Mona Stories · Read & Watch
For Ziad, the call brought him face to face with a situation he had deliberately created.
The friend who trusted him
Ziad was 36 and had known Saif for years. Saif worked in construction, was often busy, and traveled frequently.
When Saif said he wanted to marry Rahaf, whom he had met online, he asked Ziad to attend the engagement with him. Rahaf was 25 and came from a wealthy family.
Ziad questioned the age difference and whether Saif would have enough time for the marriage. Saif was convinced the match was right.
At the engagement, Ziad became attracted to Rahaf. Instead of setting that feeling aside, he allowed it to grow.
Help that concealed surveillance
After the wedding, Saif restricted much of Rahaf’s social life and internet use. Ziad remained welcome in the home as his trusted friend.
On one visit, Rahaf asked to connect her phone to the internet. Ziad encouraged Saif to allow it, then created an email account and installed applications for her.
He secretly kept the account details and enabled synchronization without explaining what that would allow him to access.
From his laptop, he began viewing private material transferred from her phone, including intimate files involving her husband.
He could have ended the access and deleted what he had seen. Instead, he kept the files and treated them as leverage.
An explicit threat
During another visit, Ziad approached Rahaf in the kitchen and made an unwanted personal demand. Shocked, she reminded him that she was his friend’s wife and called out to Saif.
Ziad withdrew in the moment. Later, from home, he sent her some of the private material.
Rahaf was devastated. She asked how he had obtained it and begged him not to expose her. He threatened to send it to her family and other people if she refused him.
She offered money or another way to satisfy him, but money was not his aim. He was using her fear of exposure to pressure her into an encounter she did not want.
Rahaf said Saif would soon be away for a month and that she would contact Ziad then.
The call after midnight
That promise leads back to the opening phone call. The written account stops before describing what happens after Rahaf asks him to come and delete the files.
Its central betrayal began earlier: Ziad used the role of a helpful family friend to gain private access, then turned that access against someone who had trusted him.
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Original Mona Stories narration. Playback controls are set to English; available audio and captions depend on the video.