Chapter 6 - The Altar of Truth
The silence that followed was suffocating. It was the kind of silence that precedes a bridge collapsing.
Vanessa ripped off her veil, her face twisted in a snarl of fury. “What is this circus?! Ryan, who the hell are these brats?!”
Ryan couldn't answer. He couldn't take his eyes off the two boys. He stepped forward down the altar steps, his knees trembling, his hands shaking so violently he looked like an old man in the throes of a seizure.
“Mariana...” he whispered, his chest heaving. “You... you were barren. We had eleven years of tests. Dr. Sterling said—”
“Dr. Sterling was on your mother’s payroll,” I said, my voice ringing out with cool, melodic authority, reaching every corner of the silent ballroom. “He treated me for imaginary deficiencies while ignoring severe endometriosis that any competent physician could have resolved in an afternoon.”
Gasps rippled through the pews. Several prominent society women turned their heads to stare at Rebecca Montgomery, who was leaning against a mahogany pew, her face the color of skim milk.
“I had surgery, Ryan,” I continued, walking slowly toward the altar, my heels clicking in steady, deliberate beats. “The adhesions were removed. And on the morning you threw my suitcase into the rain... the morning you had your mistress lounging on my sofa... I had just tested positive.”
Vanessa let out a strangled shriek. “She’s lying! She found some street kids that look like him! She’s trying to extort you because you’re marrying me!”
“Quiet, Vanessa,” a booming voice commanded from the front row.
Julian Carter, Vanessa’s billionaire father, stood up. His eyes weren't looking at me. They were locked onto Alexander Whitmore.
“Alexander?” Julian said, shock softening his gravelly voice. “What is your involvement in this?”
Alexander stepped forward, placing a warm hand on Noah’s small shoulder.
“Julian,” Alexander replied smoothly. “I am here in my capacity as senior counsel for Vance Global Holdings. And to accompany my sole heir and Chairwoman... Mariana Vance.”
A collective gasp sucked the air from the room.
*“Vance Global?”* Ryan choked out, grabbing the communion railing for support. “You... you’re Vance Global?”
“I am the one holding your sixty million dollars in debt, Ryan,” I said, stopping five feet from him. My children stood beside me, safe within my orbit, looking up at him with cool curiosity. “I own the promissory notes on the Montgomery building. I own the mortgage on the estate you threw me out of. And I am the biological mother of your only legitimate bloodline.”
I opened my small designer clutch and pulled out three certified, court-sealed DNA profile analyses conducted by St. Jude’s and the Los Angeles Superior Court.
I threw the papers at his chest.
The heavy parchment struck his lapels and fluttered to the floor at his feet.
Ryan dropped to his knees right there on the altar runner, his trembling hands snatching up the documents.
His eyes scanned the medical jargon, the statistical probabilities, the ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent certainty markers for Leo Montgomery and Noah Montgomery.
And then he saw Maya’s profile.
“Triplets...” Ryan whispered, tears suddenly bursting from his eyes, tracking through the sweat on his face. “Three? We had... three?”
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“No, Ryan,” I said, leaning down slightly so my voice cut straight into his soul. *“I* had three. You had a mistress, an eviction notice, and fifty thousand dollars.”
***
