Page 37 of Under the Lights (The Big Boys of BRU #2)

Thirty

Dom

The air in the locker room was thick with the tang of sweat, leather, and whatever God-awful body spray Knox always doused himself in. Metal lockers clanged open and shut, echoing off the tiled walls.

The overhead fluorescents buzzed faintly, casting a harsh white glare over the scuffed benches and gear-strewn floors. Somewhere across the room, someone was blasting old-school rap over a tinny speaker, while someone else argued about fantasy league points.

I was tying my cleats, propping one foot up on the bench and tightening the laces when Jax flopped down beside me. He had a smug grin on his face, and his shoulder pads were still dangling off one arm.

“Dude. You remember that hookup I was telling you about? The one who wanted to do this freaky … never mind.” He pursed his lips sheepishly, and I snorted.

“Yeah, I remember. What about her?” I peered up at him, eyebrows raised.

He leaned in a little. “Apparently, she’s in Sierra’s old sorority. Said some weird shit the other day.”

Now my curiosity was piqued. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

Jax sucked his teeth, dropping his voice. “She said Sierra got iced for ‘not falling in line.’ Whatever that means. Sounds like some Mean Girls-bullshit if you ask me.”

Wasn’t that the norm for places like that? It sounded like a breeding ground for Mean Girls to me.

“Sure does. Go figure.” I said casually, trying not to let on what was really going through my mind.

While I could imagine Sierra being stubborn and maybe not the easiest person to get along with at all times, I couldn’t imagine her ’ not falling in line ’. Sierra was a fucking stickler for rules.

What reason could she have for not going along with whatever her sorority had been doing?

Then there was the bitterness tinging her voice whenever her sorority days came up or when she’d briefly told me about getting kicked out. She’d said, “They valued loyalty more than honesty.”

Until now, I hadn’t given too much thought to it, hadn’t really asked too many questions. I’d been too busy taking advantage of the circumstances this situation had landed her in, too busy to win her over.

What … what if this wasn’t just a fallout? Just some disagreement gone wrong, taken too far? What if it was something more serious?

I didn’t know much about how sororities worked, but the whole situation was starting to smell off. Sierra was a good person — that much I knew. And the fact that she didn’t want to talk about what happened only made my brain spiral with worst-case scenarios.

Why the hell would they kick her out? Yeah, she could be prickly, but underneath all that?

She was real. Genuine. Kinder than anyone I knew.

Something didn’t sit right. And if it had anything to do with her, then it had everything to do with me.

After practice, I caught up with Jax.

“Hey, Jax, you still seeing that girl we talked about earlier?”

Jax grinned, raising a questioning eyebrow. “Kind of. Why?”

“Just curious. I know Sierra got kicked out, but I don’t know the details. Figured maybe your girl would know what really went down.” I shrugged, trying to keep my voice as casual as possible. “You know how those places work … a shit ton of drama. Doesn’t hurt to get the full picture.”

“Yeah, I mean, I’m still talking to her, but not really about the sorority stuff anymore,” he said, scratching behind his ear. “I know Sierra got the boot, though. Some of the girls were acting weird about it, like… I don’t know, it just felt off.”

He let out a short laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re always doing shit that’s, like, super over-the-top. I went with her to this gala thing once — it was ridiculous. Fancy as hell. Way too fancy for a state school, you know?”

I raised a brow. “Gala?”

“Yeah. Full-on string quartet, ice sculptures, custom cocktails. Felt like I’d walked into a trust fund convention.”

Ding ding ding . We had a winner.

“Yeah, that sounds… kind of sketchy,” I said slowly. “You ever hear anything about where all that money comes from?”

Jax shrugged, clearly not losing sleep over it. “I mean… not really. Could just be how it is, right? But now that you mention it, most of that fancy stuff shows up around their big fundraisers. I guess no one really asks questions.”

He paused, brows pulling together like something was just now clicking. “Could be some admin thing, I don’t know. She’s still tight with a couple of girls on exec, though. If you want, I could see what she knows.”

I shook my head, playing it off. “Nah, man, that’s alright. Just … forget about it. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong. I was just … curious.”

Jax shrugged. “Alright. I’ll let you know if she brings anything up about Sierra. But don’t get your hopes up, bro. Those girls know how to keep their shit locked down.”

I arched a brow. Clearly. Since she told you, who just told me. Fort Knox, right there.

Jax was a good guy. I’d considered him a friend, maybe even a close one. I was sure he didn’t know the first thing about what was really going on, and that was fine. But the way the sorority was acting made me suspicious.

Sierra was no saint, but she was a good person.

I’d figure it out. No matter what it took.

Later that night, Jax shot me a text as I was lying on Sierra’s bed, waiting for her to come home from practice.

JAX: No chance. As soon as I mentioned Sierra, she got pissed as hell with me. Sorry, man.

DOM: No worries. Appreciate you trying, bro.

Well, that had been a dead end. But I wasn’t someone to give up easily. Now that I was invested, I’d get to the bottom of whatever was going on. No fucking question.

I decided to start my search on social media. These days, people just don’t realize how much they can find out there if they actually go looking.

Finding the members of Sierra’s former sorority was a piece of fucking cake. Most of their profiles were public, which played right into my hands.

Scrolling through their feeds, I started cataloguing everything that caught my eye.

The list went on and on: scholarship students suddenly owning expensive, flashy items; impromptu trips to luxurious resorts for half the girls; and full-package facials for the whole executive squad.

Sure, some of these girls actually came from money. But I highly doubted they funded all of this shit, and the timing was suspicious. Most of this new stuff was shoring up around one of their big events — namely the ones that brought donations with them.

If those were ’admin errors’, I’d eat a fucking jockstrap. I wasn’t sure how deep this whole thing went yet, but I was determined to find out. I wanted to know what had happened to my girl and if any of this could be a potential threat to her.

Whether it was petty drama or something bigger didn’t matter to me. If it affected her, it mattered. If it disturbed her peace, it disturbed mine.

On a whim, I stood up, my eyes sweeping across her room like maybe the answers were just sitting there, waiting to be noticed. Maybe she kept old files, messages, notes — anything that might clue me in. She’d been on the exec board. That had to mean something .

No matter how long it took or who I had to ask, I would figure it out. I wanted to know everything. I needed to know everything. Because this wasn’t just curiosity.

This was about her. And when it came to Sierra, I didn’t do detached. I didn’t do chill.

Thumbing through some neatly stacked papers on her desk, the sight got me thinking. My girl was somewhat of a neat freak. Everything she owned was categorized, organized, and had a designated spot.

Pulling open one of the drawers of her desk, I started rifling through the various files and folders.

There . A manila folder labeled Zeta Gamma Gamma — the name of her former sorority. Chances were, I’d only find boring reports or some kind of initiation ritual manual in there, but I had to check.

What if there was something tying her to this whole situation? I had no proof yet, but my suspicions weren’t completely unfounded.

I protected what was mine. If there was any chance at all she could be dragged into this, I had to know.

Digging it out of the drawer, I opened the folder and started flipping through the mess inside. At first glance, it looked like chaos: loose papers, faded ink spreadsheets, screenshots of emails, and scanned receipts. Most of the pages were covered in Sierra’s familiar handwriting.

Her notes were sharp and slanted, crammed in the margins. There were arrows connecting unrelated items and circles drawn in thick ink. Red pens, black pens. Highlighters. Some pages looked like they’d been handled a hundred times.

Everything seemed disjointed, like maybe she was just spiraling — grasping at straws. But the longer I stared, the more the pieces began to fall into place.

Dates lined up. Vendors repeated. Amounts didn’t match. Some of the notes pointed out double charges. Others were timestamped, with words like “see Venmo?” or “no paper trail??” scrawled beside them.

And then I saw it.

FORGED, written in red marker, circled twice on the corner of a scanned receipt.

My chest tightened. My pulse pounded in my ears as I lowered the folder to my lap and stared at the wall in front of me.

What the fuck was this?

Some of the numbers weren’t just off — they screamed shady. Had Sierra been part of something, and it all gone sideways? Had they kicked her out to cover their asses?

I sat with the thought for a second, mulling it over.

No. That wasn’t possible.

Sierra was sharp, guarded, brutally honest — even when it would’ve been easier not to be. She could be prickly, sure, but she didn’t lie. And she didn’t steal. Whatever this was, she wasn’t involved in it. Not like that.

Then it hit me — hard .

What if she’d found this? What if she’d been trying to expose it?

I examined the folder once more, this time with heightened scrutiny. I skimmed the margin notes and receipts with highlighted charges and mismatched dates. Then, I looked at the rough timeline she had tried to map out between sheets.

This wasn’t the kind of mess someone made to hide a crime. It was what someone built when they were trying to prove one.

Fraud. No — embezzlement . That’s what this looked like.

And if Sierra had been digging into it, if she’d gotten too close to the truth? Of course, they’d push her out. Get rid of her before she could blow the whole damn thing open.

I pulled out my phone, planning to snap a picture of the worst-offending documents, when a loud buzz made me jump. Her phone — still plugged in on her nightstand — lit up with a text.

Did she leave it behind? That didn’t seem like her.

I was already nosing around… so what was a little more?

Casting a quick look around, I shuffled over to it and peered down at the device.

Unknown: You should’ve walked away when you had the chance. This isn’t just college politics anymore.

My insides went cold and then heated with fury as I clenched my jaw. This wasn’t just about money. They were threatening her now.

And she hadn’t said a word. Of course she hadn’t. She carried everything alone, like she always did.

She told me not to catch feelings. Said I’d get bored. That whatever we had was temporary, not real.

Like I didn’t already have her burned into every goddamn part of me.

Like the thong I’d stolen from her weeks ago wasn’t still in my drawer, tucked away like a prize. A reminder that I’d picked a side the moment I laid eyes on her. And even if she didn’t want me fighting her battles, I’d still go to war for her.

Let them lie. Let them bury the truth.

I’d dig it up with my bare fucking hands if it meant she didn’t have to stand alone.