The Big 5

24

Robert,Obakeng,Gerry and Ray where all in a Khatombela owned hotel in Palaype. “ how long do we gotta wait for this guy, we are sitting ducks for Sean” said a concerned Ray. Then almost immediately after Ray asked his question there was a knock and Daine walked in. he then sat down and said “sorry gentlemen I’m late but I was busy getting $15 million that Ray needed”. “we know about that” said Obakeng “ what Mr Khatombela is trying to say is that we appreciate your efforts but” “ but you no longer want to go to war with Sean and that the decision you took to shoot his father was nothing personal” said Daine who interrupted Roberts’s statement. He then sat forward and said “ well you see how it is, is Sean is going to take it personal beacuese if we take his way of thinking that is his father lying there in the hospital not any of ours, not that I have a concern my father died a long time ago. He also knows that we did the bomb diversion to try finish off the job so there’s no way in hell he’ll want to talk to us.” “ well then Daine we don’t meet with him, we meet with Tom, he is the smarter one of the Molefe brats” said Gerry “ yeah you know tell Sean we don’t wanna meet him but we want to meet Tom, explain that we needed to be a little more persuasive regarding our deal” added Ray. “ we have another problem, see when I got your 15$million I kinda had to kidnap Johnny and well strong arm Sean”. There was a collective groan from everyone except Obakeng who chuckled a bit after hearing this. “ so you are telling me that we have to go to go to war with them, well then Daine, give us an advantage arrest the bulk of the Molefe foot soldiers.” Asked Robert.“ I can’t do that those guys have a lot of soldiers and people who owe them favours in plain sight.” Said Daine.“ why don’t we take Tom and use him as our bargaining chip” suggested Obakeng. “ that won’t work they are all at the mansion and as long as they stay there we can’t touch them” replied Daine, “ okay let’s try kill the old man again” said Ray “ he has got guards and a few ex intelligence officers guarding him” replied Daine again. “ looks like our only option is to sue for peace” conceded Robert “ no f**k that” said Gerry “ well smart ass you can’t order anything or do anything if weare at war because 1 the Molefe family will sabotage us and we don’t have the men to do both.”

Brutus arrives at the Molefe mansion “ don’t try abything stupid, these guys will kill you dead” he then pulls his phone out “ hey boss, I’m in the driveway with Lewis” and he hangs up. He then gets out of the car and Lewsi does the same, Brutus has his hands on his head as he knows Lewis is about to die. Themba and Tom step out of the mansion, they are followed by an angry Sean who rushes to Lewis and tackles him, once they are both on the floor Sean mounts Lewis and begins to hit in an assault similar to that utilized by mixed martial arts fighters. Lewis just covers up and takes his beating and Sean begins to yell at him “ you cocksucking piece of s**t! You betrayed my father, you betrayed Brutus and you betrayed me” he then dismounts him and takes a step back and yell “let’s talk huh hey! With your chicken let’s talk! Why” asks Sean. “ they threatened my family” says a bloody Lewis “ and instead of coming to us you do this bullshit” asks an enraged Sean who then grabs on of the assault rifles that was held by the guards “ not here Sean!” yells Tom, but its too late. Sean shoots Lewis 4 times in the chest before he approaches his fallen body and says “ ntsha ke wena” which is Setswana for ‘you dog’ and shoots him in the head. Unbenkowst to Sean, Sussete his wife, his twins, Johnny , Brutus, Themba, Katlego ,Kimberly who is Tom’s wife and Elisabeth had all rushed out of the house after hearing the first 4 gun shots and they had just witnessed Sean murder someone in their front yard. The children then begin to cry as they see the blood flowing from Lewis’s dead body and an upset Sean then gets into the car Brutus came with and drives off. “ what are you waiting for get a car and follow him, follow him! Don’t stop him just follow and wait if he stops anywhere” intrsucts Tom. “ you I need you to call up the cleaning crew do it now” says Themba. Brutus slowly retreats into the house,he goes into the kitchen and pours himself a cup of wine. He then makes his way to Mr Molefe’s study where he sheds a few tears for the departed Lewis but tells himself it needed to be done. He then also has the thought that Sean’s emotions make him unfit to lead the molefe family, sure Mr Molefe would have killed Lewis too but he would not have done it at home in front of  his wife and kids. “ hey let’s all go back inside” suggests Johhny to which everyone obliges. Tom and Themba head upstairs to the study whilst Johnny sits there with a clearly shaken up Sussete and Kim. “ was that in relation to your fathers shooting” asks Kim. “ yeah. I don’t know much about what my dad and brothers get up to but I think this is just the beginning. We might be quarantined to the house for a while” replied Johnny. Johnny gets up and also heads upstairs and overhears Tom,Themba and Brutus talking. He then goes to Tom’s room and sits in there. Tom walks into his room and finds Johnny siitng on one of the stools near the dressing table “ well this is awkward” says Tom. “ no s**t Sherlock. Look we need to get dad home, and I think after what just happended I think we can agree that as long as Sean is in charge his temper will lead us into unnecessary wars” replies Johnny. “ I agree with you there kid” says Tom “ and neither are you fit to lead. We need the leader to be someone that has Sean’s anger or ruthlessness which you don’t have but also someone as pragmatic and smart like you. I’d say let Prince do it but with the mental state he is in. He can’t do it either” replies Johnny. “ this isn’t a finance test or a boxing ring Jonathan, people die in this line of  business, this part of the world is not for rich porsh boys like you” replied Tom “ I wasn’t going to suggest myself but now that you said I could do it, until Dad is healthy again” said Johnny. “ what makes you so sure” asks Tom “ well one thing I know is the Khosas and Khatombelas will think I am push over. They will underestimate me, and when they do that they will make mistakes. They will agree to meet and sit down with me to discuss terms of us avoiding a war, and then we could assassinate them all” said Johnny. “ your father would kill me if I allowed you into this business” said a concerned Tom “but we don’t want a war Tom, I don’t know about you but I can’t live like this, my brother shooting men in our yard, getting kidnapped by rouge cops and having to explain what’s going on to your wives. I can’t do it. I wanna go back to boxing, I wanna live a normal life, can’t do that with the threats we face” said Johnny. “ even if I agree Sean will never go for it” said Tom. “ then we get Themba and Brutus to choose, and I’ve heard the rumors, we are in this postion because Sean showed someone outside of family what he was thinking, he went against Dad in front of a stranger. I’m not in this line of business but I know that rule”.

Rita walks in on Sussete as she is crying “ hey whats wrong” she asks “ must be some kind of nap you and Dwayne take” said Sussete as she wipes her tears. “ so you didn’t hear the gunshots” asked Sussete. “ gunshots I thought it was fireworks” replied Rita “nope it was your brother shooting some guy in front of everyone, the kids , my kids saw their father execute a man” screams Sussete. “ okay but I’m sure that guy had something to do with dad’s shooting” “ that’s not the point Rita, he brought work home, their work home. I know what this family is about I really do. But the one thing I respected about your father is that they kept what they do in the streets in the f*****g streets. How do I tell my daughter what happened, tell me how do I do that. What happens at school when one my kids accidentally let’s slip that they once witnessed their father kill an unarmed man. I could lose the kids” she started crying again at this point. Rita started to comfort her sister before she said “ look I’ll find Sean and I’ll make him realise that what he did was wrong and it can not happen again. Where is he I do that now” asked Rita. “ he stormed off to God knows where” replied Sussete as she started crying again. “come on now don’t cry look you’re ruining your make up”. She goes to fetch sussete’s purse and removes a bag of wet wipes.After she got the wet wipes she began to wipe Sussets’s face. Once she was done Sussete hugged her and said “ thank you sis” and this almost brought Rita to tears. “Hey I been meaning to ask does Sean ever get mad at you to the point where he hits you or he starts throwing things around” asked Rita. “ no Sean never does that, I mean he gets upset but he has never ever laid a hand on me. Oh my God Rita is Dwayne beating you because if he is then its abuse and it’s wrong. You know that” said Sussete. Rita looked at Sussete and she began to cry , Sussete then hugged her and whispered to her “ it’s not your fault, and you need to leave if he is hitting you. A man who loves you would never hit you” “ but what will people say if I divorce him. I’m too young to be a divorcee” she cried out. “ well you are also too young to be murdered Rita. There’s no shame in coming home from a failed marriage. I’m sure your mother would rather have you home as a divorced woman than you come home in a coffin.” She began to cry harder and now and she struggled to get her words out but she said “ but even if I leave people are going to want to know why I left him and I know my brothers will kill him. I can’t have that, I still love him”. Then there was a knock on the door and Rita almost out of insitcnt ran into the wardrobe to hide “ who is it” asked Sussete. “ its Kim, I need help with Mrs Molefe, the kids and Prince. They are all awake and I need help making them something to eat. Have you by any chance seem Rita her husband is looking for her. Check her in the gym room, I’ll be in the kitchen in a minute, let me just change my blouse.”

Sean jumps awake and glances around, he then sees Thuli asleep next to him, he then lays back down and takes several deep breaths. He then gets out of bed and hops into the shower. After he finishes his shower he begins to get dressed. “ you were tossing and turning a lot last night” says Thuli “ yeah, this thing with my dad has me feeling a bit stressed. Look babe, I need you to be careful okay” he replies. He then kisses her on the forehead. She watches him leave. Sean arrives at the Molefe mansion and intstructs the guards to meet him by the pool area in a few minutes. He then goes inside and heads to his bedroom, he begins to change from yesterday’s clothes and changes into a tracksuit. “ you know after what happened yesterday I thought you would come back home. Where did you sleep Sean” asked Sussete. Sean just finished changing and he walked out. She then sat by the dressing table and began to cry. Sean heads downstairs and meets the guards he summoned by the pool area. “ okay boys I’m going lay it down for you guys simple, you all know what happened to my father, your boss right. Well yesterday we found out that Lewis helped our enemies. Our enemies by the way are the Khatombela family, we are at war with them. But before we go all out I want us to bleed them dry. Any business that they own we are going to hit them hard, we are going to rob them and vandalise them. They attack one of us they attack us all!” this brought a loud roar from the guards as Sean said this. Tom then joined them and whispered to Sean “ we need to talk”. Sean waved everyone away. “ look I get that we need to push back, but we need to plan on getting dad back home. As much as we have the hospital guarded, he is at his safest here” “ yeah Tom I know you handle it” said Sean as he went back into the house. Tom just put his hands on his hips and followed him into the house.