One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 101: Chapter 101
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It started as curiosity.
Elijah had taken up the habit of spending his evenings in Damien’s old study—restoring bookshelves, sorting papers, breathing in the quiet dignity his father once carried like armor.
One night, while reorganizing the desk drawers, he found a slim black laptop wrapped in cloth, hidden beneath a false panel.
The machine was old, heavier than what Damien usually used.
When Elijah opened it, the screen flickered to life, demanding a password.
He tried Damien’s birthdate. Then Arielle’s.
It wasn’t until he typed ElijahHope—the name Damien gave to a hidden vault for Elijah’s newborn documents—that the screen unlocked.
The desktop was bare, save for a folder marked “STANDBY.” Inside were encrypted files, each named with a strange sequence of numbers and letters. Military-style.
He double-clicked one.
A loading bar. Then static. Then a video began.
Damien’s face appeared on screen—older, thinner, his beard longer than Elijah remembered.
“If you’re seeing this,” he began, voice low, eyes darting to the corners of the frame, “then I couldn’t make it home the way I planned.”
Elijah froze.
“I can’t say much. Too many eyes watching. But this laptop contains coordinates—hidden in the background of my journal entries. One leads to a contact. The other... to me.”
He swallowed visibly.
“I didn’t leave you. I was taken. For something I knew. Something they wanted silenced.”
A deep exhale. “But I’m alive. I’m holding on. And I’m waiting.”
The screen went black.
Elijah’s hands trembled.
He scrambled through the files, now decoding every pattern, every image. Hidden in the metadata of a photo of Arielle’s pendant, he found it: coordinates.
His heart pounded as he traced the location.
A small region near the border of a conflict zone overseas. No clear government. No stable communication.
A ghost town.
And yet—there it was. A blinking signal. A GPS ping from a week ago.
It couldn’t be a coincidence.
He didn’t sleep that night.
By dawn, he approached Arielle in the kitchen.
She was pouring cereal for Lily, humming softly.
“Mom,” Elijah said, his voice steady.
She turned, and something in his eyes stopped her cold.
“I think Dad’s alive.”
He laid it all out—the files, the video, the GPS, the signals. Arielle didn’t speak at first. She just sat, hands folded over her chest, the world tilting beneath her.
“Are you sure?”
“No,” Elijah whispered. “But I feel it. I’ve never felt this sure of anything before.”
Arielle looked at her son—not a boy anymore, but a man carrying fire.
“We’ll find him,” she said.
That night, after the children slept, she returned to the laptop.
She played the video again, watching every flicker, every blink.
The storm that had stolen her husband hadn’t taken his hope.
And neither would she.
Elijah had taken up the habit of spending his evenings in Damien’s old study—restoring bookshelves, sorting papers, breathing in the quiet dignity his father once carried like armor.
One night, while reorganizing the desk drawers, he found a slim black laptop wrapped in cloth, hidden beneath a false panel.
The machine was old, heavier than what Damien usually used.
When Elijah opened it, the screen flickered to life, demanding a password.
He tried Damien’s birthdate. Then Arielle’s.
It wasn’t until he typed ElijahHope—the name Damien gave to a hidden vault for Elijah’s newborn documents—that the screen unlocked.
The desktop was bare, save for a folder marked “STANDBY.” Inside were encrypted files, each named with a strange sequence of numbers and letters. Military-style.
He double-clicked one.
A loading bar. Then static. Then a video began.
Damien’s face appeared on screen—older, thinner, his beard longer than Elijah remembered.
“If you’re seeing this,” he began, voice low, eyes darting to the corners of the frame, “then I couldn’t make it home the way I planned.”
Elijah froze.
“I can’t say much. Too many eyes watching. But this laptop contains coordinates—hidden in the background of my journal entries. One leads to a contact. The other... to me.”
He swallowed visibly.
“I didn’t leave you. I was taken. For something I knew. Something they wanted silenced.”
A deep exhale. “But I’m alive. I’m holding on. And I’m waiting.”
The screen went black.
Elijah’s hands trembled.
He scrambled through the files, now decoding every pattern, every image. Hidden in the metadata of a photo of Arielle’s pendant, he found it: coordinates.
His heart pounded as he traced the location.
A small region near the border of a conflict zone overseas. No clear government. No stable communication.
A ghost town.
And yet—there it was. A blinking signal. A GPS ping from a week ago.
It couldn’t be a coincidence.
He didn’t sleep that night.
By dawn, he approached Arielle in the kitchen.
She was pouring cereal for Lily, humming softly.
“Mom,” Elijah said, his voice steady.
She turned, and something in his eyes stopped her cold.
“I think Dad’s alive.”
He laid it all out—the files, the video, the GPS, the signals. Arielle didn’t speak at first. She just sat, hands folded over her chest, the world tilting beneath her.
“Are you sure?”
“No,” Elijah whispered. “But I feel it. I’ve never felt this sure of anything before.”
Arielle looked at her son—not a boy anymore, but a man carrying fire.
“We’ll find him,” she said.
That night, after the children slept, she returned to the laptop.
She played the video again, watching every flicker, every blink.
The storm that had stolen her husband hadn’t taken his hope.
And neither would she.
End of One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- Chapter 101. Continue reading Chapter 102 or return to One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- book page.