BE MINE, MS LAWYER
– CHAPTER 01
From the time he was small, he lived in his own world. While other children ran around making noise, fighting over small things, Mkhonto would sit and watch. He was always thinking. Always observing. His younger brothers, Qaphela, Mkhokheli, they were different. They had fire in them. Always fighting. Always out there on their necks, ready to clash with anyone. But Mkhonto? He was the one pulling them apart. The middleman. The peacemaker. Even when he was young, he understood that someone had to keep the peace. Someone had to be the calm one…..His father saw this in him. And he was proud.
Mkhonto grew up in a home that was full. Full of love, full of laughter, full of care. Their house was not the biggest, but it was warm. His mother’s cooking would fill the rooms with smells that made you hungry just walking in. His father’s voice, deep and strong, would tell stories that made everyone stop and listen. This was a home where children were wanted. Where children were loved.
The way his father treated his mother… that was the thing Mkhonto watched most closely. His father never raised a hand to her. Never. Not once. When other men in the street would shout at their wives, when other men would do things that made women cry, Mkhonto’s father was different. He would come home tired from work, his body aching from long hours, but still he would find time to sit with his wife. To ask about her day. To make her laugh.
Mkhonto saw his father dance with his mother in the kitchen. Small moves, just swaying, but the way they looked at each other… it was like no one else existed. He saw his father hold her when she was sick, staying up all night to make sure she was okay. He saw his mother do the same when his father fell ill. That love. That real, deep, stay with you until the end love. Mkhonto saw it with his own eyes….. He felt it in his own heart.
His father was more than just a parent. He was a mentor. A teacher. A man who showed his sons what it meant to be a man. Not through long speeches, but through actions. Every day, he showed them.
His father started with nothing. Just a bakkie, an old one that broke down more than it ran. But he fixed it himself. He learned. He worked. From that one bakkie, he saved and bought a taxi. Then another taxi. Then another. He built something from the ground up, using his hands, his sweat, his mind. The taxi business grew because he refused to give up. Day and night, he hustled. Early mornings when the sun was not even thinking of rising, he was already out. Late nights when everyone else was sleeping, he was still working. All for one thing. To make sure his wife and his children were happy. To make sure they had food on the table. To make sure they never lacked.
Mkhonto watched all of this. He learned all of this. He saw that a man provides. A man protects. A man loves his woman out loud, for everyone to see. And then death came…..It came fast. It came ugly. It came because of greed.
The taxi business his father built, the one that fed them and clothed them and gave them a life, it made other people jealous. Other men wanted what his father had. They wanted the routes, the money, the power. They wanted it so bad that they decided to take it by force….
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His parents were ambushed attacked, killed like animals…..The Celes. That was the name of the people who did it. The family that wanted everything the Shabalalas had built.
Mkhonto was not a child anymore when it happened, but he was not ready. No one is ever ready for that. To get the news that your mother and father are gone. To hear that they were taken from this world in a brutal way. To know that they suffered at the end. It breaks something inside you. Something that never fully heals.
The funeral was a blur. People came. People cried. People said the right things, the things you say when someone dies. But Mkhonto heard none of it. He stood there, looking at the two coffins, and he felt empty. His brothers stood with him. Qaphela, Mkhokheli, and their younger brother Nkululeko. Four brothers now without parents. Four young men who had to figure out how to go on.
Qaphela took it hard. He was closest to their father. He had spent the most time learning the taxi business, riding with the old man, watching how he handled drivers and customers and competitors. Qaphela knew things. He had been taught by the best.
After the funeral, after the crying and the mourning and the food that people brought, the brothers sat down. They looked at each other. They knew what had to be done. The business could not die. Their father’s legacy could not end. Those taxis, those routes, that struggle… it was all they had left of him.
But Mkhonto was scared. Not of the work. Not of the long hours. He was scared because he had to be the leader now. He was the eldest. The responsibility fell on him. And he did not know if he was capable. He had always been the quiet one, the observer, the peacemaker. He never wanted to be the boss. He never wanted to make the hard decisions. But now he had no choice.
Qaphela stepped up. He showed them the ropes. He taught them what their father had taught him. How to manage the drivers. How to deal with the routes. How to handle the money. And most importantly, how to fight. Because in the taxi business, you have to fight. There are always people who want what you have. Always people who think they can take from you. Qaphela knew this. He had seen their father fight for what was his. Now it was their turn.
They grew the business together. The four of them. Mkhonto, Qaphela, Mkhokheli, Nkululeko. Each one had a role. Each one brought something. They worked day and night, just like their father did. They pushed and struggled and bled for that business. Because it was theirs. Because it was his.
Years passed. The business grew stronger. They became a force. People knew the Shabalala brothers. People respected them. And people feared them…..
Then Mkhonto met Dintle….He was not looking for love. He was just looking for a good time, to score someone, to pass the time. But that first meeting changed everything. Not because of love. Because of what came after……
Dintle fell pregnant….. Mkhonto did what he had to do. In the Shabalala family, you do not forsake your own blood. You do not abandon your child. And this child, Dumisani, was a legacy. A new generation. Mkhonto could not turn his back on that.
So he stayed with Dintle…..they had one more kid together Nqoba….. Fifteen years. Fifteen years of being with the same woman. Fifteen years of waking up next to her, sleeping next to her, building a life with her….. he decided to marry her…But love? He never felt it.
He saw it with his parents. He remembered the dancing, the caring, the way they looked at each other. He felt that love when he was a child, just by being in the same house with them. It was real. It was there. It filled the rooms….. With Dintle, the rooms stayed empty.
He did not know why. He thought maybe this was just how couples are….. Maybe the love his parents had was rare, something not everyone gets…… Maybe he was not meant to feel that way. He accepted it. He provided for his family. He was there for his children….. He did his duty.
And then he found out the truth…. Dintle had used a love potion on him. In the beginning, to make him stay. To make him want her. To make him bind himself to her.
When he learned this, he was not angry. He was not even surprised. He was just… disappointed. Because it explained everything. It explained why he never felt that real love. It was never real. It was manufactured. It was fake. Their whole relationship….. fifteen years of his life, built on something that was not true.
Then he watched Qaphela with Malime….. The way his brother looked at that man…. The way Malime looked at him. The way they moved around each other, like they were connected by something invisible but strong. It was the same thing. The same love his parents had. Real. Deep. True.
Mkhonto watched them and felt happy for his brother. But inside, it hurt. It hurt because he wanted that…. He wanted someone to look at him the way Malime looked at Qaphela. He wanted to feel that fire, that connection, that completeness….. he is a simp…
But he is a man. A man does not cry for love. A man does not beg for it. A man waits. If it comes, it comes. If it does not, he carries on. That is what his father taught him. That is what he does.
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The trouble with the Celes never stopped….. After killing his parents, they thought the Shabalala brothers would fall. They thought the business would collapse. They thought they could just walk in and take everything.
They were wrong….. Mkhonto and his brothers fought. They fought hard. They fought dirty. They did what they had to do to protect what was theirs. Their father’s blood was in every taxi, every route, every rand that came from that business. They were not going to let anyone take it.
The war went on for years. Back and forth. Attacks and counter attacks. People got hurt. People got killed. It was ugly. But the Shabalalas did not back down.
Then Nkululeko died….. The youngest brother…… The one who reminded them all of their father. He was taken in the fighting. Shot down like their parents were shot down…… protecting their family….
Mkhonto could not go to the funeral properly…. because he was arrested. He could not say goodbye to his baby brother in the way he deserved. He could not stand over the grave and weep like he wanted to. He had to watch from a distance, hidden, silent, while they put Nkululeko in the ground.
The men who killed Nkululeko, the men who were behind everything, the ones who wanted to end the Shabalala family once and for all… Mkhonto and his brothers…… ended them.
He does not talk about what happened that night…… He does not think about it much. But he knows this, he does not regret it. Not one bit……. Those men deserved what they got. They killed his father. They killed his mother. They killed his baby brother. They tried to take everything…… They got what was coming to them.
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Now Mkhonto sits behind bars…. The prison is cold…… He shares a cell with other men, but he is still alono still quiet, still in his own world but no one would dare come for him….
He thinks about his children. Dumisani, the first one. The one who came from that night with Dineo. He thinks about Nqoba, the one born in the relationship that was never real. He hopes they are okay…… He hopes they know he loves them. He hopes they understand why he is here….
He does not know if love will ever come for him. Maybe it is too late. Maybe a man in prison does not get to have that. Maybe his story is just about duty and fight and sacrifice.
But sometimes, late at night, when the prison is quiet and the other men are sleeping, he allows himself to think about it. To imagine what it would be like. To have a woman look at him the way his mother looked at his father. To feel that connection. To know that someone is his, completely and truly, without potions or tricks or lies……
Mkhonto knows that when he gets out, if he gets out, he will have to find his place again. He will have to figure out who he is now. The quiet one. The eldest. The killer. The man who did what had to be done.
He does not know what the future holds. He does not know if he will ever find love. He does not know if he will ever feel what his parents felt, what Qaphela feels now.
But he knows one thing. He knows who he is. He is Mkhonto Shabalala. Son of a hustler. Brother to three warriors. Father to two children……. A man who has seen the worst of life and is still standing.
And maybe, just maybe, there is a woman out there who will see him. Not the killer. Not the prisoner. Not the quiet one. But the man underneath. ……BUT WILL HE EVER TRUST A WOMAN AGAIN?
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“What are you saying, Ntshangase?” I ask.
I keep my voice low….
“Mr. Shabalala… please. We have to be realistic. The police officers saw everything. You pulled the trigger right in front of them. If we fight this, they will give you life. But if you plead guilty, I can negotiate. Maybe twenty years… out in fifteen.”
“Plea guilty?” I repeat the words….
“It is the only way….”
“You are crazy,” I interrupt him. I stare directly into his eyes until he looks away. “I pay you millions….. I don’t pay you to tell me how to stay in jail. I pay you to get me out….that’s your job…”
“But the witnesses are the police” he says…His hands are shaking now. “There is nothing much I can do, they saw the gun in your hand. You shot a man right infront of them..!” He doesn’t get it….bo he doesn’t
“You don’t understand, do you?” I stand up slowly. “You see a crime. I see justice. You see a dead man. I see a dog that needed to be put down.”
“Mr. Shabalala, the law doesn’t care about….”
“Shut up,” I snap…. “Take your these ugly bags and get the hell out of here….. You are useless to me.”
“Mr. Shabalala, please! Your trial is in a few days!” He stands up, “You can’t just walk away from your legal counsel!”
“Voetsek! Masimba kho!” [Get lost! Your sh*t!] I will represent myself. Clearly, you just play with your degree. You use my money to buy fancy cars but you can’t even find a loophole? Get out before I forget these chains are on my wrists.” I turn my back on him, dismissing him like trash…. I look at the prison warden at the door. “Take me back to my cell,” I say…. The warden doesn’t argue. He just nods and opens the door….
“Mr Shabalala…!” I just walk out….
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