His Private Hell - Chapter 81: Chapter 81
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Garrison’s penthouse felt smaller the moment Eella stepped inside. The air was thick—like the walls themselves exhaled the ghosts of every sin he’d ever committed. She lingered on the threshold, heart pounding, as though she stood before a sacrament she both craved and reviled. Across the room, he sat at the glass desk, half-turned, shirt open, bruises blooming on his skin that she’d laid there herself—but still, she flinched at the sight of them.
“Were you followed?” he asked without looking. His voice was a cigarette burn in the silence.
“No,” she said, closing the door softly behind her, but the lock clicking echoed like a gunshot. “You?”
He rose, all predatory grace. “Astrid called in backup. But she…she said something interesting.” He reached into his pocket and produced a data chip the size of a thumbnail. “She recorded us. Last night.”
Eella’s chest seized. “Why?”
Garrison’s jaw worked. “To prove you belonged to her. That you were never mine.”
She swallowed. “And?”
He tossed the chip onto the desk. It skidded across a sea of scattered papers and stopped at the edge. “She showed it to me.” He pressed play on the console. The screen flickered, then glowed with the grainy footage—Eella, bound to the chair at dawn, tears and sweat mixing on her skin, Garrison kneeling before her like a penitent.
Her breath died in her throat. She’d never felt so exposed.
On screen, Astrid’s voice echoed: “This is your new private hell, Garrison. Enjoy it.”
Eella turned away, eyes stinging. “She thinks she owns me.”
Garrison crossed the space in two steps, caught her by the shoulders. His touch was blazing. “She doesn’t. Not you.”
She stared up at him. “Then what now?”
He bent and crushed his mouth to hers—urgent, desperate. His hands fisted in her hair, and she forgot everything but the violence of him. When he finally let her go, his lips brushed her ear. “We go find her. We end this.”
⸻
They left the penthouse in the back of a black SUV, rain slicking the streets into mirrors. Each reflection was fragmented—Eella’s pale face, Garrison’s storm-dark eyes. She pressed the data chip in her palm like a live coal.
He drove. She sat beside him, silence their only conversation.
“What if Darcie’s still alive?” she murmured.
He snorted. “She never died.”
Her head snapped up. “What do you mean?”
He braked hard. The world rocked. He swung the wheel, and the car fishtailed into a deserted alley. Tires screamed. The engine died.
Eella’s pulse thundered. “What are you—”
He grabbed her hand. “Look.”
On the side of the building, gray brick, a single metal door—no sign, no windows—freshly painted over. Yet the air around it hummed with electricity.
Garrison slipped out, hand on his gun. Eella followed, heart in her throat. He tested the handle—it opened.
Inside was a staircase sloping down into pitch-black. He flipped on a small flashlight. The beam carved a path into the void.
“Where are we going?” Eella whispered.
His jaw tightened. “Darcie’s lab.”
She blinked. “Her lab?”
He nodded. “Before Ally’s Inc. Before me. She was a scientist—a visionary. She perfected the mind-transfer protocol. She made the company’s fortune. Then she vanished.”
Eella swallowed. “Why would Astrid bring us here?”
“Because she needs us,” Garrison said. “Darcie’s not just a ghost. She’s the key.”
They descended. Each step echoed. The walls closed in. The air turned cold—chemical, sterile. A door loomed ahead.
He punched a code. It opened.
Inside—a chamber of humming machines: vats of liquid, cables running into metal chairs, monitors flickering with data.
And in the center, suspended in a transparent tank, floated a woman in perfect stasis—hair drifting, eyes closed. A face Eella knew too well.
Darcie.
Alive.
But changed.
When the machine’s pump hissed, her eyelids fluttered.
Garrison strode forward. “Hello, Darcie.”
She opened her eyes—glassy, unblinking—locked on him.
“Daddy,” she whispered.
Eella’s blood turned to ice.
⸻
Darcie’s voice—soft, ancient—echoed in the chamber. “You brought me back.”
Garrison’s face crumpled. “I didn’t know how else to save you.”
She floated free, stepping out of the liquid like a specter reborn. Her skin was luminescent, eyes too old for her face. Eella felt the walls spin.
Darcie looked at Eella. “She’s my replacement.”
Eella’s heart shattered. “You…you made me?”
Darcie tilted her head. “You were her next experiment. Her final proof.”
Garrison’s fists clenched. “No.”
Darcie smiled. “Yes. I needed a vessel. A twin.” She reached for Eella—pale fingers curling. “And you fit perfectly.”
Eella stumbled back. “That’s why Astrid captured me.”
“Yes.” Darcie’s eyes gleamed. “To awaken me.”
The machines around them roared to life. Tubes descended. Cables slithered.
Astrid appeared at the door—smiling. “Shall we begin?”
⸻
“Run!” Garrison yelled, yanking Eella’s hand. They bolted as electrodes sparked, vats overflowed, alarms screamed.
They raced up the stairs—two levels, three—Darcie’s laughter chasing them, echoing in their veins.
At the top, the door slammed shut.
Garrison hammered it. “Lock’s jammed!”
Eella fished the data chip from her pocket. “I have to destroy this.”
He kicked the door again. “No time!”
She jammed it into the panel beneath the machine’s console—sparks flew.
The chamber behind them exploded in electrical fire. When they stumbled out, the stairwell was collapsing, concrete cracking, pipes bursting.
They ran down the alley as the lab blew sky-high behind them—an inferno of steel and flame.
Darcie’s scream echoed in the blaze.
Garrison pulled Eella close.
“Are you alive?” he panted.
She nodded, shaking. “I think so.”
He kissed her like salvation and damnation—the same moment.
But the night wasn’t over.
Far above, an ominous glow spread across the penthouse windows.
They didn’t speak for the rest of the drive.
Eella leaned back in the seat, trembling. Her limbs still buzzed with adrenaline, her mind whirling. Darcie was alive—some version of her, at least. Suspended, resurrected. Twisted into something synthetic, unfinished.
And she’d called Garrison daddy.
The memory made her stomach churn.
Beside her, Garrison was dead silent. His knuckles were white against the wheel. His eyes locked on the road like it was the only thing keeping him from veering into madness.
But there was a tension building in the car—not just from fear. From the storm between them. The heat that hadn’t died since the penthouse, or Astrid’s dungeon, or that chair with her wrists bound and her heart broken wide open.
“I can’t stop shaking,” she whispered.
Garrison didn’t look at her. “I know.”
“She said I was created.”
“You weren’t. You were chosen.”
She turned to him. “There’s a difference?”
Finally, he looked. And something inside him cracked. He pulled over, killed the engine, turned toward her in the dark.
“You don’t get it,” he said, voice hoarse. “She made everyone around her believe they were nothing without her. She turned love into obsession, into control. She did it to me. And now—now she wants to do it to you.”
Eella swallowed. “But I’m not hers.”
His eyes darkened. “No. You’re mine.”
He reached across the console and dragged her into his lap in one motion—her legs straddling his, her breath caught against his mouth. He kissed her hard, teeth knocking, tongues tangling, need breaking loose like a flood. Her hands fisted in his hair, his in her thighs, her hips, her waist.
“You don’t get to run,” he growled, biting her lower lip. “Not from this. Not from me.”
“I wasn’t trying to,” she breathed, grinding into him. “I came back, didn’t I?”
“Then prove it.”
He pushed her back against the seat, yanking her shirt open, buttons scattering like gunfire. Her bra was torn in half a second—mouth finding her breast, teeth dragging her nipple until she gasped, arched, gave in.
She wasn’t thinking anymore. Just reacting. Moving with him. Begging for more.
He pulled her jeans down, groaning when he found her already soaked.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “You’re always ready for me.”
“Then take me,” she demanded. “Right here. Now.”
He didn’t hesitate.
She reached for his belt, unbuckled it with shaking fingers. He growled, low and feral, and shoved his pants down just enough before lifting her up and sinking inside her in one smooth, brutal thrust.
She cried out.
He swallowed it with a kiss.
The car rocked as he drove into her—slow at first, deep, purposeful, his hands everywhere at once. Then harder, faster, as though he could fuck the past out of her. As though he could claim her body and mind so completely that even Darcie’s ghost would vanish.
“You’re not her,” he panted. “You’re not a fucking replacement. You’re you.”
“I’m yours,” she whispered.
“Say it again.”
“I’m yours.”
He went still.
His body trembled beneath her. She could feel it—every shattered piece of him pulling together and collapsing at once.
Then he came with a ragged gasp against her neck, arms wrapping around her like a man afraid to let go. She clung to him too, gasping, moaning, lost in the heat, the scent, the fire of what they’d become.
When she came, it was with her mouth at his ear, her cry like a confession of every sin she’d ever hidden.
“I’m yours,” she said again, softer this time. “Even in hell.”
—
Back at the penthouse, everything was silent.
Too silent.
Garrison swept the place before letting her in. But when Eella stepped inside, something felt wrong.
The air was…wrong.
Like someone had been there.
Like someone still was.
Then the door slammed shut behind them.
And Eella saw it—scrawled in lipstick across the floor-to-ceiling mirror above the fireplace.
YOU’LL NEVER ESCAPE ME.
Darcie’s handwriting.
“Were you followed?” he asked without looking. His voice was a cigarette burn in the silence.
“No,” she said, closing the door softly behind her, but the lock clicking echoed like a gunshot. “You?”
He rose, all predatory grace. “Astrid called in backup. But she…she said something interesting.” He reached into his pocket and produced a data chip the size of a thumbnail. “She recorded us. Last night.”
Eella’s chest seized. “Why?”
Garrison’s jaw worked. “To prove you belonged to her. That you were never mine.”
She swallowed. “And?”
He tossed the chip onto the desk. It skidded across a sea of scattered papers and stopped at the edge. “She showed it to me.” He pressed play on the console. The screen flickered, then glowed with the grainy footage—Eella, bound to the chair at dawn, tears and sweat mixing on her skin, Garrison kneeling before her like a penitent.
Her breath died in her throat. She’d never felt so exposed.
On screen, Astrid’s voice echoed: “This is your new private hell, Garrison. Enjoy it.”
Eella turned away, eyes stinging. “She thinks she owns me.”
Garrison crossed the space in two steps, caught her by the shoulders. His touch was blazing. “She doesn’t. Not you.”
She stared up at him. “Then what now?”
He bent and crushed his mouth to hers—urgent, desperate. His hands fisted in her hair, and she forgot everything but the violence of him. When he finally let her go, his lips brushed her ear. “We go find her. We end this.”
⸻
They left the penthouse in the back of a black SUV, rain slicking the streets into mirrors. Each reflection was fragmented—Eella’s pale face, Garrison’s storm-dark eyes. She pressed the data chip in her palm like a live coal.
He drove. She sat beside him, silence their only conversation.
“What if Darcie’s still alive?” she murmured.
He snorted. “She never died.”
Her head snapped up. “What do you mean?”
He braked hard. The world rocked. He swung the wheel, and the car fishtailed into a deserted alley. Tires screamed. The engine died.
Eella’s pulse thundered. “What are you—”
He grabbed her hand. “Look.”
On the side of the building, gray brick, a single metal door—no sign, no windows—freshly painted over. Yet the air around it hummed with electricity.
Garrison slipped out, hand on his gun. Eella followed, heart in her throat. He tested the handle—it opened.
Inside was a staircase sloping down into pitch-black. He flipped on a small flashlight. The beam carved a path into the void.
“Where are we going?” Eella whispered.
His jaw tightened. “Darcie’s lab.”
She blinked. “Her lab?”
He nodded. “Before Ally’s Inc. Before me. She was a scientist—a visionary. She perfected the mind-transfer protocol. She made the company’s fortune. Then she vanished.”
Eella swallowed. “Why would Astrid bring us here?”
“Because she needs us,” Garrison said. “Darcie’s not just a ghost. She’s the key.”
They descended. Each step echoed. The walls closed in. The air turned cold—chemical, sterile. A door loomed ahead.
He punched a code. It opened.
Inside—a chamber of humming machines: vats of liquid, cables running into metal chairs, monitors flickering with data.
And in the center, suspended in a transparent tank, floated a woman in perfect stasis—hair drifting, eyes closed. A face Eella knew too well.
Darcie.
Alive.
But changed.
When the machine’s pump hissed, her eyelids fluttered.
Garrison strode forward. “Hello, Darcie.”
She opened her eyes—glassy, unblinking—locked on him.
“Daddy,” she whispered.
Eella’s blood turned to ice.
⸻
Darcie’s voice—soft, ancient—echoed in the chamber. “You brought me back.”
Garrison’s face crumpled. “I didn’t know how else to save you.”
She floated free, stepping out of the liquid like a specter reborn. Her skin was luminescent, eyes too old for her face. Eella felt the walls spin.
Darcie looked at Eella. “She’s my replacement.”
Eella’s heart shattered. “You…you made me?”
Darcie tilted her head. “You were her next experiment. Her final proof.”
Garrison’s fists clenched. “No.”
Darcie smiled. “Yes. I needed a vessel. A twin.” She reached for Eella—pale fingers curling. “And you fit perfectly.”
Eella stumbled back. “That’s why Astrid captured me.”
“Yes.” Darcie’s eyes gleamed. “To awaken me.”
The machines around them roared to life. Tubes descended. Cables slithered.
Astrid appeared at the door—smiling. “Shall we begin?”
⸻
“Run!” Garrison yelled, yanking Eella’s hand. They bolted as electrodes sparked, vats overflowed, alarms screamed.
They raced up the stairs—two levels, three—Darcie’s laughter chasing them, echoing in their veins.
At the top, the door slammed shut.
Garrison hammered it. “Lock’s jammed!”
Eella fished the data chip from her pocket. “I have to destroy this.”
He kicked the door again. “No time!”
She jammed it into the panel beneath the machine’s console—sparks flew.
The chamber behind them exploded in electrical fire. When they stumbled out, the stairwell was collapsing, concrete cracking, pipes bursting.
They ran down the alley as the lab blew sky-high behind them—an inferno of steel and flame.
Darcie’s scream echoed in the blaze.
Garrison pulled Eella close.
“Are you alive?” he panted.
She nodded, shaking. “I think so.”
He kissed her like salvation and damnation—the same moment.
But the night wasn’t over.
Far above, an ominous glow spread across the penthouse windows.
They didn’t speak for the rest of the drive.
Eella leaned back in the seat, trembling. Her limbs still buzzed with adrenaline, her mind whirling. Darcie was alive—some version of her, at least. Suspended, resurrected. Twisted into something synthetic, unfinished.
And she’d called Garrison daddy.
The memory made her stomach churn.
Beside her, Garrison was dead silent. His knuckles were white against the wheel. His eyes locked on the road like it was the only thing keeping him from veering into madness.
But there was a tension building in the car—not just from fear. From the storm between them. The heat that hadn’t died since the penthouse, or Astrid’s dungeon, or that chair with her wrists bound and her heart broken wide open.
“I can’t stop shaking,” she whispered.
Garrison didn’t look at her. “I know.”
“She said I was created.”
“You weren’t. You were chosen.”
She turned to him. “There’s a difference?”
Finally, he looked. And something inside him cracked. He pulled over, killed the engine, turned toward her in the dark.
“You don’t get it,” he said, voice hoarse. “She made everyone around her believe they were nothing without her. She turned love into obsession, into control. She did it to me. And now—now she wants to do it to you.”
Eella swallowed. “But I’m not hers.”
His eyes darkened. “No. You’re mine.”
He reached across the console and dragged her into his lap in one motion—her legs straddling his, her breath caught against his mouth. He kissed her hard, teeth knocking, tongues tangling, need breaking loose like a flood. Her hands fisted in his hair, his in her thighs, her hips, her waist.
“You don’t get to run,” he growled, biting her lower lip. “Not from this. Not from me.”
“I wasn’t trying to,” she breathed, grinding into him. “I came back, didn’t I?”
“Then prove it.”
He pushed her back against the seat, yanking her shirt open, buttons scattering like gunfire. Her bra was torn in half a second—mouth finding her breast, teeth dragging her nipple until she gasped, arched, gave in.
She wasn’t thinking anymore. Just reacting. Moving with him. Begging for more.
He pulled her jeans down, groaning when he found her already soaked.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “You’re always ready for me.”
“Then take me,” she demanded. “Right here. Now.”
He didn’t hesitate.
She reached for his belt, unbuckled it with shaking fingers. He growled, low and feral, and shoved his pants down just enough before lifting her up and sinking inside her in one smooth, brutal thrust.
She cried out.
He swallowed it with a kiss.
The car rocked as he drove into her—slow at first, deep, purposeful, his hands everywhere at once. Then harder, faster, as though he could fuck the past out of her. As though he could claim her body and mind so completely that even Darcie’s ghost would vanish.
“You’re not her,” he panted. “You’re not a fucking replacement. You’re you.”
“I’m yours,” she whispered.
“Say it again.”
“I’m yours.”
He went still.
His body trembled beneath her. She could feel it—every shattered piece of him pulling together and collapsing at once.
Then he came with a ragged gasp against her neck, arms wrapping around her like a man afraid to let go. She clung to him too, gasping, moaning, lost in the heat, the scent, the fire of what they’d become.
When she came, it was with her mouth at his ear, her cry like a confession of every sin she’d ever hidden.
“I’m yours,” she said again, softer this time. “Even in hell.”
—
Back at the penthouse, everything was silent.
Too silent.
Garrison swept the place before letting her in. But when Eella stepped inside, something felt wrong.
The air was…wrong.
Like someone had been there.
Like someone still was.
Then the door slammed shut behind them.
And Eella saw it—scrawled in lipstick across the floor-to-ceiling mirror above the fireplace.
YOU’LL NEVER ESCAPE ME.
Darcie’s handwriting.
End of His Private Hell Chapter 81. Continue reading Chapter 82 or return to His Private Hell book page.