Page 32 of Under the Lights (The Big Boys of BRU #2)

Twenty Six

Sierra

My bedroom had turned into a fucking evidence wall. Opposite the string lights I’d hung on the wall above my headboard, chaos had taken control.

The surface was covered in spreadsheet printouts, receipts, and sorority flyers bearing red scribbles.

The full moon hung brightly against the inky black sky, casting its yellow glow through my only window, while I was knee-deep in records I technically shouldn’t have.

Especially the scanned receipts from last semester’s charity gala, the proceeds of which were supposed to go to the local food bank.

I sat on my bed and stared at the wall covered in papers, hoping that they would make sense if I stared at them long enough. A mess of highlighters, notebooks, and Post-its surrounded me, and I inwardly cringed.

I liked my things, my room, tidy. Organized .

But I was a fucking mess myself: I was wearing a hoodie and bike shorts, my hair was a mess, and my face was tightly strained. I narrowed my eyes in concentration, my gaze oscillating between the wall and some of my notes.

Wait a second…

Jumping up, I took a closer look at one of the receipts. Golden chairs. Something about that snagged in my brain, but I couldn’t figure out what. This receipt listed twelve thousand motherfucking dollars for golden chairs .

My memory was pretty much infallible, and yet… I couldn’t recall a single event we had hosted in the last two years that featured golden chairs.

Pulling out my phone, I checked the dates and started scrolling.

Picture after picture flashed across the screen in a blurry, colorful haze until I finally made it back to the timeframe of the event. Now I scrolled more carefully, studying the pictures.

No fucking way.

My mouth fell open as I slowly lowered my hand, which was still clutching the phone. I still had pictures of the event in question, alright. And there was not a single trace of golden chairs.

White plastic chairs. We had used white plastic chairs . The fucking receipt was forged.

My heart sank as I began matching names. All the receipts were “approved” by the same treasurer — who didn’t exist. It was a fake fucking name.

Easy enough to pull off when the real treasurer, Jasmine, was involved in the scheme.

It was right there, and yet it still wouldn’t be enough to pin them down. Withdrawals that didn’t match the events they were tied to. Overstated expenses. “Donations” that never landed where they were supposed to.

But nothing tied it directly to the girls in charge now. No names. No confessions. No smoking gun. Just layers of misdirection — like the truth was hiding in plain sight but just out of reach.

It was like trying to catch fog. The closer I got, the more it slipped away.

I exhaled hard, dragging my fingers through my hair as my eyes flicked across the spreadsheets and screenshots tacked up around me. I wanted to scream.

Because I knew there had to be something there. I knew it the way my stomach knotted every time another convenient explanation appeared just in time to erase the trail.

People lied. People lied all the time, and they smiled while they did it. Wrapped their lies in good intentions with a pretty branding and called it leadership. I’d learned that one the hard way.

My parents had always said there was money put aside.

Of course, we have a college fund, honey.

You think we wouldn’t take care of you?

I believed them. But right when it was time to start applying, everything crumbled. The list of affordable schools got shorter and shorter. brU, a school that hadn’t even been on my radar, suddenly became the “best fit.”

They hadn’t replaced a dime. I trusted them. Finding out the hard, bitter truth was gutting. Heartbreaking.

Turned out the college fund had quietly vanished years earlier, spent on things I never got a say in. Vacations. New cars. My dad’s second failed business.

We didn’t want you to worry.

We thought something would work out.

It did, but no thanks to them. The only thing that pulled me out of the slurry pit was brU’s full-ride athletic scholarship. A get-out-of-debt-free card I earned, not because they planned for my future, but because I did.

Maybe that was when the switch flipped. When I stopped assuming people meant what they said — and started learning how to find what they didn’t.

So I got good at digging. At pulling threads. At spotting the fraying seams in someone’s carefully crafted version of the truth.

And Zeta Gamma Gamma’s version? It looked really fucking polished. But I could see the fray. I just needed one loose stitch to unravel it all.

I felt nauseous — this was big. Too big. The kind of big that settled deep in your gut and made everything feel too loud, too bright, too close.

I swallowed hard, pressing my palms into the edge of the desk, hoping it would keep me grounded. My hands were trembling, just slightly.

I was one fucking person. One exhausted, furious, not-quite-okay person trying to dig through a mountain of rot with a damn teaspoon.

My gaze fell to a note wedged between two receipts. It was Dom’s handwriting, hastily scrawled on the back of a flyer.

In case no one reminded you today, you’re hot, terrifying, and probably right. Go get ’em, Goddess.

I rolled my eyes when he left it on the counter for me after flashing me that casual, careless grin, like he couldn’t imagine a version of me doubting myself.

As if he hadn’t been around long enough to see what people did when they decided the girl on the pedestal didn’t deserve to stay there.

My fingers grazed the edge of the paper, as if it might steady me. My phone was within reach. Opening our message thread, I stared blankly at the blinking cursor.

I could tell him. Could let someone in for once, just one person.

But I never typed out the words buzzing through my head. I didn’t let myself. Tucking my phone face down beneath a stack of papers, I got back to work.

I’d printed out a stack of the most damning files to help me visualize the whole mess. I smoothed out the forged receipt and taped it to the wall beside the other evidence.

The adhesive was putting up a fight; the corner curled under my thumb, as if even the lie itself were resisting being part of this puzzle.

“Not enough to burn them,” I said softly, the words for no one but myself. My jaw clenched as I took a step back, studying the incomplete picture, the bones of the truth still waiting to be unearthed.

“Yet.”