HIS ROYAL BRIDE

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 16

When Kurhula arrives back home, he finds the whole family sitting in the living room after dinner. They all look surprised to see him.
‘Hhawu. I thought you were only coming back tomorrow?’ Wiseman asks.  Kurhula walks past all of them and goes straight to the study. Xongi stands up and Albert gets her to sit down.
‘Give him a chance to calm down. You know how he can get’
He pushes the shelf and it rotates, allowing him entry into the space behind it. He goes straight to the safe and retrieves a gun. After checking if it’s still loaded, his feet take him back to where the family is gathered.
‘Kurhula?’ Xongi calls when she sees the weapon in his hand. ‘You promised me you’d get rid of that’
‘I’m sorry, I forgot. Between wanting to keep you alive and being caught in between the messy shenanigans of this family, it completely slipped my mind’
‘Why do you even have a gun?’ Xongi asks.
‘Do you want me to spell it out loud that I bought it to kill Edward?’
Everybody gasps.
Fanisa stands up and Solomon follows her. He shoots the vase next to the door and all the water goes splashing down together with the green glass pieces. Fanisa gasps and stands still with her eyes closed. Mavengana’s photo falls down from up the wall and breaks. Wiseman’s glass of juice found its way out of his hand when the gunshot went off.
‘Sit down’ Kurhula commands before lifting himself onto the dinner table. He sits there facing everyone seated by the couches, with his legs on his mother’s expensive chairs. Junior walks in whistling, coming from night study. He frowns when he sees his big brother holding everyone hostage.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Decide if you’re coming in or going out but whatever it is, make it quick’
‘Eh…’ Junior fails to hold back the confusion. He slowly walks in and closes the door before joining everyone. One guard knocks from outside and asks if everyone is okay.
‘I will call you if I need you’ Kurhula states. The guard walks away.
‘Somebody better start talking because I’m trigger-happy. Where is Kulani?’
‘I have already explained—’
‘You never explained shxt’ he cuts Xongi off. ‘What I know is that all off you here have been plotting to get Fikani and Kulani married, even though I explicitly mentioned that it will only happen over my dead body. I just did not think y’all were dumb enough to go about it the old-fashioned way. Abduction? Really?’
‘Son… please calm down’ his uncle, Albert tries to reason with him.
‘Tumi, what happened?’ Kurhula asks. Tumi swallows and folds her arms, unwilling to speak.
‘Tell him what you told me. Tell him that you saw Kulani mixing things into Fikani’s food’
‘What?!’ everybody goes. Kurhula frowns and pulls his head back.
‘I never said that. Why are you putting words in my mouth?’
Fanisa looks to Xongi so she can corroborate. Xongi keeps her eyes on the television.
‘Boitumelo!’ Kurhula shouts and Tumi almost jumps from her seat.
‘What I said was, I saw her wearing that cloth. It made me feel uneasy’
‘That’s not the only thing you said’ Xongi argues, still looking at the screen.
Singi claps once.
‘Well… another thing I said was that she bewitched my husband because this is out of character for Fikani. There’s only one explanation for this’
Kurhula laughs and puts the gun down on the table. He clasps his hands together and looks at her.
‘You are saying that Kuli has bewitched Fikani, for him to turn and do something like this to her? And this makes sense? Tumi I thought you were a doctor?’
‘E tsena kae eo nou?’ (What has that got to do with anything?)
‘E kena kae? You’re supposed to be smart, you dimwit’
Kurhula pulls out his phone and calls one guard from the gate. He arrives after four minutes later and his walking pace slows down when he sees the deadly black steel next to Kurhula.
‘Nhlamulo?’ he calls.
‘Mlambya?’
‘What happened this morning?’
‘Uhm… with regard to your wife going missing?’
‘What else?’
‘We never saw her leave but we did see Fikani driving out. There was no one in the car with him’
‘You sound sure?’
Nhlamulo clears his throat. ‘I am not’
‘It will help you to avoid making definitive statements that might turn you into an accomplice, yeah?’
‘You are lashing out on the wrong people’ Solomon mumbles. Kurhula slowly wraps his fingers around his gun.
‘I usually prefer it when people speak up when there’s something on their chest’
Sol glances away. Kurhula moves his eyes back to Nhla.
‘Did you watch the camera footage?’
Nhlamulo nods. ‘Yes. Nothing dodgy. If something suspicious happened, it happened inside the house’
‘Thanks. You may leave’ he says and asks him to call Jonathan on this way out, who walks in shortly. Kurhula asks him when last he saw Fikani.
‘Uhm… this morning when he left’
‘Anything suspicious?’
‘I wouldn’t say that but he was in quite a hurry’
Kurhula lifts a brow. ‘A hurry?’
‘Yes, I wanted to ask him about something and he gave me his card, telling me that he can’t talk and that I should call him’
‘Can I have that card?’
Jonathan searches his pockets and finds it. Kurhula receives and studies it. He gives him the chance to leave.
‘Where could he have possibly went?’ he continues to interrogate, directing this to Tumi.
‘I honestly don’t know. I have been trying to reach him all day’
Kurhula taps his phone against the gun a couple of times as he thinks. He throws his head back as he waits for Khalanga to answer. It keeps ringing and ringing.
‘Jaguar!’ he finally answers.
‘The car is parked at home’ Tumi loudly announces, watching her phone screen.
‘I’ll call you back’ he says to his friend and gets off the table. ‘Fetch your bags. We’re going straight there’
Tumi quickly gets up.
‘Why don’t we just call the police? I don’t understand why we haven’t?’ Mhan Singi asks.
‘You want people to think this house is dysfunctional?’ Fanisa bites.
‘By the police, you mean the South African Police Services? Please take me seriously’