Chapter 126: Tell everyone the truth.
The moment Dante saw the crowd gathered inside the banquet hall, his face turned deathly pale. His legs trembled. Then his eyes landed on Tessa.
In an instant, his expression darkened. Hatred and resentment surged through him. Everything that had happened to him was because of her.
If Tessa hadn’t manipulated him into helping with her schemes, he would never have offended powerful people.
For days, he had lived in constant fear, convinced someone was trying to kill him. Then he had been kidnapped. Only afterward did he learn the truth that those men worked for Elias.
They had tortured him relentlessly until he confessed everything. His company had gone bankrupt, assets had been seized, and the house had been auctioned off. His entire life had been destroyed... All because of one woman.
Tessa.
At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to strangle her with his own hands.
"Dante." Elias’ calm voice echoed through the hall.
Dante immediately looked at him. The moment their eyes met, the hatred inside him faded. Only fear remained.
A chill ran down his spine as memories of the torture flooded back. If he dared to lie today, he knew he wouldn’t live to see tomorrow.
"Tell everyone the truth." Elias’ voice was cold and commanding. "Tell them whose child she is carrying."
Dante slowly turned toward Tessa. The anger in his heart flared once more.
"The child she is carrying is mine."
"What?"
A collective gasp swept through the banquet hall.
"He is lying," Tessa screamed hysterically. "How dare you slander me?"
"Lying?" Dante laughed bitterly. "Am I really the liar? You wanted to have Mr. Sinclair’s child. But he never touched you. So you came to me instead."
Noah felt as though the world had collapsed around him.
Throughout their relationship, he had avoided becoming intimate with Tessa because of her supposed heart condition. But that one drunken night, he had ended up sleeping with her.
He remembered waking up beside her the following morning. Although he couldn’t recall what had happened, Tessa had insisted they had slept together.
A month later, she announced she was pregnant. He didn’t doubt her. He had accepted the child as his without a question. But in reality, nothing had happened that night.
Everything suddenly made sense. She had deceived him from the very beginning.
Rage exploded inside him. He stormed toward Tessa and grabbed the front of her dress.
"You lied to me from the very beginning. You’ve been deceiving me."
Tessa’s mind went completely blank. She had to make Noah believe her. Otherwise, everything would be over.
"He is lying." She grabbed Noah’s arm desperately. "He is only jealous because I chose you instead of him."
Her voice trembled. "He is trying to get revenge on me. Don’t let his lies cloud your judgment."
"I have proof," Dante interrupted her coldly. He slowly lifted his phone. "I recorded our conversation."
Tessa’s eyes widened in horror. She had never imagined Dante had secretly recorded their calls.
’That bastard... He was planning to betray me all along.’
Without another word, Dante pressed play.
The recording echoed clearly throughout the silent banquet hall.
"Darling, aren’t you afraid Noah Sinclair will discover the truth one day?" Dante’s recorded voice asked. "If he finds out the baby isn’t his, he’ll never forgive you."
A second later, Tessa’s recorded voice replied calmly. "Relax, Dante. Noah is a fool."
The hall fell deathly silent.
"He is completely obsessed with me. As long as he believes I saved his life, he’ll never doubt me. He never discovered the truth behind that attack. He won’t discover the truth about our baby either."
A chuckle came from Dante’s recording. "You are really something. You’ve wrapped him around your little finger. He believes everything you say."
Tessa laughed softly in the recording. "That’s because he feels indebted to me. But I don’t want his gratitude. I want the Sinclair family’s fortune."
Her next words struck Noah like lightning. "The child I’m carrying will help me achieve that. My child will inherit everything the Sinclair family owns."
Before the recording could continue, Noah reacted. With a furious roar, he charged toward Dante and threw a powerful punch.
Dante was sent stumbling backward before crashing onto the floor. His phone slipped from his hand.
The recording stopped.
His jaw throbbed violently. Before he could recover, Noah was already charging toward him again. His fist was raised high.
"N-No..." Dante cried in terror. He covered his head with both arms. "Don’t hit me. It wasn’t my idea."
He hurriedly pointed toward Tessa. "She manipulated me. She planned everything."
Noah froze in his tracks, his fist trembling in the air.
"What nonsense are you talking about?" Tessa screamed back. "Stop lying."
"I’m the liar?" Dante glared at her. "You’ve been lying all along. You got close to Mr. Sinclair while secretly sleeping with me. You became pregnant with my child and then convinced Noah it was his."
His voice grew louder with every sentence. "You only wanted to secure the Sinclair family’s fortune. Everything you did was for money."
He took a deep breath before dropping the biggest bombshell. "You even arranged that attack on Noah. You hired those thugs yourself. And then pretended to save him."
Noah’s face instantly lost all color.
"W-What..." He turned toward Tessa sharply. "That attack... you orchestrated it?"
Tessa went completely still. Her mind went completely blank.
"No..." She frantically shook her head. "Noah, don’t believe him. You know I saved you. I was stabbed. I almost died. It wasn’t fake."
Noah clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white. His thoughts were in complete chaos.
For years, he had believed Tessa had risked her life to save him. He had carried guilt because of her injuries and had spent years repaying a debt that now seemed built entirely on lies. He no longer knew what to believe.
"Yes." Dante nodded quickly. "She was stabbed. But everything was carefully planned. The knife only pierced the surface of her flesh. It was never life-threatening."
Noah’s breathing grew ragged. He vividly remembered what the doctor had told him back then.
’Tessa is critically injured. The knife pierced her heart. She may face heart problems for the rest of her life.’
He had blamed himself for years. But now, even that seemed to have been a lie.
Dante looked at Noah and delivered another devastating blow. "She never had a heart condition either. That illness was completely fabricated. She only pretended to be sick so you’d pity her and spend the rest of your life feeling guilty."