His Private Hell - Chapter 50: Chapter 50

Fire Behind The Door
The apartment was no longer hers. Not really. Not since she let him in. Not since Garrison Wolfe turned the space into something feral, something sacred, something so intimately twisted that Eella could no longer separate herself from the shadows he’d left behind.
The air still smelled like him.
Her bedsheets carried the scent of his cologne, her skin bore the phantom press of his fingertips, and every mirror she passed seemed to whisper secrets she hadn’t meant to tell. Garrison had crawled under her skin—no, burrowed—and now he was growing there like something dangerous. Something that could destroy her if she let it.
But she couldn’t stop.
Not when her dreams were filled with the taste of his mouth. Not when her nights were haunted by the bruising grip of his hands. Not when the only place she could breathe anymore was in the heat of his obsession.
And he was obsessed.
After what happened at Ally’s Inc—the brutal way he’d taken her in the elevator, in the dark, pressed up against mirrored walls where her reflection had betrayed her every gasp—Eella knew something had shifted. Garrison wasn’t hiding anymore. Not completely.
But he was watching. Always watching.
She felt it now, in the way her phone buzzed when she left her apartment too long. In the driver who waited downstairs even when she hadn’t ordered a car. In the roses delivered at 2 a.m., thorns still wet, and the note unsigned but unmistakably him.
Don’t run. I’ll find you.
She hadn’t tried. Not yet.
But it was getting harder not to ask questions.
About the 33rd floor. About the name Darcie. About the way Garrison looked at her sometimes like he was measuring her against a memory he didn’t want to forget.
Or bury.
She brushed a trembling hand through her hair, staring at herself in the bathroom mirror. Lipstick smudged. Eyes wild. He’d come tonight. She felt it in her chest before she even heard the knock.
Three sharp raps.
She didn’t ask who it was.
When she opened the door, Garrison was there—dripping with rain, black coat soaked, his jaw clenched with something barely leashed. Something hungry.
“You’re late,” she whispered.
He stepped inside without asking. The heat followed.
“I was watching,” he said, voice rough.
She froze. “Watching what?”
“You. Talking to the intern outside Ally’s today.” His eyes darkened. “You smiled.”
Eella blinked. “I—I said hello.”
“You smiled,” he repeated, approaching her with a quiet that made her thighs clench. “You smiled like he mattered.”
“You’re being ridiculous—”
He pinned her against the wall, body flush with hers, soaked coat cold against her bare arms. “Don’t smile at other men, Eella.”
Her breath hitched. “You don’t own me.”
His hand slid into her hair. “That’s the thing,” he murmured against her ear. “I do. You just haven’t accepted it yet.”
She hated the thrill that sparked in her belly. Hated the way her body betrayed her. But when he kissed her—bruising, raw, desperate—she melted anyway. Because it wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet.
It was possession.
And it felt like home.
He kissed down her throat, biting hard enough to leave marks only he could recognize. Her blouse was ripped before she could protest. His belt clinked as he undid it. No pretense. No waiting.
He bent her over the table and shoved inside her in one thrust.
Eella gasped—sharp, guttural. Her fingers clawed at the wood, slick with sweat, as he gripped her hips like she was his lifeline. He didn’t speak. Didn’t slow. It was brutal. Primal.
Perfect.
“You’re mine,” he growled, teeth at her shoulder.
She whimpered, arching into him. “Say it again.”
“You’re mine, Eella. Only mine.”
And she was. God, she was.
When they collapsed onto the floor afterward, limbs tangled, breath ragged, Eella didn’t ask what came next. She didn’t need to. She knew this wasn’t just lust anymore.
It was dependency.
It was addiction.
And she wasn’t the only one suffering.
Garrison lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, chest rising and falling in heavy heaves. The rain pounded against the windows like a warning. Like a promise.
She traced a finger over the scar on his ribcage. “Darcie,” she whispered. “Who was she?”
His whole body stilled.
She almost regretted it.
Almost.
But his silence screamed louder than any answer. And then, after a beat, he said:
“She was the beginning.”
Eella sat up slowly. “Of what?”
“Of hell.”
He turned to her, eyes black with memory. “I let her into my life. Into Ally’s. Into my office on the 33rd floor. She thought she could fix me. Like you.”
Her throat tightened.
“She died in that office,” he continued, voice flat. “Not because I killed her. But because she saw what I couldn’t hide. And she didn’t run fast enough.”
Eella’s blood ran cold.
“She was your lover?” she asked, barely audible.
He shook his head. “She was my mistake.”
He got up, naked and unashamed, disappearing into the shadows of the living room. She followed—because she had to.
“Did you love her?” she asked.
“I don’t love,” he snapped, turning on her with a fire in his eyes that burned. “I consume. I devour. And now it’s your turn, Eella. I warned you.”
She stood there, trembling, staring at the man unraveling in front of her.
And then she said the words that changed everything.
“I want to see it.”
He stiffened. “See what?”
“The 33rd floor.”
A long silence.
Then, finally, he gave a slow nod. “Tomorrow. Noon. Come alone.”
And then he left.
Just like that.
The door shut behind him with a whisper of finality. Eella stood there, naked and afraid, realizing that her curiosity was no longer innocent. It was fatal.
⸻
The next day, Ally’s Inc felt like a trap.
Every floor she passed on the elevator felt like a countdown to doom. When the doors finally opened at 33, Eella hesitated. Her heels clicked across the marble like gunshots.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
The hallway was long. Empty. At the end stood a single black door. No handle. Just a retinal scanner.
He was already waiting.
Garrison stepped out from the shadows, dressed in black, jaw tight, eyes unreadable. “You’re late.”
“Like you were.”
He didn’t smile.
The scanner lit green. The door opened with a hiss.
What she saw inside wasn’t what she expected.
It was a room of memories.
Paintings. Photographs. Blood-red roses dried in vases. And in the center—an unmarked gravestone built into the floor.
Eella froze. “What is this?”
He walked past her, standing at the headstone.
“Darcie’s real name was Olivia. She was the first woman I ever let in here. She found out what I was doing—what I was capable of. She said she could help me.”
He looked at her with hollow eyes.
“She was wrong.”
“What happened to her?”
He knelt, fingers brushing the name engraved in the stone. “She tried to save me. And she died for it.”
Eella felt sick. “You buried her here?”
“No one would take her. Her family disowned her when she started seeing me.” He exhaled slowly. “This is all I could give her.”
Eella knelt beside him, placing a hand over his.
“Then don’t make the same mistake with me.”
He looked at her.
Really looked.
And something shifted.
“Then don’t run.”
“I won’t.”
He cupped her face, gently this time, like she was breakable. “You say that now.”
“Then show me you’re more than the monster.”
He kissed her.
And it was different.
Softer.
For a moment, he let her see the man beneath the ice. The guilt. The longing. The love he swore he didn’t feel.
But when she tasted salt on his lips, she realized—
He was crying.
And for the first time, Eella understood the truth.
She wasn’t just falling for Garrison Wolfe.
She was falling with him.
Straight into hell.