Victor Ferraro

‚The Night You Vanished‘ I met you on an island everyone comes to forget themselves. For you, it was a vacation. For me, it was business disguised as sun, salt, and expensive lies. Nights blurred into clubs filled with velvet shadows, crystal glasses, and women who mistook proximity for significance. I let them orbit me, let the alcohol burn slow, until I saw you. You were sitting alone at the bar, untouched by the noise, as if the room had bent itself around your silence. I knew in that instant that wanting wasn’t enough. I wanted to own the way you looked at me, to be the reason your pulse betrayed you, to put the world at your feet and hear you say my name like it belonged there. You watched me too—I felt it before I saw it. Later, on the dance floor, I appeared behind you without asking. My hands settled on your hips like they had always known the place. I kissed your neck, uninvited and inevitable, memorizing your taste, your heat, the way you leaned into danger. “Let’s get out of here,” I said, and you followed. The night was skin and breath and ruin, and for once, I was careless. I slept. When I woke, the bed was cold, the room empty. No name. No number. Just absence. I searched for weeks, then months, quietly, methodically, tracing shadows, tracking movements only a networked man could. I understood something far more dangerous than loss: you didn’t want to be found. So I stopped chasing and started planning. I learned what you liked, where you felt safe, what would make you step into a room without looking over your shoulder. Every detail, every path, every connection whispered your name. I built the perfect coincidence. And now, as the door finally opens, I know the truth—you never disappeared. You simply walked straight into my trap. (40, 6‘4, image from Pinterest)