Rebirth: The New Bride Wants A Divorce-Chapter 450: Hugo’s downfall

Anna could no longer stay where her mother was.

The air felt too heavy, too thick with words that had never been spoken and truths that had been buried for far too long. So when she turned away, she didn’t look back. Not once.

Her heels hit the pavement harder than necessary as she walked toward her car, her mind a storm she couldn’t quiet.

Delete the photo.

Forget it.

Roseline’s words echoed in her head, sharp and relentless, like a broken record she couldn’t shut off.

Forget it.

As if the truth could simply be erased with the tap of a screen. As if years of confusion, self-doubt, and quiet loneliness could be undone by pretending nothing had happened.

Anna’s hands trembled as she unlocked her car and slid inside, shutting the door with more force than she intended. The familiar smell of leather and faint perfume usually calmed her. Today, it did nothing.

She dropped her bag onto the passenger seat and leaned back against the headrest, staring at the roof of the car. Her chest felt tight, her breathing shallow.

All her life, she had tried to be enough. Good enough. Easy enough. Invisible enough.

Now she was beginning to understand why she had always felt like she was standing on the outside of her own family, pressing her face against a glass wall she didn’t even know existed.

Maybe I was never meant to be there in the first place.

The thought made her throat burn.

She reached for her phone, the screen lighting up with the photo still open. Her thumb hovered over it, right above the delete icon.

One tap. That’s all it would take.

Her mother’s fear flashed in her mind. The way Roseline had looked at her—not as a daughter, but as someone who might undo everything she had worked so hard to protect.

Anna locked the phone instead.

No.

She wasn’t ready to erase anything. Not anymore.

But she couldn’t stay here either. Sitting in the parking lot, drowning in thoughts that spiraled deeper and darker with every second, wasn’t helping. She needed noise. Movement. Something real.

Someone real.

Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel as a name surfaced in her mind without effort.

Daniel.

He had known. At least part of it. Enough to keep a file. Enough to investigate quietly instead of confronting her mother directly.

The realization made her pulse quicken.

If anyone could ground her right now, it was him. Not because he had answers—but because he was familiar, solid, and painfully honest in a world that suddenly felt built on lies.

Without giving herself time to rethink it, Anna started the engine. The low hum felt grounding, almost reassuring.

"I just need to breathe," she muttered to herself as she pulled out of the lot.

And the only place she could think of where her thoughts might finally stop screaming... was his office.

As soon as her car stopped in front of Glorious International, Anna realized how careless she’d been.

The building was buzzing—employees moving in and out and security tighter than usual. This wasn’t just another workday. Something had happened. Something big.

And the last thing she wanted right now was attention.

The private elevator entrance was visible from the main driveway. Anyone looking closely would recognize her. Whisper. Speculate. Ask questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

Anna cursed under her breath.

She reached into her bag, pulled out a face mask, and slipped it on, tucking her hair behind her ears and lowering her head slightly. It felt ridiculous—hiding in a building where she practically belonged—but today, anonymity felt safer than familiarity.

Instead of heading toward the executive entrance, she walked around to the side and blended in with a group of employees heading inside. No one spared her a second glance. Just another face in the crowd.

Good.

The common elevator was already half full when she stepped in. She stood near the back, eyes fixed on the glowing floor numbers, willing the doors to close quickly.

They did.

And almost immediately, the whispers started.

"Did you hear what happened upstairs?"

"No, but the entire board was called in without notice."

"I heard Hugo Bennett walked out looking like someone just pulled the ground from under him."

Anna stiffened.

A woman near the front laughed softly. "Not just walked out. He was practically dragged out. The Chairwoman destroyed him."

Another voice chimed in, lower, conspiratorial. "Apparently, she exposed everything. Offshore accounts, shady contracts, manipulation. The kind of stuff you don’t recover from."

"Serves him right," someone muttered. "He’s been riding on borrowed power for sometime now."

Anna’s stomach twisted.

Hugo. Humiliated. Publicly.

Her mind flashed back to Roseline’s fear, to that photo, to the name that kept resurfacing in every hidden corner of her life. The timing felt too perfect. Too cruel.

"So the project’s officially terminated?" a man asked.

"Completely. And from what I heard, Hugo isn’t even part of the company anymore. Not after today."

The elevator felt suddenly too small.

Anna swallowed, her fingers curling around the strap of her bag. The world around her kept moving—people gossiping, laughing, speculating—but inside her, everything felt suspended, like she was standing at the edge of a truth she hadn’t fully grasped yet.

Her mother’s past. Daniel’s file. Hugo’s downfall.

None of it felt separate anymore.

The elevator dinged as it reached her floor. The doors slid open, and people spilled out, still murmuring about the drama unfolding above their pay grade.

Anna stepped out last, heart pounding.

She had come here to distract herself. To escape the chaos in her head.

Instead, she’d walked straight into another storm.

And suddenly, she wasn’t just looking for comfort from Daniel anymore.

***

After the meeting ended, Daniel didn’t waste a second.

The moment the doors of the conference room slid open, he stepped out, ignoring the stunned expressions around him and the low murmurs that followed in his wake. His eyes were already locked on one person—Norma.

She walked ahead of him with unhurried grace, heels clicking softly against the marble floor, as if she hadn’t just dismantled a man’s entire career in front of a room full of powerful people. As if she hadn’t shifted the balance of the company in a single afternoon.

Daniel followed her without calling out. He didn’t need to. He knew exactly where she was going.

His office.

The second he pushed the door open, there she was.

Sitting proudly in the chair across her desk, legs crossed, posture relaxed, a faint smile playing on her lips. She looked composed. Unbothered. Almost serene.

As if what had just happened inside the conference room meant nothing at all.