One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 77: Chapter 77

The chapel floor was stained with blood—not Damien’s, but the guard who had been sent to silence them. Étienne moved like a ghost through the shadows, Arielle tight behind him, clutching the flash drive and the remaining hope it carried.
By the time they escaped the monastery, the rising sun had already kissed the marble walls golden. Arielle barely remembered the car ride to the private airfield or the rushed goodbye to Greece.
All she remembered was clutching her phone, scrolling through photos of her children—knowing that for now, she couldn’t protect them herself.
Back home, her mother had answered on the first ring. Arielle didn’t explain everything—just enough. Enough to terrify any grandmother, but not enough to make her say no.
“They need you more than me right now,” Arielle whispered.
Her mother’s voice trembled. “And who will bring him home if you don’t?”
On the plane, Étienne decrypted the coordinates.
An island.
Isolated. Off-the-record. Claimed as a “private bio-research facility” in the South Pacific, but with no published scientists, no published studies, and no satellite access without heavy clearance.
Damien was there.
If the data was right.
If he was still alive.
The jet shook lightly as they descended.
Arielle stared through the window, watching clouds drift like old ghosts across the ocean. Her wedding ring spun loosely on her finger—her body thinner, her soul heavier. The woman who had once blushed under Damien’s smirk was gone.
Now she was forged in fire.
The team Étienne hired met them on the ground. Three men, one woman. All former military. Quiet, coordinated, lethal.
They reviewed floorplans Arielle hadn’t seen yet. Satellite photos. Thermal readings.
“Compound sits inside volcanic cliffs,” one of the men explained. “Only one entrance. Two hidden exits. One helipad. Heavy electronic jamming. They’re hiding something, and they’re serious about it.”
Arielle studied the map.
“Where would they keep someone like Damien?”
“Sublevel C. It’s where the temperature readings spike irregularly—human heat signatures, but erratic, like they’re being moved or monitored. No clear path in.”
They moved at night.
Through dense foliage, across jagged stone. Rain poured, turning the trail to sludge. But Arielle didn’t slip. Didn’t stumble. She moved like someone who had run out of reasons to be afraid.
At the facility’s outer wall, Étienne held up a hand.
“Motion sensors. We cut here.”
The team sliced a square of fencing, just wide enough for a crawl. Arielle passed through, mud on her jeans, hair soaked, heartbeat a drumbeat in her chest.
Inside, the walls were white and steel. Silent halls. Dim lights. The stench of antiseptic and something… wrong. Too clean. Too still.
They split up.
Arielle moved with Étienne and one guard.
Down two staircases.
Through a hallway of locked doors.
At the end—an observation chamber.
Through the glass, she saw him.
Damien.
Shackled. Eyes closed. Hooked to machines. Breathing, but shallow.
Her knees buckled.
Étienne activated the override panel.
An alarm shrieked.
Doors hissed.
Footsteps thundered behind them.
But none of it mattered.
She ran to Damien, wrapped her arms around him as the team worked to free him.
His eyes fluttered open.
“Arielle…?”
She kissed his forehead. “I found you. I found you, love.”
His cracked lips moved.
“Did… they get the kids…?”
She shook her head, crying now. “No. They’re safe.
We’re all safe. We’re going home.”
Gunfire erupted in the corridor.
But Arielle never let go.
Not this time.