Chapter 2 — You Built Everything on a Lie

POV: Jace

The door shut behind me, the heavy click of the latch echoing like a gunshot in the quiet corridor. I stood in the hallway for a second too long. My gaze locked onto the dark grain of the wood paneling, staring at the swirling lines as if they could explain the disaster of the last twenty minutes.

I had said it. You built everything on a lie.

The words still tasted bitter, heavy, and wrong in my mouth. A sickening wave of regret crept down my spine. The words weren't untrue, but they were wrong in the way a weapon is wrong when you use it to execute someone you love.

Just twenty minutes ago, my mother had stopped me in this exact hallway, sliding a thick manila folder into my hands.

"Read it before you go in," Victoria said. Her voice was low, smooth, and even. It was the tone she always used when she wanted an order to sound like protection. "I didn't want you blindsided, Jace. I know how much she means to you."

Meant. She had already used the past tense, deciding the outcome before the committee even met.

I read the contents standing up. If I had sat down, my knees would have buckled. Inside were three sheets of paper. A high school transcript with a perfect GPA that didn't match the district's certified copy. A glowing recommendation letter that the high school principal swore his office had never drafted. A financial aid waiver with a signature that a bold, typed caption claimed was a forgery of Daisy's own hand.

Three pieces of paper. That was all it took to unmake a year of my life.

Underneath the weight of those documents, my mind dragged me back to what I actually remembered living through. I didn't want to think about the paperwork; I wanted to think about the girl.

I remembered her dorm room. It was the only weekend her roommate had stayed at her boyfriend's place, giving us four walls that weren't mine, weren't borrowed, and weren't watched by my family's drivers. She had hung cheap string lights herself. They hung crookedly across the ceiling. *Crooked is more honest than straight,* she had told me, laughing as she tangled her fingers in mine. Rain lashed against the single window, the glass rattling in a frame that never sealed quite right.

Her hands had drifted down to the hem of my shirt, her fingers brushing the bare skin of my stomach. She paused, her eyes wide and searching in the amber glow of the lights, silently asking for permission even though I had answered her a thousand times with the absolute devotion in my eyes.

"Are you sure?" I whispered, cupping her cheek. It mattered to me that she was entirely sure.

Daisy laughed, a soft, nervous sound, but her hazel eyes were steady. "Jace Kingston, I have never been more sure of anything in my life."

There was nothing left to say after that. I pulled her to me, losing myself in the warmth of her skin, the quiet gasp of my name against her lips, and the soft, unhurried rhythm of her breath against my collarbone. For one night, the world outside that crooked string of lights completely ceased to exist. We were safe. We were real.

Afterward, she traced a slow line along my jaw in the dark, her touch feather-light. "Promise me this is real, Jace," she murmured.

"I promise," I had sworn into her hair, burying my face in the scent of her. I had never meant anything more in my life.

Now, my mother's hand tightened on my arm, her sharp nails digging through the fabric of my jacket. The touch pulled me brutally back to the harsh fluorescent lights of the administration building.

"Jace, listen to me," Victoria hissed, her voice cutting through my memories. "The board is waiting inside. You need to walk through that door, sit down, and let them see you have made your decision. You have to do this for the family. For the hockey program. For your future, Jace."

I tried to pull away, but she stepped closer, blocking my path.

"Do you understand what a scandal like this does to a scholarship athlete's draft stock?" she demanded, her eyes flashing with cold determination. "If the NHL executives think you knew about her fraud and said nothing, your career is over before it even starts. Let her go."

I didn't answer her. I couldn't. I just forced my feet to move, pushing past her and walking into the hearing room.

The moment the door opened, Daisy looked up. Her entire face lifted when she saw me, her hazel eyes searching mine with a desperate, breathless hope. She looked at me like I was the last solid rock in a world made of rushing water. Something in my chest collapsed into a hollow ache. I wanted so badly to be that rock for her. I wanted to cross the floor, slam my hands on the table, and put my body between her and the stone-faced committee members.

Instead, I stood at the end of the table, my hands clenched into fists inside my pockets.

"Is it true, Daisy?" I asked, my voice sounding flat, dead, and entirely detached from the panic screaming in my head. "Did you forge the papers?"

"No! Jace, look at me, please," Daisy begged, her voice cracking as she reached a hand out across the polished wood. "I didn't do this. I don't even know where those documents came from. You know me. You know I wouldn't lie to get here."

"The evidence is clear, Ms. Bennett," the Dean said, tapping a thick stack of papers on the table. "The registrar confirmed the discrepancies. Unless someone else had access to your student file and your personal desk, these documents point directly to you."

"I didn't touch her desk," Madison Sinclair spoke up from the row of chairs behind the committee. She smoothed down her expensive skirt, her voice dripping with practiced innocence. "I only went into their room to drop off the sorority flyers. I never saw any files."

I watched Madison as she spoke. She denied touching the desk, but she did it a half-second too slow. A tiny hesitation caught in her throat before the words came out. It didn't sit right with me. A cold prickle of doubt brushed against my mind, but before I could process it, the Dean picked up his heavy fountain pen.

"This hearing is concluded," the Dean announced, signing the bottom of the expulsion order with a sharp flourish. "Daisy Bennett, your scholarship is officially revoked, and you are expelled from Kingston University, effective immediately. You have until midnight to vacate the campus."

"Jace, please," Daisy whispered. The tears were finally spilling over her lashes, tracing wet paths down her pale cheeks. "You promised me. You promised we were real."

The room felt entirely devoid of air. I looked from my mother sitting in the corner, to the strict faces of the board, and finally down at the folder in my hands. The pressure of my family, my future, and the fear of losing everything I had worked for choked out the truth.

I looked Daisy dead in the eyes, hardening my features into a mask of disgust to hide the fact that I was dying inside.

"You built everything on a lie," I said.

I watched the words land like a physical blow. Something in her gaze went entirely dark, the light snuffing out instantly. Her hand dropped back to her side, limp and trembling.

Instead of staying to fight, instead of asking why Madison had hesitated, I turned around. I walked out of the room, leaving her alone with the wolves.