They hadn’t really gone away.
Early the next morning, Valerius came back from grabbing breakfast looking thoroughly annoyed.
“They’re downstairs. Looks like they’ve been out there freezing all night.”
I walked over to the window and glanced down.
The four of them huddled beside the flower beds by the apartment entrance, brushing snow off their shoulders and stamping their feet to stay warm.
Cassian looked up and caught my eyes.
He stood at once and waved.
I pulled the curtains closed.
“Let them stay,” I said.
After that, Jax started sending food.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner – always something different.
He left everything with the building security guard downstairs.
I never asked Valerius to bring any of it up.
Then Tristan showed up outside holding a cardboard sign with messy, scrawled handwriting.
[Astrid, I’m sorry. Come home. You can hit me, yell at me, anything.]
Passing neighbors slowed down to stare.
Tristan had always been so proud.
He ran a research team at an institute and cared deeply about his public image.
Now he stood out in public holding a sign for strangers to gawk at.
His eyes were dark, his lips chapped; he barely even looked like himself.
Next, Chloe started posting long emotional threads online.
She created a burner account and published a tear–jerker post titled Twenty Years of Misunderstanding Between Me and My Best Friend.
She never mentioned the Invisibility Game.
She never mentioned the sexual assault or my miscarriage.
She only wrote about how misunderstood and abandoned she felt, while subtly implying I was overly
sensitive and blowing everything out of proportion.
When Valerius tossed screenshots of the post onto my table, I glanced over them and laughed.
“She always does this. Whenever something goes wrong, she plays the victim first. Cassian and the others
always fall for it.”
Valerius frowned.
“Do you want me to…”
“No. Just wait.”
Sure enough, that same night Cassian and Jax both posted public statements on social media.
Cassian only wrote one line.
“Chloe Vane, enough. Save your tears. Play on Astrid’s sympathy one more time, and I promise no one in our circle will ever want anything to do with you.”
Jax was far more direct.
He uploaded an old childhood photo of Chloe and me with the caption: “You know exactly who owes who.”
Chloe deleted her post almost immediately.
Later on, Tristan and Jax both showed up at my apartment door and nearly got into a fight out in the hallway.
Tristan forced his way inside and headed straight for me, but Valerius grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Don’t touch her,” Valerius said coldly.
“She’s my sister! Who the hell are you?”
“You call yourself her family?”
Valerius’s grip was brutal.
Tristan struggled again and again, unable to break free, his eyes burning red.
Jax slipped past them in the chaos,
Then he dropped to his knees in front of me.
“Astrid… everything was my fault back when we were kids. I was jealous you excelled at everything, so I
fought you over every little thing. Once Chloe arrived, she kept coming to me crying, saying you were bullying
her. I… I believed her.”
“Believed her for twenty years?”
Jax’s mouth fell open.
Tears streamed down his face.
“I regret every single day of it. I swear it. These past days, I’ve re–lived every single thing you went through for
twenty years. I’m a damn monster.”
Tristan finally broke free of Valerius’s hold and knelt down beside Jax.
He reached out to grab the hem of my pants.
I stepped backward.
His hand hung suspended in mid–air, fingers curling, before he pulled it back.
“Astrid, I’ve always been stubborn and terrible with words. After Mom died, you were all I had left. The more
terrified I was of losing you, the worse I got at showing it. Whenever tensions blew up, I always ended up
siding with Chloe.”
“I kept thinking, if I just kept her happy, you wouldn’t keep fighting. If you didn’t fight, maybe we could all stay
together.”
I looked down at him and almost laughed.
“What do you take me for? Just some problem you need to manage?”
“When I screamed for help, you were making Chloe laugh. While I was on the operating table after my
miscarriage, you were taking photos for her. And now you tell me you just wanted all of us to stay together?”
Tristan’s sobs got stuck in his throat.
His shoulders shook violently.
Then Chloe burst into the apartment.
Her hair was a mess, her makeup streaked all over her face.
Not a trace of her carefully crafted helpless act remained this time.
“Astrid Ashwood! What exactly do you want? Do you realize you’ve driven all of them out of their minds? Cassian hasn’t eaten in three days. Tristan’s work is suffering because of all the time he’s taken off. Jax won’t even show up to his job. Are you trying to destroy everyone?”
I looked at her and almost laughed.
“Chloe Vane. You invented the Invisibility Game. You wrote the rules. You were the judge.”
I walked slowly toward her step by step.
“You toyed with me for twenty years. Now you stand here asking what I want? What gives you that right?”
Chloe’s lips trembled.
She couldn’t find a single reply.
Valerius pushed Tristan and Jax back out into the hallway before returning inside.
He stood right behind Chloe.
She glanced over her shoulder at him and flinched away at once.
“I have a gift for you,” I said.
Chloe’s face turned pale.
“I recorded everything Tristan and Jax just said. I saved screenshots of that victim–playing post you wrote. And there’s plenty more.”
I opened a drawer, pulled out my old phone, and powered it on.
I found a saved voice memo and hit play.
Chloe’s voice filled the whole room.
“Cassian, Astrid has been treating me horribly lately. Maybe we should make the Invisibility Game harsher this time to teach her a lesson. She always caves in the end and gives me a gift.”
The recording was six months old.
Cassian had forwarded that voice note to me back then.
He told me Chloe was only joking and told me not to take it seriously.
I had accidentally saved it and never deleted it.
Chloe screamed and lunged for the phone.
Valerius tackled her to the ground before she could reach it.
“That’s slander! You violated my privacy!”
“Sue me.”
I put the phone away.
“I will also pursue every legal avenue – harassment, defamation, the full list. Chloe, let’s see what the enforcers make of twenty years’worth of everything.”
She collapsed on the floor, shaking all over, her makeup completely smudged.
Valerius called building security.
Chloe screamed as they dragged her away.
The elevator doors slid shut, cutting off her shouting.
I leaned against the wall and slowly sank down onto the floor.
Valerius knelt beside me and gently wiped a stray tear off my cheek.
“Is it over?”
I looked at him, shook my head, then nodded.
“My part is over. The rest is up to time.”