Deadly Affection

What if the one who loved you most only wanted your life?Deadly Affection: Catfishing, Crime, and Betrayal is a bone-chilling anthology where horror, crime, and psychological suspense collide in intimate, unsettling ways. These aren’t love stories, they’re trapdoors. Each tale peels back the glossy veneer of online intimacy to expose how a soft voice and a pretty picture can turn a lonely heart into a disposable mule, how trust becomes contraband, and how “forever” can be the last word you ever read.Every character in these pages makes the same fatal mistake: they believe in someone who never existed. And for that error, they pay in blood.Within these twisted, atmospheric stories, you’ll encounter:A gardener who tucks “I love you” notes beside concealed parcels, then feels the soil close over his face as the roses drink.A devout student who slides packages into hymnals, only to learn the service is for him, and the wine isn’t meant for mercy.An apprentice sealed in a furnace room for asking the wrong question, his loyalty reduced to ash before dawn.A lantern festival that transforms into a firestorm, where a boy’s last wish burns as bright and brief as paper.A lonely driver guided by tender texts down a black road to a waiting swamp, his screen still glowing beneath the water.Across docks and deserts, empty apartments and abandoned chapels, these stories chart the same ruthless geometry: a message, a meeting, a disappearance. The bait is affection. The hook is need. The line is pulled tight by strangers who never use their real names.Told in a cinematic, nerve-tightening style, Deadly Affection explores the predators who no longer lurk in alleys they curate profiles. It examines the soft mechanics of manipulation: drip-fed compliments, choreographed coincidences, and promises designed to make you carry the one thing you should never touch. It asks why desperation can look so much like devotion, and why the people we want most are often the ones we should fear.If you crave psychological horror with a noir heartbeat stories steeped in dread, betrayal, and the slow suffocation of hope this collection will haunt you long after the final page. Fans of modern gothic tension and crime-soaked cautionary tales will find an anthology as addictive as it is devastating.Read at night if you dare but keep your notifications off. Because in Deadly Affection, every “goodnight,” every filtered smile, every promise of a future is just another lure.Do you trust the one who texts you goodnight?After this book, you never will again.