His Private Hell - Chapter 72: Chapter 72

The walls of the penthouse trembled from the sheer force of his rage.
Garrison’s fist slammed into the mirror, shards flying like glittering confessions. Blood dripped down his knuckles in crimson ribbons, and he didn’t care. Not about the pain. Not about the mess. Not about the man staring back at him in shattered fragments.
The monster. The addict. The liar.
And she had seen all of it.
Eella.
Her name crawled up his throat like a prayer and a curse, all at once. He could still taste her breath, feel her thighs clamped tight around his hips. But that wasn’t what had him unraveling. It was the way she’d looked at him—after she found the photo.
Darcie.
Garrison had hidden it deep in the drawer beneath his locked desk. But she had found it anyway. Her curiosity had always been as sharp as her mouth.
And he had seen it, the exact moment her heart cracked open and something cold and dangerous started growing inside.
He hadn’t told her the truth.
Not about Darcie.
Not about the 33rd floor.
Not about the fire that burned everything down.
His breath hitched as he leaned over the sink, blood dripping into porcelain. The memory clawed its way back whether he wanted it or not.
Darcie’s scream echoing behind that locked door.
The chains.
The fire.
The betrayal.
She had begged him to choose. Between obsession and salvation. Between her and the devil that lived inside him.
And now Eella stood in the same place. A mirror reflection of a woman he had destroyed.
Only this time, he wasn’t sure who was the villain anymore.
⸻
Eella’s legs wouldn’t stop shaking.
She gripped the sink, breathing hard, the silence of her apartment pressing in like a vise. Her eyes stung. Not from tears. She was past tears.
She’d seen the photo. The woman—Darcie—had her arms wrapped around Garrison’s neck, blood smeared on her lips, eyes wild, like she’d crawled straight out of a nightmare and into his life.
And he had kept it.
Locked away.
Like a secret shrine.
The photo was old, grainy. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was the energy it gave off. Chaotic. Violent. Erotic. Twisted.
This wasn’t some ex-girlfriend. This was something darker. More toxic.
And the worst part?
She recognized the room in the background.
The 33rd floor.
Her stomach twisted violently. The memories flooded in—how he always avoided talking about that floor, how his eyes would turn to steel if anyone mentioned it, how he once said, “That floor doesn’t exist anymore.”
But it did.
It existed in blood. In secrets. And in his past.
She sank to the floor, knees hitting tile, the cold no match for the heat simmering inside her chest. She wanted to scream. To destroy something. To run.
But she also wanted to understand.
Because beneath the pain, beneath the betrayal, something far more dangerous whispered inside her:
She wanted to know who Darcie was.
And why the photo hadn’t been burned.
⸻
Ronnie’s voice buzzed in her ear like static. “You haven’t answered any of my texts. Eella, what the hell is going on?”
“I need to know who Darcie is,” she whispered, heart pounding. “I need you to dig. Everything you can. Old files. Closed HR cases. Anything with her name.”
“Jesus. Why?”
“Because she’s the reason Garrison Wolfe is the way he is.”
Silence.
Then Ronnie sighed. “I’ll see what I can find. But if I were you, I’d watch your back.”
Eella ended the call with trembling fingers. She wasn’t afraid.
Not of Garrison.
Not even of whatever he was hiding.
She was afraid of what it meant—that she might still want him, even after all of this.
That night, she didn’t sleep.
Instead, she poured herself a glass of wine and stared at the ceiling, replaying every second of their last encounter. The way he touched her. Owned her. Broke her.
She had begged him to let her in.
And he had given her the door instead.
What kind of man locked away a woman on an entire floor?
And what kind of woman stayed?
⸻
Garrison didn’t sleep either.
He stood on the 33rd floor in total darkness, the door behind him clicking shut with finality.
The room still smelled of her—leather, smoke, and fear.
Darcie.
He ran his fingers over the restraints bolted to the bedframe, the rusted cuffs still stained with the past. His past. Their twisted games. Her laughter like razors slicing through silence.
He hadn’t been in this room since the night she died.
But he needed to see it.
To remember what it had cost.
She hadn’t been a victim. She had been a partner in ruin. They had danced together in the dark, set fire to boundaries, and crossed lines that should have never existed. But Darcie wanted more. More pain. More blood. More destruction.
And when he pulled back, when he tried to end it…
She’d tried to trap him.
Literally.
Set the room on fire.
Locked the door from the inside.
He’d barely escaped.
And she hadn’t.
The press called it a tragic accident.
But he’d never forgotten her final words:
“You can’t bury me, Garrison. I am the monster you made.”
He leaned his head against the wall, breathing hard, as her voice echoed again, this time in Eella’s.
The same defiance. The same desire to unravel him.
But Eella was different.
She wasn’t just a mirror of Darcie.
She was a threat to the silence he had built around himself like armor.
⸻
Two days passed before Eella made her move.
She walked into Ally’s Inc like she owned the place, heels clicking with purpose. Her lipstick was blood red, and her expression was unreadable.
Ronnie met her in the hallway. “You sure about this?”
“I have to be.”
“I found something.” She slipped Eella a thin flash drive. “Don’t open it here. But I don’t think Darcie was an employee. There’s no digital trace. Just old HR logs buried deep—redacted files, hidden pay stubs, cash withdrawals under fake names. But she was real. And she was on payroll for three years.”
Eella nodded, slipping the drive into her bag. “I’m going to make him talk.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll burn the whole company to the ground.”
She didn’t wait for Ronnie’s reply. She stormed straight to the executive elevator and punched in the code for the top floor.
When the doors opened, Garrison was waiting.
Like he’d known.
Like he’d felt her coming.
His tie was undone. His eyes were shadows. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You gave me the key,” she said coolly. “Or did you forget?”
His jaw twitched. “You found the photo.”
“I found a lot more than that.”
“Then you know how this ends.”
“I want the truth, Garrison.”
He stepped closer. “You can’t handle it.”
“Try me.”
In two strides, he had her pinned against the glass wall, the city lights burning behind her like a funeral pyre.
“You want the truth?” he growled. “Darcie was the reason I stopped trusting women. She wanted to break me. She nearly did. And now you—you walk in here with your questions and your fire and think I won’t notice how close you’re getting to the edge.”
Her breath caught.
“I don’t care about the edge,” she whispered. “I care about you.”
That cracked something inside him.
He kissed her like he was starving.
Like she was the only thing keeping him from falling apart.
His hands tore at her clothes. Hers clawed at his belt. They crashed to the floor, every movement violent and desperate, years of silence and guilt bleeding out through touch.
He took her right there, against the glass, her cries swallowed by the night.
No words.
Just fire.
Just hell.
Just them.
⸻
Afterward, she lay on his chest, listening to the frantic thud of his heart.
“I want in,” she murmured. “To all of it. The company. The secrets. The past.”
“You’re playing with matches,” he said.
“Then burn with me.”
Garrison turned to her slowly. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Once you step in, you don’t step out.”
“Then make me bleed for it.”
A long silence stretched between them.
Then he kissed her forehead.
And whispered, “It’s already begun.”