Chapter 1

Imagine a land where the sun kisses the earth with golden warmth, where the very first light spills over the horizon like honey over fresh bread. In those early moments, the air is cool and shy, holding the night’s breath before surrendering it to the day. The breeze is a gentle conspirator, slipping between thorny branches to whisper the gossip of dawn, carrying scents of dew-damp grass, night’s lingering musk, and the first breath of sun-warmed nectar.

This is Springbokvlakte — a wild, untamed heartland that dances to the rhythm of nature’s oldest love song. She wears a gown of thorn-veld lace, stitched with the delicate fingers of acacia and sweet-hardwood trees that stand like proud suitors in a ballroom of open savannah. Beneath her feet, a carpet of grasses and wildflowers sways in flirtation, their seeds scattering like love notes on the soil. Her thorns, tipped with glistening droplets, seem softened for a heartbeat before the sun dries their kindness, a reminder that her beauty often comes with a little bite.

Already, the dancers of the veld begin their morning performance. High above, the fish eagle’s call rings out — a proclamation of a new day — while larks and doves weave ribbons of song through the air. In the half-light below, the dancers emerge. A springbok, South Africa’s darling, pronks into the air like joy itself, her white rump flashing like a wink across the veld.

A herd of zebras, their stripes a living bar-code of mystery, toss their manes as if daring the day to read their secrets. The elephants move with the weight of wisdom, great shapes ghosting through the early morning mist, while the warthog — the jester in this court of wild hearts — trots along, reminding everyone that love doesn’t have to be graceful to be real.

Springbokvlakte isn’t just a place. She’s a feeling — a wild romance between land and life, thorn and bloom, silence, and song. A feeling best appreciated from the wide veranda of the old farmhouse that has shouldered the wind and the sun for over seventy years.

The aroma of the single-origin Arabic coffee from the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro curled up into my nose like a lover’s breath. Strong as hell, dark as the devil, and as sweet as a kiss — that’s how I like my coffee. They say the beans grow in volcanic soil, rich as sin, under the slow gaze of Africa’s tallest peak. Maybe that’s why each sip feels like it could wake the dead.

I sat on the wide veranda of the old farmhouse, the boards under my boots worn smooth by decades of footsteps. White-painted walls, wooden-frame windows with the varnish fading to silver, a corrugated iron roof that sang its own music whenever the rain came down. She’d been standing here for over seventy years, shouldering the wind and the sun under the watch of the acacia and thorn trees that dotted the yard like sentinels.

Beyond the yard, next to the old barn, lay the bones of an ox-wagon. Once it carried men, women, and all they owned across these plains — now the wooden frame was slowly giving itself back to the earth, each crack and splinter a whisper of surrender. I could never bring myself to haul it away. It was family history — my history. A reminder of granddad’s rough hands on the reins, of great-granddad’s booming laugh beside a camp-fire, of riding a stallion into the open veld, biltong in the saddlebag, and the Milky Way spilling above like a river of light.

I am Rudolf Van Reenen. Dolf to friends and family. “Spoon” to my colleagues. Why “Spoon”? That’s a story for another time, preferably over a bottle of good brandy and a fire.

I’m thirty-four years young and, when I’m not farming my two hundred hectares, I’m up in the air for an air charter service. I’ve flown it all — over-cashed tourists with dollars spilling out of their safari jackets, delicate parcels that could fit in my pocket, and crates of cargo heavy enough to make the old bird groan. Mostly it’s the cargo I like best. Cargo doesn’t whine about turbulence or crosswinds. Cargo doesn’t ask the ETA every half hour. Cargo is quiet, obedient, and easy on the nerves.

Down in the fields, the farm was humming without me. That’s my brother’s kingdom. I supply the land and, when needed, a little cash. He supplies the expertise, sweat, and occasional swearing. It’s a system that works, and between us, the Van Reenens lack for nothing.

I tipped back the last of my coffee, feeling its heat slide down into my bones, and was just about to head inside for a refill when the cell phone on the veranda table began to ring.

Al-Kuwari towers, Al Corniche Street, West Bay, Doha, Qatar.

West Bay is a modern and upscale neighbourhood in Doha, known for its high-rise towers and luxury hotels. West Bay has a diverse range of properties, from apartments and townhouses to standalone villas, with stunning views of the Gulf and the city skyline.

From the glass-wrapped balcony of the penthouse, the city unfolded like a painting that shimmered with heat and light. Below, Al Corniche Street curved in a perfect sweep along the crescent of Doha Bay, its asphalt ribbon edged with palm trees that stood like watchful sentinels in the morning breeze. The traffic flowed in polished waves — white SUVs, black sedans, the occasional flash of a sports car — each reflecting the unrelenting Gulf sun.

Beyond the Corniche, the turquoise waters of the bay rippled under the light, catching flashes of silver where dhows — their wooden hulls gleaming with varnish — rocked gently at anchor. Farther out, the horizon blurred where sea and sky met in a pale, hazy line. The air carried a faint tang of salt, mingling with the more urban scent of sun-warmed concrete and the ghost of last night’s shisha smoke drifting up from the cafés along the waterfront.

To the north and east, West Bay’s skyline rose like a chorus of glass and steel — towers in every imaginable silhouette, from needle-thin spires to twisting helixes. The afternoon sun set their mirrored skins ablaze in molten gold and copper, while in the shadows between them, the streets were cooler, shaded, and restless with movement. Construction cranes still hovered over a few rooftops, their long arms frozen mid-swing, as if deciding where the next shape in this vertical cityscape would grow.

Below, the landscaped promenade was alive with movement — joggers in bright sports gear pacing along the water’s edge, families strolling under the shade of date palms, tourists stopping to pose with the gleaming Pearl Monument, its giant oyster shell cupping a perfect white sphere.

From this height, the hum of the city softened into a steady, almost hypnotic thrum — the muted honk of distant horns, the faint slap of water against the sea wall, and somewhere far below, the laughter of children echoing briefly before dissolving into the wind.

It was a view that could lull you into thinking the world was only made of sunlight, glass, and calm seas — if you didn’t know better.

In the hushed, climate-controlled air on the 80th floor, Jassim Al-Kuwari was not a man; he was an institution. Chairman and CEO of Al-Kuwari Global Enterprises, he presided over a domain of oil, gold, and sovereign wealth that spanned continents and bent governments to its currents. His bespoke Ghutra was perfectly starched, its folds a geometry of power; his movements were like market corrections — deliberate, impactful, without wasted energy.

The office around him was a cathedral of wealth disguised as minimalism: Italian marble so pale it seemed to glow, a desk of smoked glass as long as a conference table, and an abstract steel sculpture in the corner worth more than most Doha penthouses. Through the floor-to-ceiling armoured glass, the city spooled below in an orderly constellation of glass towers, floodlit highways, and construction cranes — each a monument to deals he had brokered, alliances he had forged. He didn’t see a skyline; he saw balance sheets, capital flows, and dividends made manifest in steel and light.

His anger, when it came, was never a fire-storm. It was glacial — dense, slow-moving, and unstoppable. The fury of a man accustomed to precision instruments, who finds one suddenly bent out of true. And the instrument in question was his daughter, Nisreen.

The fault line had appeared in a single, detonation-sharp syllable: “No.”