Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Hlelolenkosi Hlophe

My hands were still damp from bathing the baby when I called Lethabo. I didn't explain much on the phone—just enough to make her rush over.
"Bring nappies, formula, anything," I told her. "I'll explain when you get here."

She arrived with the girls in a flurry: Lethabo, Lerato, Rethabile each carrying a bag like they'd come prepared for war. They piled into my tiny living room and I offered biscuits and tea. They sat close, knees almost touching, the comfort of them wrapping around me like a blanket.

"Why did you call us?" Lethabo asked, concern in her voice. She set her bag down and took the baby from my arms like she'd done it a thousand times. He quieted instantly in her lap, lulled by some magic only mothers seem to have.

"You have an emergency and you're our girl—we're here to show you some love," Rethabile said, eyes soft.

I took a breath, then asked the question that had been twisting my stomach since I found the letter. "Do you guys know where Ntando went? "

They all looked at each other like they were sharing a secret I'd yet to be admitted into. Lethabo swallowed and finally said, quiet, careful: "Uhmm… yeah. They went on a heist."

A cold thing slid down my spine. I'd thought he was joking when he'd said he was a gangster. The truth pricked my eyes like tiny needles. I forced a smile that felt brittle. The baby started crying again, and without thinking I took the nappies and went to warm a bottle.

"How could you not tell me?" I asked when I returned, keeping my voice low. "He… he said he'd protect me."

Lerato picked up a cushion and tossed it at Lethabo in mock-annoyance, but the look she gave me underlined it: worry, anger, protection. "We thought he told you," she said. "We thought—" Her voice cut off because there's only so much anger you can aim at a woman who's already holding a child.

The girls asked questions—about the baby and i answered honestly and we all agreed on one thing this baby boy looks so much like Ntando

By the time the evening melted into night, the girls decided to stay. "We're not leaving you here alone," Lethabo said firmly. "If they come back, we'll be here." They settled in—one on the floor, two on the couch—watching the doorway as if it might give up answers. I fed the baby, sang him a lullaby I didn't remember learning, and watched his tiny chest rise and fall.

I tried to sleep, but sleep is a liar when worry knocks at the door. Instead I sat by the window, listening for the sound of a car engine I knew too well, trying to decide how I felt: afraid, furious, and oddly, achingly proud in a way that confused me.

Ntandoyenkosi Zulu

The night moved like clockwork at first. We hit every mark we'd rehearsed until it felt like muscle memory. Sizwe in the block truck had timed the stop perfectly. Senzo's jamming held for the first stretch—no pings, no surprise. Nkululeko and I pulled the van into position at the bend, masks down, hearts loud behind the quiet.

The convoy rolled in right on cue: two cars in front, one behind. We moved like a team that had done this before—silent, tight. Nkululeko slammed the van's door, and the world narrowed to ropes and flashlights and whispered commands. Senzo's voice came clipped over the radio. "Two minutes. Move."

We blocked the road, the truck dropping smoke like a curtain. Men with blue vests spilled out of cars like something from a nightmare. We worked fast—clear, precise, no mess. Bags loaded, exits secured. I felt the old rush—cold, clean—of being in control.

Then the world went sideways.

A white Hilux we hadn't accounted for came up fast, its headlights slicing the night. Someone on the convoy had called backup—or our plans had leaked. There was shouting. A scuffle. I remember the slap of a fist, the hiss of boots, then heat in my side like someone had set a brand there.

I didn't feel the first hit in the way people imagine pain; it was sharp and then everything rearranged around it. My legs buckled, and for a second the air left me. Nkululeko's voice was a rope. "Pull back! Pull back!"

I tasted copper. Not much, just enough to know it was real. Senzo dragged me toward the van, hands working, boots pounding the ground. Sizwe hit the horn, then gunned the engine. We scattered—point B, the fallback. Adrenaline did what it always does: it made the impossible possible.

By the time we reached the warehouse, blood had soaked my side through the tracksuit. Nkululeko and Senzo were making a corridor for me, and something in my world narrowed to the sound of my breath and the steadiness of a hand on my shoulder. "You good?" Nkululeko barked. I wanted to answer with the thing I always said—I'm fine—but the word clogged like a stone.

They moved fast. Someone had already called a doctor we knew—a man who fixed more than just wounds, who'd seen this life and its marks and had a soft place under his hardened hands. The doctor arrived minutes later with a bag of instruments and a light that made the warehouse look like an operating theatre. He found the bullet—clean, merciful in where it had hit—and shushed my cursing.

"Get him on the table," he ordered calmly. We laid me out on an old workbench. The doctor worked with a surgeon's grace—bandages, stitches, a steady voice telling me to breath, to hold. They cleaned the wound, pulled a shallow track of blood away, patched the hole. It was the usual: pain licked along the cut, then dulled under anaesthetic and skill. I kept my eyes open because that's what you do when you owe people for getting you back to the room.

They saved me. Not because I was special, but because we are a group that watches for one another we are brothers. They moved quick—meds loaded into my veins, a cloth pressed tight to stop the seep. The doctor looked at me once, tired lines around his eyes. "You're lucky," he said simply.

Lucky. The word landed like a stone I couldn't carry. I wanted to laugh, to fix my face with pride or arrogance, but the sounds came out thin. We'd taken something big, and we'd paid a price. It could've been worse. It should've been worse.

When I finally woke—clearer, the world less violent at the edges—I found Nkululeko sitting nearby, pale but steady. Senzo and Sizwe watched the doors. They'd wrapped my side, given me strong meds that made the edges of the world float. I reached for my pocket and felt the folded paper there—the note I'd left for Hlelo. For a second I wondered what she would do, holding a baby in her arms, surrounded by women who had chosen to stay.

"We call Doc again tomorrow," Nkululeko said low. "You rest. Don't be dumb."

I didn't answer. Rest was a foreign thing in a night like this, but I let myself be carried toward a cot in the back of the warehouse, because that's what brothers do—they carry you until you can carry yourself again.

Outside, the city kept moving, oblivious to the little explosions it held for people like us. Inside, lights dimmed and a silence settled that was thick with both victory and cost. We'd pulled it off—but the cost had a name now, and it sat in my belly like a warning.