His Private Hell - Chapter 69: Chapter 69

She woke to the distant hum of the city below, but Eella felt suspended in a void. Garrison wasn’t beside her, but the sheets still carried the heat of their tangled bodies. Her lungs ached for air she thought she’d already taken, but not enough. Not for what lay ahead.
The vase on the nightstand was broken—cracked porcelain with a single drop of water still clinging to its rim, petals scattered like lost memories. She knelt and touched the fallen rose. Soft, red, stained with life and death.
He would’ve saved it. He saved everything he cared about.
She stood, heart pounding, and walked to the window. The skyline was bleeding dawn. She reminded herself: she was the one who survived. The queen of ashes. The fire that swallowed his hell—and her own.
⸻
Downstairs, the foyer was eerily empty. The elevator doors parted silently, and Eella stepped into the glass box, pressing the button for the 66th floor. She and Garrison had never been there—officially. It was access-only for him, off-limits.
Her pulse spiked.
Three months ago, she’d begged him to trust the whisper on her sleeve: “Don’t go there.” He’d laughed, kissed her, and said, “That’s where I bury my secrets.”
She would dig them up—if he tried to bury her there.
⸻
The doors opened onto silence. Concrete floors. Polished steel columns. No signage. The only warmth came from Garrison’s single desk lamp in the corner—lit. Ghostly. She stepped forward.
She almost didn’t feel how she tasted beneath her palms—cotton, lace, ash—until she heard the soft thud behind her.
“Eella.”
His voice, low as thunder, made her body jolt.
She turned. He stood ten feet away, buttoned shirt, tie askew, hands in his pockets. Tension buzzed between them.
“I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Does that matter?”
He stepped closer. Closer than any of their fights—invading her, sacred space he’d kept empty since Darcie.
“Why are you here?” he said.
Her voice trembled. “To finish what we started.”
He stayed quiet.
⸻
She walked past him. His gaze wasn’t trust. It was challenge, hunger, fear, pride.
Footsteps echoed as she examined the desk. His personal files. A stack of mirror-engraved acrylic plaques—“Top Producer ELLA HART.” Nothing new. Was this homage… or threat?
Garrison watched her hover over the desk. “It’s all gaslighting, Eella.”
“Then why are you honoring me?” she spat. “Why are you drowning me in your trophies?”
His chest tightened. “Because you matter.”
“You claim I’m mine. But you treat me like a trophy.”
He didn’t answer.
⸻
She opened a drawer. A flash of pale skin flickered inside—a gun, small caliber. Engraved with her name on the grip: E‐H in ornate script.
His hell. His gift. His weapon.
She closed the drawer and faced him.
“Was this yours… or mine?”
He let out a breath. “Both.”
She swallowed. “Explain.”
He paced. “This arm was meant to shoot someone else. But then it became yours.”
She paused, heart slamming. “Someone else.”
He stopped. Turned. Eyes storm-dark.
“Someone from your past.”
⸻
Storm erupted behind them as the sky cracked. Rain splashed against the plate glass.
He moved in, pressing her up against the desk. Thunder growled low, mimicking the tremor under her ribcage.
She twisted to look him in the eyes.
“Who?”
He closed his jaw, holding her gaze.
“Your brother.”
Words shrank the room.
Her lungs seized.
“No.” Her voice came hollow.
“Your twin.” He straightened. “He didn’t die. You know that.”
⸻
Her world tipped.
She stumbled back.
Cold metal chair met her palm—but it was stiff, unyielding. The gun in his drawer flicked in her mind. The key to everything, and the end of everything.
“Stop.”
Garrison shook his head. “He never died. He did worse.”
She reeled. “What?”
He crossed the room slowly. Sheltered by the storm and their silence. He held his phone out to her: a single video. Didn’t need sound, though faint static bristled—two children in an abandoned building.
Her twin brother. Alive. Knees scraped. T-shirt white and baggy. Face hollowed by something older than grief. He looked up, saw the camera… and smiled. Almost too wide.
Eella’s breath missed.
Her perfect mirror who then vanished.
The police reported death. Birth certificate said death. She stood inside her world blinking. He’d erased. He’d said yes. She’d said no.
He held her face. Rain splashed between them.
“He’s back,” Garrison said. “And he’s building a hell just for you.”
⸻
Her phone buzzed, interrupting.
She stiffened. Text—no name, no number:
They know you’re here. They’re watching.
She looked at him—her hands shaking, body strung tight like a spring. He slid the gun from the drawer—her name glinting on the grip.
The thunder roared. He knelt, pressed the gun into her palm.
“He’s in the building. He wants you—alone.”
Her blood froze.
“You want to run.”
They both knew it.
But Eella raised the gun, finger brushing the trigger.
“No,” she said.
Garrison’s breath hitched. “Then fire.”
Her gaze tracked back to the door. The elevator shafts. The shadows pooling between columns, stairwell hums suppressed by concrete.
She took a breath.
Squared her shoulders.
And pressed the gun flat against her back, pulling the hammer with the heel of her palm—click.
No bullet chambered.
He exhaled.
She glared.
“Trust me.”
He nodded. Stepped back.
She spun toward the shadow under the desk and flicked the hammer back again—
Footsteps ascended the steel ramp outside.
Click.
They both froze.
Then—
Door slid open.
And in silhouette: her twin, tall, thin, face pale in wet hair, smile too wide.
He stepped inside.
They were alone—three people divided by betrayal, memory, and hell.
“Meet me,” he said, calm as breath. “Meet your real salvation.”