His Private Hell - Chapter 103: Chapter 103

They didn’t go home.
They went to war.
Within hours, Garrison had gutted a private server room under one of his offshore accounts. Eella sat cross-legged in his chair, laptop open, eyes flashing with a hunger that wasn’t born in hell—it created it.
“Lazarus kept the originals here,” she murmured, fingers moving faster than thought. “Encrypted, but arrogant. He left metadata trails.”
Garrison stood behind her, bruised and still half-covered in Kozlov’s blood. “Because he thought no one would dare come after him.”
“He was wrong.” She looked up. “We dare.”
He leaned down, kissed the crown of her head. “What are we looking for?”
“Blackmail files. The ones he uses to control judges, CEOs, politicians. If we destroy that leverage…”
“He loses the empire.”
She smiled. “Exactly.”
The files were buried deep—hidden inside video feeds, scrambled through innocent-looking code.
But Garrison had taught her well.
And what she couldn’t crack, he broke.
By dawn, they had ten terabytes of sins.
Eella leaned back, breathless. “We leak this, we become targets.”
Garrison crouched beside her. “We already are.”
She hesitated. “There’s more. He has something else. A final lock. Something he built to survive even if his world burns.”
Garrison narrowed his eyes. “You’re talking about the Contingency Protocol.”
Her heart stopped. “That’s real?”
“Yes.” He stood. “And if we’re going to take him down completely, we have to find it before he triggers it.”
“How?”
He looked over his shoulder. “We visit the only person who ever outsmarted him.”
Eella’s breath caught. “Darcie.”
—
Darcie wasn’t in her cage anymore.
She was in the greenhouse.
Her dress was torn, her nails broken from clawing at the stone walls. But her eyes—God, her eyes—were alive.
Like she’d never stopped fighting.
When Eella walked in, she didn’t speak.
Darcie smiled instead.
“Took you long enough.”
Garrison crossed his arms. “How much do you know?”
Darcie tilted her head, sharp as glass. “About Lazarus’s failsafe? Enough.”
Eella stepped forward. “Where is it?”
“You’ll never get it by asking nicely.”
“Then we’ll ask ugly.”
Darcie grinned, pleased. “There she is. You know, I used to pity you. Thought you were another pretty pet he’d ruin. But you’re worse than me.”
“I’m not proud of that.”
“You should be.”
Garrison slammed his palm into the glass. “Enough riddles, Darcie. If you help us, you walk free.”
She laughed, dark and bright. “You think I want freedom? No, baby. I want revenge. I want to taste it until my teeth fall out.”
Eella leaned closer. “Then help us kill him.”
Silence stretched.
Then Darcie reached into her bodice and pulled out a blood-stained flash drive.
“You’ll need this.”
Garrison took it. “What’s on it?”
“The coordinates. But it’s not just a location. It’s a trap.” Darcie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Lazarus designed it so only someone obsessed could get through.”
Eella frowned. “What does that mean?”
Darcie’s eyes locked on hers. “It means you, darling. Only you.”
—
The drive led them to a decaying estate two hours outside the city.
Barbed wire fences. Dead roses. A single raven perched on a rusted gate.
“This was his mother’s,” Garrison murmured.
“She died in this house?”
“She was murdered. Lazarus always said the place kept her soul hostage.”
Inside, the air was thick with rot and perfume.
Room after room of relics—porcelain dolls, music boxes, broken mirrors.
And in the center of the house, a door sealed with biometric code.
Eella stepped forward.
The lock scanned her face.
The door opened.
Behind it, a single chamber.
One chair.
One screen.
And on it—a live feed.
Lazarus.
Staring directly at her.
“Hello, little ghost.”
Her blood turned to ice.
“I always knew you’d come.”
His voice was velvet poison.
“I built this place for you. The only one who could end me. But you’ll never survive it.”
The walls began to shift.
Steel slammed behind her. The room sealed.
Garrison shouted outside, pounding the door.
“Eella!”
Lazarus smiled.
“This is your crucible. Let’s see if you’re worthy.”
—
The first test was visual.
Screens flickered to life, showing clips of Eella as a child. Crying. Bleeding. Begging.
Lazarus narrated each one with the casual cruelty of a god.
“Pain was your teacher. But love… that was your curse.”
She gritted her teeth.
“I bet you still hear their screams when you close your eyes.”
The room darkened.
The second test began.
A gas leaked in—sweet and sickly.
Eella stumbled.
Visions surged.
Garrison chained to a chair. Darcie’s body torn open. Her mother’s voice singing in reverse.
She screamed.
But didn’t fall.
Instead, she crawled to the screen.
“You think this breaks me?” she gasped. “This made me.”
Her voice cracked, but her hands didn’t shake.
“I am not the girl you filmed. I am not the pet you trained. I am the end of you.”
She ripped the wires from the walls.
The gas vent sparked.
BOOM.
The chamber exploded.
—
Outside, Garrison kicked the door open just as the fire swallowed the corridor.
“EELLA!”
From the smoke, she emerged—limping, burned, but alive.
She fell into his arms.
He held her like salvation.
“You did it,” he whispered. “You destroyed it.”
“No.” Her voice was ash. “Not yet.”
She handed him a chip from her palm.
The core drive.
“The last of Lazarus. Now we decide how he dies.”
—
They uploaded the files to a secure server.
Blackmail. Footage. Contracts. DNA.
Garrison tapped the keyboard. “One button, and the world burns.”
Eella hovered over the key.
Then paused.
“If we do this, innocent people get dragged down too.”
“No one’s innocent in Lazarus’s world.”
“Then let’s make sure the guilty scream the loudest.”
She pressed it.
—
Within days, media exploded.
A senator was arrested.
A royal was exiled.
Three CEOs vanished.
And Lazarus?
Gone.
Off the grid.
But not forgotten.
Because monsters don’t die.
They wait.
And Garrison knew it.
Which is why he built a vault beneath their new estate.
Not to trap Eella.
But to protect her.
From what was coming.
Because war had a sequel.
And Lazarus was writing it.
One scream at a time.