His Private Hell - Chapter 71: Chapter 71

The air in Eella’s lungs didn’t feel like hers anymore.
It felt owned. Possessed. Every breath tainted with the scent of him—Garrison Wolfe. Of cedarwood and sin. Of something unholy wearing the skin of a man. And yet, she’d never felt more alive. More ruined.
Her back hit the cold glass wall of his penthouse, New York burning like fire below them. And Garrison’s mouth burned hotter. He kissed her like he wanted to erase every other man from her memory, every breath she’d taken before him. His hand slid under her blouse, his thumb grazing the underside of her breast, and she gasped into his mouth.
“You’re mine,” he said, voice a feral growl. “Say it.”
“No,” she whispered, shivering.
He smiled darkly. “Good.”
This was their game. The denial, the dare, the surrender that always followed.
But tonight, something was different.
He wasn’t just kissing her.
He was unraveling.
Stripping himself down to something raw, broken, bleeding. She saw it in his eyes—the torment he kept caged beneath boardroom dominance and godlike control. And she felt it in the way his hands trembled against her skin, like the fire between them scared even him.
His mouth left hers only to find her neck, her collarbone, the swell of her breast. He dropped to his knees before her, unfastening the button of her slacks with a slow, reverent hunger that made her thighs clench.
“You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” he said, voice husky. “You don’t know what I’ve done for you.”
She touched his face. “Then show me.”
He did. With his tongue. With his teeth. With his need.
He made her fall apart against the glass—made her moan his name while the city watched.
And when she came, it wasn’t quiet. It was a scream of surrender. One he drank like wine.
But as her body trembled with aftershocks, his didn’t soften.
It tensed.
He rose, eyes darker than she’d ever seen them. There was a storm gathering inside him, and she’d just pulled the first thread.
“She came here,” he said coldly.
Eella blinked. “What?”
“Darcie. To your apartment.”
The air dropped. Her body went ice-cold.
“What?”
“She left a message on your mirror.” He held up a photo—her bathroom mirror, fogged up, the words etched with a finger: He burns everything he loves.
Eella stared, stomach turning to acid.
“How did you get this?”
“She sent it to me.” His jaw clenched. “From a burner number. One of the many I gave her.”
“You gave her—?”
“Before she disappeared. Before the 33rd floor.”
It hit her like a car crash. The 33rd floor. The place no one was allowed to speak of. The floor that held more than ghosts—it held his sins.
“She’s alive,” Eella said softly.
Garrison didn’t move. “She’s not.”
“But—”
“She’s something else now.” His voice shook. “What I did to her…”
He broke off, walking away.
Eella didn’t follow.
Instead, she stared at the photo, at the message, at the haunting curve of each letter. It was Darcie’s handwriting. She’d seen it once in an archived personnel file, years old, buried deep.
And now it was in her apartment.
A chill crept down her spine.
“She’s watching me,” Eella whispered.
Garrison turned. “She’s not the only one.”
His meaning wasn’t lost. Ally’s Inc was a company riddled with secrets, with surveillance, with invisible hands pulling strings. But this was personal.
“I want to know what happened,” she said. “Everything. Darcie. The 33rd floor. Why you’re like this.”
He laughed—empty, hollow, bitter. “You don’t.”
“I do.”
“Then you’d better be ready to burn.”
He pulled open a hidden panel in the wall. Behind it, a steel door. No knob. No keypad. Just a retinal scanner.
She stared.
“I thought it was sealed,” she said.
“It was.” He turned to face her. “I’m unsealing it for you.”
The scanner blinked red, then green. The door opened with a hiss.
Inside—darkness. Cold air. The faintest scent of roses and ash.
She stepped in.
The lights flickered on.
It wasn’t an office.
It was a shrine.
A single room, walls covered in red velvet and black-and-white photographs. All of her. Darcie. Dozens of them. Candid. Blurred. Smiling. Crying.
And at the center—a bed. Stained. Shackled.
Eella stumbled back.
“Oh my God.”
“I tried to forget her,” Garrison said, voice brittle. “I tried to bury it. But it kept growing.”
“What is this place?”
“My penance. My reminder. My private hell.”
She turned to him. “Did you hurt her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you love her?”
“Yes.”
He sank to his knees, arms hanging limp, head bowed.
“She begged me to stop. But I didn’t know how.”
Eella couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Her gaze fell on a small photo by the bed—Darcie with a bruise on her cheek. But her eyes… they were laughing.
“She wanted it,” Garrison whispered. “Until she didn’t. And then I didn’t know how to stop.”
Eella walked to him. Touched his hair. He flinched.
“I’m not her,” she said.
“I know.”
“Then why are you afraid?”
“Because I want to keep you.”
She knelt in front of him. “Then stop burning me.”
He looked up, eyes shining. “I can’t. I’ve never known anything else.”
They kissed again—but this one wasn’t just fire. It was gasoline and lightning.
He carried her to the bed—that bed. She hesitated. Then nodded.
“If I leave now,” she said, “I’ll never come back.”
He laid her down gently. “Then stay.”
He undressed her like she was something holy. Touched her like he was searching for salvation in her skin. And when he entered her—it wasn’t possession.
It was prayer.
She arched into him, moaned against his shoulder, scratched down his back.
“Say my name,” he demanded.
She did. Again. And again. Until it was the only word she remembered.
Afterward, he didn’t speak. Just lay beside her, heart thundering, breath ragged.
“You’re still burning,” she said.
He nodded. “I always will.”
And from the shadows, unseen—someone watched.