(Sipho — POV)
He had slept like a man who banked on waking to a world that owed him nothing. An hour, then the city—dry, metallic, loud—had filled his mouth again. He dressed while thinking in contingencies: manifest checks, rider rotations, which van needed service first. Two messages waited: Junior's morning run report, and Rashid — terse and inevitable: Friday.
At the depot the riders moved in their familiar clatter. Sipho performed small rituals: redistribute fuel cards, tap helmets, check manifests. The motions steadied other people; they steadied him. Back at his desk he pulled the term sheet beside his slide deck and let Naledi's phrase turn in his head: Durability means compromise. He turned it until its edges fit the problem.
He wrote a counter-offer in clean sentences.
— Equity: 20% now, vesting to 25% upon meeting revenue milestones over 12 months.
— Board: one temporary seat (12 months), renewable only by unanimous founder vote.
— Oversight: limited strictly to expansion-level decisions—acquisitions, new verticals. No dispatch interference.
— Funding tranches: immediate bridge for critical creditors (Rashid), then staged disbursements tied to client-acquisition KPIs and delivery reliability metrics.
— KPIs: 15% monthly growth in contracted deliveries; <2% loss rate on priority shipments.
He wrote the numbers, checked them twice, then ran the worst-case math. Dlamini's figure would fill the gap. His counter left a margin of safety—less dilution, but guardrails to protect the routes, the riders, the scrupulous care.
When he read it aloud it sounded like a plan. When he imagined signing it, it sounded like surrender with terms.
Junior peered over his shoulder. "This keeps them interested and keeps us running," he said.
"Can we survive to the milestones?" Sipho asked.
Junior counted the pockets in the ledger of men. "One pay cycle. Stretchable to two if we push collections."
Rashid's text thumped again: Friday. Two clocks. One with teeth.
He sealed the counter in an envelope, placed two copies inside—one for Dlamini, one for his file—and felt the packet like a small confession. Walking beside Naledi later, the envelope in his hand felt different. It was no longer his proposal. It was their defense. The thought terrified him and, oddly, made the weight lighter.
The investor building was glass and calculated distance. He rode the elevator up with the same care he used to check a manifest. The assistant's eyes measured him the way a scale measures weight. "Mr. Dlamini will see you now," she said.
Mr. Dlamini sat precisely where he had sat before, but his posture carried a new calculation: capital's patient muscle. Sipho set the envelope on the table.
"I brought a counter-proposal," he said.
Dlamini unfolded the pages with the economy of someone who folds banknotes. "You've given structure," he observed. "Less equity, milestones, restricted oversight."
"Yes." Sipho kept his voice even. "We need growth but not at the cost of operational trust."
The assistant's phone buzzed. She answered and the room shrank to the sound of her voice: "—another investor—interested—can close immediately—Logistics Nexus—can move fast." Her face paled.
Logistics Nexus. The name landed like a stone. They were the sort of party that bought assets, stripped them, and rebranded. Fast money with little patience for local nuance.
Dlamini folded his hands. "There is a second party. They can close today."
Sipho felt the ledger constrict. "How fast?"
"Two hours," Dlamini said. "We can draft a binding term sheet now and move to signature, or we step back."
Two hours became a thing with teeth.
He called Naledi. She answered on the second ring. "You good?" she asked.
"We have two hours," he said. His voice was rawer than he expected.
There was calculation, then: "Bring the wording. Don't sign before we talk at the shop."
"I can't delay."
"Then come back with the documents. I'll come," she said. Her method: see, read, judge, then act. The calm in her voice steadied him more than any investor's promise could.
He left the room with the demo bag and the envelope and walked through streets that were now routes and risk. He stopped at the depot, tightened a schedule with Junior, grabbed cash, and ran. The two hours began in the geography of his life—depot, riders, a whispered plan to tighten collections and present a stronger short-term revenue case.
Naledi had already unlocked the shop when he arrived. She took the papers without preamble, read them methodically, brow untroubled.
"You reduced equity," she said.
"Twenty, staging to twenty-five."
She nodded. "Time-bound board seat."
"Exactly."
She read the funding tranches, then looked at him with the accounting of someone who measures possibility against humiliation. "If they close now," she said, "we need two clauses."
"Which?"
"One: oversight excludes route-level dispatch decisions. Two: any governance change requires a supermajority for twelve months."
Sipho felt a gratitude that burned like shame. He had thought in percentages; she had thought in survival. Her additions were not just legal coldness; they were the language of living people. He had not known to request a supermajority. She had.
They printed the revised wording, folded the pages into the envelope, and walked back together. On the elevator, the tremor in his knee returned—small and honest. The envelope felt different still: not merely a plan but a defense they had built together.
At the door, Dlamini looked up. His gaze flicked from Sipho to Naledi and then back, recalibrating. A founder with counsel and proof was one thing; a founder with a steady partner at his shoulder suggested a different calculus. Dlamini adjusted a fraction of a degree—respect or caution; both cost money.
"You're back," he said.
"We revised," Sipho said, placing the packet forward.
Dlamini read slowly, tasting the limits the founders set. He folded the paper, then offered a thin smile. "You understand negotiation."
Sipho had wanted to say he had not wanted to give away anything that mattered. He had wanted to promise the riders that he would not sell them to a spreadsheet. Instead his phone buzzed—a number he didn't recognize. His chest tightened; variables multiplied.
"I will send the revised term sheet to legal within the hour," Dlamini said. "If your counsel agrees and you sign, initial tranche wires within twenty-four hours."
The words were doors. He looked at Naledi. She met him, steady, unblinking.
He had not reconciled with the possible costs. But the riders, Miriam, Tumi—none existed in his pride. They existed in a ledger of needs.
He nodded.
"Prepare to sign," he said.
Outside, the city moved indifferent and small. Inside, a decisive ledger entry was about to be made. The clock on the wall said there were sixty minutes left in the two-hour window.