All Chapters of The Night Before Christmas: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

83 Chapters

Chapter 71: The First Suspicion

Caroline’s POVThe morning light stretched across the balcony floor in long golden lines, warming the polished wood beneath my feet.From where I stood, the city looked peaceful.Traffic hummed faintly in the distance. A soft breeze carried the scent of rose blossoms from the garden below. The skyline shimmered under the early sun as though nothing in the world were wrong.Appearances, however, had always been deceiving.I lifted the porcelain teacup to my lips and took a slow sip of white tea.Delicate.Subtle.Nothing like the chaos unfolding behind the scenes.Desmond was having his second surgery today. I know Aria wanted to be by his side, but she needed to deliver the signed divorce papers.The bracelet on Aria’s wrist ensured that every word spoken inside Evans Grant’s office reached us.And the man had not disappointed.My phone rested quietly on the small glass table beside me.It vibrated.Once.I set the cup down before picking it up.A message.From James.Three short wor

Chapter 72: The Closing Net

Aria’s POVThe room smelled faintly of cigar smoke and polished wood.It had been nearly fifteen minutes since Evans’ assistant had left to verify the document with the hospital.Fifteen minutes of silence.Fifteen minutes of watching Evans Grant sit behind his desk as if he owned not only the room, but the air inside it.The two guards by the door had not moved.Not once.Their masked faces revealed nothing, but their eyes followed every shift of my body. Every breath. Every glance.The tracker bracelet rested cold against my wrist.I kept reminding myself to stay calm.Everything that happened here was being heard.Evans finally broke the silence.“You know,” he said casually, tapping ash from his cigar into the crystal tray, “this whole situation has turned out rather well.”I frowned slightly.“Has it?”“Yes.”He leaned back in his chair.“The divorce is signed.”His gaze drifted to the document on his desk.“And verified.”My stomach tightened, but I kept my face neutral.“And on

Chapter 73: Cracks in the Throne

Aria’s POVThe air in Evans Grant’s office had changed.It was subtle at first. A shift so slight it might have gone unnoticed by anyone who hadn’t spent the past hour standing perfectly still, measuring every breath.But I felt it.The quiet confidence that had filled the room earlier—thick and suffocating like cigar smoke—was gone.Something else had taken its place.Suspicion.Evans stood behind his desk with his phone still in his hand, staring at the dark screen as if it might betray the answer to the question forming in his mind.I kept my expression calm.Inside, my pulse was racing.The tracker bracelet rested cold against my wrist, its weight suddenly far more noticeable than before.He knows something is wrong.Evans lifted his head slowly.Our eyes met.For a long moment, he said nothing.Then he began walking toward me.Each step was slow. Deliberate. The polished wood floor barely made a sound beneath his shoes.The two masked guards by the door remained motionless, but I

Chapter 74: The Picture Beneath the Bed

Aria’s POVThe car ride back from the hospital was silent. Not the comfortable silence of people with nothing to say.This was the kind that pressed against the ribs. The kind that made every breath feel deliberate.Evans sat beside me in the back seat of the black car, one leg crossed over the other, his fingers resting lightly against his chin as he stared out of the window.The city lights slid across the glass as we moved through traffic.Thinking.Calculating.Beside us, one of the guards sat rigidly in the passenger seat while another drove.No one spoke.But the tension in the car felt almost visible.I kept my gaze on the road ahead, forcing my breathing to remain steady. Something had gone wrong for Evans.That much was obvious.The hospital had told him Desmond had been transferred.And although he had said very little afterwards, the quiet that followed had been far more dangerous than anger.The car slowed as we turned into the long private drive of Evans’ apartment.The g

Chapter 75: The Day My Mother Died

Aria’s POVTwenty-five years ago“Mummy, would Father Christmas be there on my birthday?” I asked. “I will be turning three years old in two days.”Morning sunlight spilled through the kitchen window, turning the dust in the air into tiny floating stars. I sat on the counter swinging my legs while my mother packed my lunch box, the smell of warm toast and strawberries filling the room.“Aria, my little angel, you are adorable,” Jane said, smiling as she tucked a napkin neatly into the lunch box. “I’ll talk to your father and see what we can do,” she added, squeezing my chin playfully.I burst into giggles, my shoulders bouncing with excitement.“You are the best mummy,” I said, jumping down from the counter.The wooden floor thudded softly beneath my feet.“Jane, what the hell?”The voice came from the doorway like a crack of thunder.We both turned.My father stood at the entrance of the kitchen, his tall frame filling the doorway. His tie hung loose around his neck, and the usual wa

Chapter 76: The Puppet Masters

Third Person POVWhile the war intensified between the Howards and the Grants, a strange and almost deceptive calm settled around Helina and Aviel, like the quiet eye of a storm that hid the violence spinning beyond its edges.Helina sat on the edge of the bed, the silk sheets pooled loosely around her legs, staring at Elliot as he stood before the tall mirror, fastening his tie with careful precision, the early morning light streaming through the half-drawn curtains and painting pale gold across the polished floor.For several moments, she simply watched him in silence.Elliot looked tired.Not physically exhausted, but unsettled in a way he could not quite name.“Helina, something bothers me,” Elliot began at last, adjusting the knot of his tie for the third time even though it was already perfect.“What is it?” Helina asked lazily, her voice soft with sleep.Elliot turned to face her, and the dullness in his eyes made something flicker briefly across her expression before she maske

Chapter 77: The Cage and the Lioness

Aria’s POVI walked the whole perimeter of the room slowly, forcing my breathing to remain steady even though the silence pressing against the walls felt suffocating, like the air itself had been locked in this place for years and had long since forgotten how freedom tasted.“There has to be a way out of this place,” I murmured under my breath.But the moment the words left my mouth, another thought interrupted me.The picture.Helina.The man.And the boy.My gaze sharpened immediately.Where did that picture go?I looked around the room again, scanning every corner with increasing urgency.Under the bed.I remembered clearly now.Dropping to my knees, I bent forward and looked beneath the bed, expecting to see the photograph lying exactly where it had slipped from my hand earlier.There was nothing.I frowned slowly and rose to my feet again, replaying the memory carefully in my mind, reconstructing every detail the way one would piece together fragments of broken glass.Helina.Dre

Chapter 78: The Man Who Should Be Dead

Desmond’s POVI had already woken once after the surgery, too soon, too stubborn, dragged back from the brink by the single thought that refused to release me: Aria. The pain had followed later, not as a sharp intrusion but as a slow, crushing tide that rolled through my ribs and lungs, forcing the doctors to sedate me again, to press chemicals into my veins until the urgency dissolved into darkness. Even under sedation, her name had remained steady and insistent, threading through the fog like a compass I could not ignore.When I opened my eyes again, it was not pain that greeted me.It was silence.Not the ordinary hush of a hospital wing at night, but the dense, suspended quiet that settles over a battlefield after the first shot has been fired, when everyone waits to see who will fall. It pressed against my chest as though listening for weakness.The machines were still attached to me, their soft mechanical rhythms blinking in green and amber against dimmed lights, maintaining the

Chapter 79: The Husband Who Begins to Doubt

Third Person POVElliot Whitmore had always trusted his memory.It was one of the many things he prided himself on: sharp recall, precise detail, the ability to dismantle a conversation hours later and remember who shifted in their seat, who hesitated before answering. It had served him well in boardrooms and negotiations, where a single overlooked nuance could cost millions.But now it was failing him.He sat at his desk in his corner office, winter light filtering weakly through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city below moved with its usual rhythm, traffic crawling, pedestrians braced against the cold — yet Elliot felt strangely detached from it all, as though separated by glass thicker than the panes before him.His laptop screen glowed.Unread emails.Pending approvals.A draft acquisition proposal awaiting his signature.He had not processed a single word in the past fifteen minutes.Instead, his mind replayed that morning.Helina lying in bed, watching him dress. The blanket

Chapter 80: The Fall

Desmond’s POVThere is a particular silence that comes before collapse.Not panic. Not shouting.Certainty.The kind a man carries when he believes he is untouchable. Evans Grant had been living inside that certainty for days.By the time the warrants were signed, I was already in position.The operation moved without spectacle. No media leaks. No dramatic confrontations. Just documentation, signatures, authorisation. Years of quiet evidence threaded together into something sharp enough to cut.Financial fraud. Illegal asset transfers. Coercion. Obstruction of justice.And beneath it all, conspiracy.Aviel’s shadow lingered, but today was not about her.Today was about leverage.And Aria.The police vehicles arrived at Evans’ building at 18:07.I watched from across the street, seated in the back of an unmarked car. James was beside me, earpiece in place, monitoring the coordination channel. Two plain-clothed officers entered first. Uniformed units followed seconds later.No sirens.J

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