certain. The kind of kiss that made her forget who she had to become to survive.
Her hands clutched the fabric of his shirt. She let herself fall.
Just for once.
Just—
---
Zanele jerked awake, breath shallow.
The fire had dimmed. The wine was still half full. The book lay on the floor.
She sat up, rubbing her face with both hands.
“Don’t be foolish,” she muttered to herself.
She stood, walked over to the kitchen, and poured the rest of the wine down the drain.
Distraction was luxury.
Desire was dangerous.
She had been burned by a man she built.
She would not trip over a man who met her at full height.
Thami Dlamini might be many things. Dependable. Brilliant. Even beautiful.
But right now, he was a variable. And variables didn’t get access to her heart.
Not until the war was won.
- Writer
