I Should Have Looked Away: A Story of Obsession and Consequence (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798996531509)

At eighteen, Frank Perci is trying to build a life that makes sense-working part-time as a mechanic, staying close to his girlfriend Michelle, and pretending he doesn't feel more for his best friend Kim than he should. But the fragile balance he's created shatters the moment he meets Michelle's stepmother, Liz.

Liz is everything Frank shouldn't want: older, married, emotionally unstable, and trapped in a home ruled by Michelle's father-a respected psychiatrist who hides his predatory nature behind credentials and charm. Liz is being drugged into forgetting the horrors she lives through, and Frank can't look away. What begins as curiosity becomes fixation, and fixation becomes something darker.

As Michelle spirals into a psychological collapse engineered by her father, Frank is pulled deeper into a world of manipulation, abuse, and buried trauma. Two of his friends are already dead. Women seeking therapy are disappearing and turning up murdered. Every clue points back to the same house Frank keeps returning to, even as his obsession threatens to destroy the people he cares about most.

Caught between guilt, desire, and the weight of his own past, Frank must confront the truth:

Is Liz the monster everyone fears... or is someone turning her into one?

I Should Have Looked Away: A Story of Obsession and Consequence is a tense, character-driven psychological thriller about desire, manipulation, and the devastating cost of crossing a line you can never uncross.