Raf & Lili & Casey & Daphne (con't)
How the hell did Lili find out? Had Alexander told her? But why? Why would he do that?
Casey barrels through traffic, one hand jerking the wheel, the other fumbling for his phone. The car shudders as it clips the shoulder, then he yanks it back into the lane, heart pounding.
“Hi, Casey,” Alexander says, calm, almost like he knew he’d call.
“We have a problem,” Casey shouts into the phone. “Raf found out I’m married.”
“What?”
He hears it—that faint shift, the slightest edge in Alexander’s tone. Not fear. Not yet. Just the first flicker of alarm.
“Lili confronted her. Somehow, she found out about us. It got messy. In public.”
Silence. He hears Alexander’s breath.
“What else does she know?”
“Raf? I don’t think she knows about you. I didn’t tell her anything. But Lili, she’s been avoiding me all week. I’m heading to her now.”
“Listen carefully,” Alexander says, not raising his voice, just tightening the noose. “If a single word about me gets out, it won’t just be your life that burns; it’ll be theirs too. You think this is bad? If Lili becomes a liability, I expect you to handle it. I don’t care how. Just take care of her.”
“‘Take care of her?’ She’s my wife.”
“This is about control, Casey. You lost it. Get it back. Or I will.”
The line goes dead. Casey hurls the phone onto the passenger seat. Slams his foot down. The car surges forward—engine roaring, tires skidding. No more thinking. Casey just drives, heart pounding, eyes locked straight ahead. Like a man chasing redemption, or just a fool, bracing for the crash.
Thirty minutes later, he unlocks the front door, resigned to whatever’s waiting on the other side.
The lights are off. Shades drawn. Lili sits in the living room, motionless. Hands folded in her lap. Face unreadable. For a split second, he thinks she’s going to break—burst into tears, fall into his arms. Maybe she’ll be angry. But maybe she’ll still want to fix it.
“How long?” There’s no fight left in her voice. Just the echo of disbelief.
“Lili—”
“How long have you been fucking her?”
“I didn’t. I swear.”
“Stop lying! Tell me the truth. When did it start?”
Casey wants to say it wasn’t real. That Raf meant nothing. It was all staged. Every second of it. Completely fake. But that wouldn’t make sense to her. Because the truth, the whole revolting scheme, is so much worse.
“It wasn’t like that,” he says quietly, like the words might shatter if he speaks too loud. “It wasn’t… some drawn-out affair. I barely know her.”
“So you just thought, why not play the field? Go on a little Tinder date?”
“It just… happened,” he says, barely a murmur.
“Of course it did. Just like that bitch from marketing last year, right? I let that slide. Thought we could move past it. But you don’t change.”
Casey’s eyes stay fixed on the floor, on a dull scuff in the hardwood. His mind drifts back, searching, as if remembering who left it might explain how everything came undone.
“Was she the only one?”
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t need to. The guilt does it for him. And that’s when she sees it—the truth is in his silence.
“Lili—”
“Who else?” she asks, her voice thin with control like it’s all she has left.
His lips part, but no words come. No excuses left. No saving this. The weight of it flattens whatever fantasy remains. It’s over now. Not just the marriage, but the illusion of who he thought he was.
“Daphne,” he utters, barely saying her name before looking away, sickened by the truth.
A chill rushes through her—not from disbelief, but from the loss of the one lie she was still holding onto: that Raf was the other woman. The only other woman. But no. It was Daphne too. And in that moment, Lili knows—
It always was.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Tell me how long.”
He pauses too long. Weighing what to admit. What to protect. “Since before the holidays.”
“How many times?”
“I… I don’t know.” His expression caves, buckling under the weight of his own shame. “Too many.”
A jagged breath escapes her, caught between a laugh and a sob, breaking from her throat.
“Lili, I—”
“Don’t. Don’t you dare touch me.”
“I never meant—”
She slaps his hand away, jerking back from his touch. “You never meant for me to find out? You never meant to get caught? Fucking one of my closest friends? She’s our neighbor, you sick fuck!”
Casey says nothing. No justification. No denial. No apology. Just silence.
“I’d say you were weak,” she shouts, voice rising too fast, too raw, like she’s daring him to deny it. “That you destroyed everything because you’re a coward. But no. You did this because you’re a fucking sociopath.”
She doesn’t wait for his reaction. She’s already moving out the door, fury propelling her across the courtyard, straight to Daphne’s front door.
When it opens, Daphne doesn’t even have time to register—
“You dirty, lying slut!”
The slap cracks across Daphne’s face, her head whipping sideways, the sound echoing off the stucco walls. For a moment, she just stands there, blinking. Then her fingers lift, slow and uncertain, to her cheek, as if confirming it really happened before she meets Lili’s gaze.
“Better you heard it from him,” she says, with resigned detachment, an edge barely concealed beneath the calm. “He owed you that much, at the very least.”
“And you owe me nothing, is that it?”
Lili doesn’t wait for an answer. She lunges, shoving Daphne hard, barreling through the doorway, pushing again, driving Daphne back into the apartment. With a shriek, Daphne stumbles—and crashes into the coffee table.
Glass shatters. Everything stops. Even the air feels suspended. Twisted on the floor, surrounded by glittering shards, Daphne looks up and lets out a jagged, breathless laugh, her last defense falling apart.
Lili’s voice breaks, as if the laugh confirms something she wasn’t ready to believe. “You’re laughing? This is funny to you?!”
In an instant, she lunges forward, grabs Daphne by the wrists—and yanks her off the ground.
“You stalked me! Tormented me,” she screams, the sound breaking with more grief than fury. “You tried to annihilate my life!”
“Get off me!” Daphne howls, thrashing as Lili shakes her, nails digging in.
“You wanted my life! You wanted my husband! You slithered into everything that was mine like the poisonous snake you are!”
With a sudden twist, Daphne breaks free. She shoves Lili back. Lili stumbles, but catches herself, just in time to see the feral look in Daphne’s eyes.
“Believe it or not,” Daphne hisses, as if the cruelty is all she has left, “we never fucked in your bed—as much as I wanted to slither inside.”
A smile creeps across her face, but the second slap comes faster, harder this time. Daphne gasps, more shocked by the force than the pain, just as Lili seizes her again—shaking, furious, desperate to make her feel it.
“He didn’t want you! He just wanted something easy! Something disposable. You cheap, lying whore!”
“He wanted me because he loved me!” Daphne screeches back, clawing at Lili’s arms and shoving her off.
“Yes, Daphne. It was true love. A great romance…” Lili lets out a laugh, almost inhuman. Her voice dips to a venomous whisper: “Almost as great as mine.”
Daphne grunts, thrown off balance, then stumbles as Lili grabs the front of her dress, twists hard, and spins her toward the exit. In one wild motion, they burst through the door, crashing out into the courtyard.
“Jesus Christ!” Boots shouts from the second-floor landing, already bolting down the stairs.
Gareth’s right behind her, leaping the last few steps and sprinting across the courtyard. He reaches them first, seizing Lili’s arms, struggling to pull her back.
“Lili! Enough! Stop!”
Boots drops beside Daphne, now curled on the ground, panting, ragged, and out of breath, mascara streaked like war paint.
“What the fuck is going on?” Boots snaps, grasping for control in the chaos.
“She ruined my life!” Lili cries, thrashing against Gareth’s grip.
“I didn’t ruin your life, Lili,” Daphne spits, rising halfway. “Take some fucking accountability. You ruined your life. For the choices you made, for choosing him. You were never right for each other. You only stayed for how it looked.”
She lets out a bitter, strained laugh, like it hurts to hold the rest in. “Yes, you’re that superficial. So stop pretending you’ve got the depth to actually feel hurt by this. You’re pissed because you think you’re supposed to be. But your marriage? It was always a strategy, and not even a good one. It never got you anywhere, did it? Nowhere but here, making it all about me.”
“You fucking bitch—”
“That the best you got? Because I’m not finished. I did you both a favor! Now go chase your happy ending with someone as boring and broken as you are, okay?”
Boots reels at that, disgust flashing across her face. She shoves off Daphne, rises, and storms toward Lili.
“Don’t listen to her,” Boots says, glancing back at Daphne with a withering glare. “Don’t listen to a goddamn thing.”
But Lili doesn’t hear. She’s somewhere else now, eyes locked on Daphne, stunned into stillness as the truth hardens.
Then, too fast to stop, Lili rips free from Boots and Gareth, lunges forward, snatches Daphne’s wrist, yanks her to her feet, and spins her around.
The pool glistens just behind them, only steps away, as Lili drives Daphne backward, step by step.
Daphne stumbles. Still, she laughs, a sharp, breathless sound, defiant even now. “You’re really gonna do this?” she spits, twisting in Lili’s grip.
“She’s not worth it, Lili!” Gareth shouts, his voice cracking with desperation, too far away to stop what’s already happening.
“You heard him,” Daphne snarls, lips curled in contempt. “I’m not worth it.”
“I know you’re not,” Lili hisses. And then—she shoves her with all her strength.
Daphne flies backward, arms flailing, then she crashes into the pool.
Boots cries out. Gareth just stares, frozen. The splash echoes off the courtyard walls. Lili doesn’t move. She stands at the edge, fury simmering just beneath the surface.
“I hope you drown this time,” she says, voice stripped of fury and pain, just empty now. “I hope you die.”
For a moment, nothing but the churn of water. A crow calls once from the trees. Then, Daphne bursts to the surface, water streaming off her face, mascara bleeding into her grin.
“You crazy bitch,” she coughs out, half-laughing, half-sputtering, as if the madness finally made sense.
But Lili doesn’t move. The rage is gone now. All that’s left is the wreckage, glaring back at her in the pool’s warped reflection.
High above the courtyard, cloaked in the hush of his apartment, Alexander stands at the window. Below, the chaos churns, but up here, he watches with a stillness that borders on reverence.
This wasn’t exactly the plan. But, then again, the most exquisite disasters aren’t engineered. You don’t force them. You just strike the match… and let the fire find its hunger. Let it burn. Wild. Untamed. Perfect.