His Private Hell - Chapter 6: Chapter 6

The vault was colder than she remembered.
Dim light flickered overhead, casting long shadows along the metallic walls lined with black file drawers and biometric locks. Eella stood still at the center of it all, arms crossed, heart thrumming like a war drum. It was exactly 9:01 p.m.
No footsteps. No creak of the door.
But she wasn’t alone.
“You came,” a voice said from behind her.
Female. Smooth as smoke.
Eella turned.
Astrid Vega stepped out of the shadows in four-inch heels, dressed in blood-red silk, her hair cascading like ink down her back.
“I always knew he’d replace me,” Astrid said. “Didn’t think it’d be with someone so… unrefined.”
“I’m not here for compliments,” Eella replied. “I’m here for the truth.”
Astrid smirked. “You wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
“I know you accessed the vault.”
“I didn’t touch it,” Astrid said, circling her like a predator. “Didn’t need to. Someone else already leaked what’s inside.”
Eella stiffened. “Leaked to who?”
“Not to the press. Yet.” Astrid’s eyes glittered. “But people are watching. Waiting for Garrison Vale to fall.”
“He won’t.”
“Because you’re protecting him?” Astrid tilted her head. “He doesn’t love you. He’s using you.”
“He doesn’t love anyone,” Eella said. “But that doesn’t make him weak.”
Astrid smiled—mean and slow. “It makes him dangerous. And eventually, dangerous men burn down everything they touch.”
She tossed a silver flash drive onto the floor.
“Give him that. Tell him he has three days.”
“Three days for what?”
“To bury his sins… or watch them rise.”
Then she disappeared into the dark like a ghost.
⸻
“Tell me you didn’t meet with her,” Garrison said, later that night, voice low and vibrating with barely controlled rage.
Eella stood in his penthouse, soaked from the rain, the flash drive still clenched in her hand.
“I needed answers. You weren’t giving them to me.”
His jaw clenched. “She’s manipulative. She wants to see me fall.”
“She said someone already leaked the vault files.”
Garrison’s eyes darkened. “Impossible.”
“Is it? Because someone knew your code. Someone knew what to look for. And someone is using your past to gut you from the inside.”
He turned his back on her.
She tossed the flash drive on the table. “Three days. That’s what she gave you.”
“What’s on it?”
“I haven’t looked.”
He stared at the drive like it might explode.
“She’s bluffing,” he said at last. “She always plays high-stakes games when she’s desperate.”
“You sound scared.”
“I’m not scared,” he said tightly. “I’m preparing.”
She walked toward him. “For what?”
“For war.”
His voice sent a chill down her spine.
He turned, hands gripping her hips suddenly, yanking her close.
“Why did you go alone?”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t let me.”
“And now that you have this—” he grabbed the flash drive and tossed it across the room “—what do you think happens next?”
“I think,” she said slowly, “you use me. Like you always do.”
He stilled.
Then something dark bloomed in his eyes. “You think I’m using you?”
“I know you are.”
“Then stop coming back.”
She shoved him. “Stop kissing me like I’m the only thing keeping you sane.”
“Stop making me insane!”
She slapped him—hard.
He grabbed her wrists. Pinned her against the glass.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
“No,” he growled. “You crave me. You hate yourself for it.”
He kissed her like he was angry. Like he wanted to devour her.
And she let him.
Clothes hit the floor. Teeth grazed skin. Fingers left bruises.
He took her on the glass wall overlooking the skyline, her body bent, her nails dragging along the fogged surface, and when she came—hard, fast, breathless—he didn’t stop.
Not until they collapsed, shaking and ruined, on the cold marble floor.
⸻
“Do you think she’s bluffing?” she asked hours later, curled against him on the couch, still naked.
“No.”
“So what’s on that flash drive?”
Garrison hesitated. “Evidence. Blackmail. Names that were never meant to exist.”
“Yours?”
“Mine. And others. Clients. Targets. Allies.”
She stared at the ceiling. “Then we have three days to find out who else has it.”
“I’ll handle it.”
She sat up. “Stop saying that. You’re not a god. You can’t just erase consequences.”
He sat up too. “But I can bury them.”
“Not this time.”
He looked at her. “You don’t believe in me?”
“I do,” she whispered. “That’s the problem.”
He kissed her shoulder. “You’re the only thing I can’t erase.”
⸻
The next morning, Ally’s Inc was in chaos.
Anonymous tips had been sent to two rival firms.
A board member resigned. Another vanished to the Bahamas. Staff were whispering about “The List.”
Garrison pulled Eella into his office.
“We need to move. Now.”
She nodded. “Who’s loyal?”
He looked grim. “Darcie, maybe. Ronnie—probably. Everyone else? Unclear.”
“Then we start turning the screws,” Eella said.
“You sure you’re ready for this?”
She smiled darkly. “I was born in fire, remember?”
He kissed her fast—urgent. “Then burn with me.”