His Private Hell - Chapter 78: Chapter 78

The silence after the storm was more violent than the storm itself.
Eella sat on the edge of the king-sized bed in Garrison’s penthouse, her bare skin flushed from more than the sex. Her heart still beat out a panicked rhythm. Her legs trembled—not from weakness, but from the gravity of what she’d just seen, what she’d just learned.
And Garrison wasn’t looking at her.
He stood by the wall-length windows, naked, silhouetted against the skyline, his jaw tight, fists clenched at his sides. The man who had just wrecked her with his mouth, his hands, his rage—was now quiet as death.
She couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“You lied to me,” she whispered, the words fragile, trembling in the air between them. “About Darcie. About the thirty-third floor. About everything.”
He didn’t turn around.
“You said it wasn’t what I thought.”
“It’s not,” he said finally, his voice low. “It’s worse.”
She blinked, the admission slicing through her like broken glass.
Garrison turned, his eyes dark with something far more dangerous than guilt. “You want the truth, Eella? I’ll give it to you. But don’t come crawling back when you realize you’ve opened a door you can’t shut.”
Her breath caught as he approached, his steps deliberate, calculated. He stopped just inches away, cupping her chin in his hand, forcing her to look up at him.
“Darcie didn’t fall,” he said. “She jumped.”
The room tilted.
“She jumped… because she couldn’t live with what we did.”
“We?” Eella whispered.
His thumb brushed her lip, an intimate, almost cruel touch. “I gave her everything. Her career, her power, her obsession. But I also gave her my secrets. And those secrets ruined her.”
“You loved her,” Eella said.
His eyes didn’t blink. “I owned her.”
A chill raced down her spine.
He stepped back then, pacing. “Darcie found the tapes. The original surveillance from the thirty-third floor. The things she saw—us, me—what Ally’s Inc used to be before I took over… She couldn’t look away. She couldn’t live with it either.”
Eella felt like she was falling into a pit with no bottom.
“What’s on the tapes?” she asked.
He stopped moving. Looked her dead in the eye.
“Hell,” he said.
She stood, her voice shaking. “Show me.”
He stepped close again, slower this time, his hand brushing a strand of hair from her face. “Once I do, there’s no going back. You’ll see everything. You’ll understand why I’ve kept you close. Why I can’t let you go.”
“Because I remind you of her?” she spat, angry now, raw.
“No,” he growled. “Because you’re the only one who isn’t afraid of me.”
There it was again—that twisted, bitter truth. He wasn’t a man. He was a storm in a suit, and she was caught in the eye of it.
He took her hand and led her out of the bedroom, past the dark corridor, to a hidden panel behind a mirrored wall. With a coded swipe, the panel hissed open, revealing a staircase leading down.
“You live in a goddamn penthouse,” she muttered. “What the hell is this?”
“The real Ally’s Inc,” he said. “What it used to be. What it still is, behind closed doors.”
The air grew colder as they descended. Below, red emergency lights flickered against steel walls and black screens. A surveillance room. Rows of monitors. A terminal still active.
He keyed in a code, and the screens blinked to life.
The thirty-third floor. A room. A woman tied to a chair.
Darcie.
Eella gasped.
The footage played—Darcie screaming, a man standing over her, pouring liquor down her throat, her dress torn.
Garrison didn’t flinch.
“She wanted to be part of it,” he said. “She asked for it. Until it broke her.”
Eella stepped back, bile rising in her throat. “You did this?”
“No,” he said, voice cold. “My father did. This was his empire. Before I took it from him.”
She turned to him, horrified.
“I thought you were the monster,” she said, her voice breaking. “But you were the survivor.”
“No,” he whispered, brushing a knuckle against her jaw. “I was the inheritance.”
The realization hit her like a slap.
“And now I’m next?” she asked. “To be broken? To be turned into whatever this is?”
His eyes flashed. “No. You’re different. You’re stronger. You’ll survive it.”
“Like Darcie?”
He stepped closer, pressing her against the console, his mouth brushing hers, breath hot and dangerous.
“No,” he growled. “You’ll outlive it.”
His hand moved between her legs, fingers finding her center, teasing her into a haze of need even as the horror of what they’d seen burned behind her eyes.
“You’re sick,” she gasped, arching into his hand despite herself.
“So are you,” he whispered. “That’s why this works.”
She should have pushed him away. Should have run.
But instead, she moaned when his fingers plunged inside her.
In the surveillance room. With Darcie’s ghost watching.
Because this wasn’t about love.
This was about fire.
He dropped to his knees, dragging her panties down, his tongue replacing his fingers in a slick, obscene motion that had her gasping, buckling, shattering.
When she came, it was with a scream.
And still, the screen flickered in front of them.
Still, Darcie stared.
Garrison stood, his mouth glistening, and cupped Eella’s face.
“Do you understand now?” he asked. “Why I can’t let you go?”
She shook her head, tears mixing with sweat. “Because I’ll tell someone?”
“No,” he said, lifting her chin with two fingers. “Because you belong here. In my hell.”
And the worst part?
She believed him.
She kissed him again—not because she forgave him, but because she was already damned.
And maybe that was the most dangerous part of all.