Alle Kapitel von The Night Before Christmas: Kapitel 111 – Kapitel 120

Third Person's POVAt a place, hidden and on the outskirts of town, Evans Grant stood by the window of the private suite, his gaze fixed on the city far away, where lights stretched endlessly into the distance, each one representing movement, decision, consequence. From this height, everything appeared controlled. Predictable. Manageable.He preferred it that way.Aviel had left to meet someone, leaving Evans to handle things in her absence.Behind Evans, the phone rested on the glass table, its screen still illuminated with the report that had just been delivered.Aria Whitmore. Leaving in the morning. Temporary relocation. East route.Evans did not move immediately. He allowed the information to settle, not as something unexpected, but as something confirmed. A quiet exhale followed, measured and deliberate.“She’s moving sooner than expected.”Across the room, one of his men straightened, waiting. Evans remained facing the window, his mind already several steps ahead.She had been

Third Person POVThe courtroom felt heavier than it had the last time.Not louder.Not more crowded.But denser.As though the weight of what had already been said within those walls had not left, but settled, pressing quietly against every surface, every breath, every movement that followed.The accusation had not faded.It had sharpened.Poisoning.Attempted murder.Intent.Aria Whitmore stood where she had stood before, but nothing about the moment was the same.Because now, the narrative had shifted.And it was no longer waiting to be shaped.It had already been decided.Or so it seemed.Evans Grant sat with the same composed stillness he carried into every room, his posture relaxed, his gaze steady, his expression controlled in a way that suggested certainty rather than hope.Across from him, Desmond remained seated, his presence grounded, his attention fixed not on the room, but on her.The proceedings resumed without delay.Evans’ lawyer stood.There was no hesitation in the mo

Desmond’s POVDawn did not break gently that morning.There was no colour in it, no softness, no gradual transition into light. It arrived with a cold, functional clarity, stretching across the empty road as the car moved steadily through the outskirts of the city, far from noise and far from visibility, into a part of the landscape that had long been forgotten by anything that mattered.While the rest of the city slept, I sat in the back seat with my gaze fixed ahead, not on the road itself, but on what lay beyond it and what needed to be done before the court session.This was not an impulse, nor was it a reaction.It had been calculated long before the courtroom, long before Aria ever stood accused, because in a structure like this, truth was never something one stumbled upon.It was something secured.The building revealed itself slowly through the stillness, emerging without presence or identity, isolated and controlled in a way that made it clear it was never meant to be noticed

Aria’s POVThe courtroom had taken a turn I had been waiting for, yet when it came, it did not feel like relief.It felt like suspension.Mark had been seconds away from speaking the name that would have shifted everything, the name that would have connected the fragments, exposed the design, and pulled me out of the narrative they had built so carefully around me. That moment had not just been important it had been decisive.It had been my freedom.And yet, even as that understanding settled, I knew it was not as simple as it appeared. Mark being alive had already dismantled part of the case against me, tearing through the accusation of murder with undeniable force, but it did not clear me entirely. It never would, not without context, not without truth.They could still argue that I had poisoned him, that someone else had intervened afterwards and saved him before his death could be confirmed. They could still reshape the narrative, suggest that whatever had happened had been orches

Aria’s POVThe kiss should have felt new, something unexpected and born entirely from the chaos of the day, from proximity and emotion running too high to be contained, yet the moment his lips moved against mine, slow and almost cautious as though he was giving me space to pull away, I did not feel surprise.What I felt instead unsettled me far more.Because it was not unfamiliar.It was recognition.It slipped beneath my skin before I could stop it, quiet but undeniable, as though something within me had been waiting for this exact moment and had finally been given permission to respond. My fingers tightened slightly at the back of his neck, anchoring myself as the sensation deepened, as his touch drew something out of me that did not feel new, did not feel discovered, but remembered.The way his hand settled at my waist, firm yet careful, as though he was aware of every boundary even as he crossed it, stirred something in me that I could not name but could not ignore, and when his b