His Private Hell - Chapter 65: Chapter 65

Eella didn’t sleep.
She lay in his bed—if it could even be called his—and stared at the ceiling, heart pounding against her ribs like a war drum. Every inch of her ached. Between her legs. In her chest. Behind her eyes. The room still smelled like sex and regret, like his cologne and the ghost of something forbidden.
Garrison hadn’t come back after the phone call.
She’d heard the front door shut. Heard nothing since.
The clock ticked louder than it should’ve. Somewhere in the apartment, the fridge hummed. The city roared quietly behind blackout curtains that refused to let the light touch her skin.
When morning came, it was pale and gray. Like bruised porcelain.
She sat up.
Her thighs stuck together. She winced at the soreness. The reminder of how roughly he’d taken her. How she’d begged for it.
How she’d liked it.
Her hand trembled as she reached for the robe he’d thrown on the chair. It was too big, too warm. Like wearing the aftermath of a mistake she couldn’t unmake.
Down the hallway, she found the coffee already brewed.
A single mug waited for her on the counter. Black. No sugar. No note.
She stared at it like it might talk.
Then drank every drop.
By the time she stepped into the elevator, her hair was dry and her makeup perfect—but her insides were in knots. Something had shifted last night. Something ugly and unspoken. Garrison had looked at her like she was a puzzle that made him bleed.
She felt like she’d swallowed the key.
Back at Ally’s Inc, the whispers started the moment she stepped off the elevator. Eyes followed her. Conversations stopped midsentence. Phones lifted, texts sent.
Ronnie met her at the front desk. “Eella,” she said, voice careful. “Garrison’s not in.”
Of course he wasn’t.
“He’s… busy.” Ronnie shifted, glancing over her shoulder. “I think he’s handling something about Darcie. The 33rd floor.”
That name again. That floor again.
Eella felt the nausea curl tighter around her gut.
“He wants you to focus on the press release for the shareholder dinner. Says you can work remotely if needed.”
“Thanks,” Eella murmured, walking straight to her office before she snapped.
The 33rd floor. Always locked. Always sealed like a secret coffin. No one ever talked about what had happened there, only that something had. Some whispered scandal. A tragedy.
And Darcie.
The name echoed through her head like a ghost’s scream.
She tried to work, but her fingers kept pausing on the keyboard. She pulled up files. Drafted press materials. But the silence in her office felt like it was mocking her.
By midday, she cracked.
She left her desk. Pressed the button for the elevator. Hit 33.
Her heart was in her throat the entire way up. Sweat gathered between her breasts, under her arms. She half-expected the doors to stay shut, the floor to reject her presence like a virus.
But the elevator dinged.
Opened.
And the hallway that stretched before her was silent. Empty. Dimly lit.
She stepped out.
The carpet was pristine, but she felt the weight of ghosts. The hallway turned left, then right. A single red door waited at the end.
Her fingers closed around the knob before she could convince herself not to.
Locked.
Of course.
She turned to leave—and froze.
Footsteps behind her.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Garrison’s voice.
She turned slowly.
He stood in a black shirt, sleeves rolled up, tattoos peeking out. His eyes were darker than she remembered. Bloodshot. Ravenous.
“What happened to her?” she asked softly.
His jaw tightened. “Go downstairs.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking.”
“And I’m not leaving until you tell me.”
They stared at each other across the hallway.
Then he moved.
Fast.
One second, he was ten feet away. The next, his hand was in her hair, yanking her back into the red door. She gasped, her back slamming into the wood. His mouth was inches from hers. His breath ragged.
“Darcie was my fiancée.”
The word hit her like a slap.
“She died here,” he said. “Right behind this door.”
Eella’s breath caught. “How?”
“She found something she shouldn’t have. Said something she shouldn’t have. I lost control. Not physically,” he added quickly. “Not like that. But emotionally. She ran.”
He stepped back, like the memory was a fist in his gut.
“She didn’t make it to the elevator.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
“She fell?” Eella asked, voice trembling.
“She jumped.”
The words cracked through the hallway like lightning.
Garrison turned, his back to her now. “Or maybe I pushed her emotionally. Maybe I was the reason she didn’t think she had anything left.”
Eella stared at the red door.
“What was behind it?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer.
And that terrified her more than anything else.
That night, he came to her apartment again.
He didn’t say a word.
Just took her.
Hard.
Fast.
Brutal.
He lifted her onto the kitchen counter and ripped her robe apart, his mouth sealing over her nipple like a punishment. She cried out, clutching his shoulders as his hands spread her thighs wide.
“You want the monster?” he growled against her skin. “You want the man who breaks women?”
“No,” she moaned. “I want you.”
He plunged two fingers into her, fast and slick. “Then take all of me.”
She did.
She wrapped her legs around his waist as he drove into her, no condom, no pause, no mercy. Their moans echoed through the kitchen. He fucked her like he wanted to erase Darcie from his memory. Like he wanted to replace her with something darker.
Something real.
After, they collapsed onto the cold tile floor.
His head on her stomach. Her fingers in his hair.
Neither said a word.
The next morning, she woke up alone.
Again.
But this time, there was something else.
An envelope on her coffee table.
No name. Just a seal she didn’t recognize.
Inside: a photograph.
Darcie. Smiling. Beautiful. Standing beside a much younger Garrison.
And scrawled across the back, in a hand she didn’t recognize:
YOU’RE NEXT.
Eella stared at the photo for a long time.
Then lit a match.
And let it burn.