Free The Bear Truth by Ivy Sinclair

past. I’m guessing that any judge would be more than happy to throw you in some cell for the rest of your life. And first-degree murder will make sure you don’t see the light of day for the rest of your life.”
    Regardless of what I said, there wasn’t anything about him that made me think that he would be able to commit the kind of violence that was actually done against my brother. No, I didn’t think that Craig was the source of this at all. It had all sprung from the mind of one crazy man.
    “Tell me where Joshua is,” I said as I advanced on him. I deliberately let my snout and fingernails grow longer as I approached him. Still, he didn’t look afraid. I wasn’t sure what to think about that. “Tell me where he is, or I will feed you to the wolves.” Now that was a threat that I probably could deliver on. Bears, wolves, lions, leopards, they were all there at the Summit. All I had to do was tell them that this man responsible for Markus’s murder, and they would take care of the rest. It was the way of the animal kingdom. We took care of our own.
    “You’re too late,” Craig said. “No matter what you know, we’re already two steps ahead of you. You think you know the truth, but you don’t. Even those who are like you hate you.”
    The venom in his voice would take most normal men aback. Instead, it just made me angrier. Now, we were just a foot apart. I grabbed him by the throat. My bear wanted to rip it out. Then I felt the calming presence of Maren behind me. She gently pushed me out of the way. She looked at Craig.
    “If were too late, then it doesn’t matter if you tell us what you know,” she said. “I’m a reporter for the Greyelf Gazette. If you tell me what you did, I’ll make sure that you get credit for it. Not the one who organized it, but you.”
    I didn’t think that Craig would really want to see his name printed as the culprit, but then I saw his eyes light up. Somehow, Maren had known that it wasn’t my threats that were going to make Craig talk. Whoever was the true mastermind behind the plan was probably keeping him in the dark.
    You’ll put my name right up there? With his?”
    “Oh, yes,” Maren said with a smile. “In fact, I’ll put your name first if you want. Just tell us.”
    The words tumbled out of Craig’s mouth. “They’re already there. They’re already at the Summit. We wired the place weeks ago. We did it soon as they told us where the location was.”
    “That’s impossible,” I said. “We’ve had security around the location for weeks.”
    That’s when a slow smile spread across the Craig’s face. I realized a glaring, yet obvious truth that made things start to fall into place. I stepped backward. Maren looked at me with a question on her face, but I just shook my head. “We need to go. We need to go now .”
     

CHAPTER EIGHT – Maren
     
    Lukas wouldn’t tell me what was going on yet. We rode silently in the truck, and he seemed to be trying to make it go as fast as possible. I had no idea where the Summit was being held. It was a secret location, and the media was definitely not invited. I could tell that Lukas was worried.
    “I wonder if we just delayed the inevitable by starting later. Actually, that might have saved everything,” he murmured. I wasn’t sure if he even realized that he had spoken out loud.
    “What you think is going on?" I asked. Lukas’s mind was going a million miles a minute. I could tell because I’d seen that look before on his face many times. But I needed him to let me in. We were a team.
    “I told you about Markus’s preferences," he said finally.
    He didn’t say anything else, and I knew immediately what he was talking about. It hadn’t been widely known outside a select few, but Markus Kasper was gay. That was his deep dark secret. It was something that I hadn’t even realized until talking to Lukas after he returned to Greyelf.
    “Yes, so Markus was gay. We knew that already. But nobody else