Chapter One

      The noose tightening around his neck, Dalton Reyes struggled to swallow even his own saliva. His mouth was dry, though, because fear and nerves overwhelmed him. He tugged at the too-tight bow tie and thanked God he wasn’t the one getting married right now.

      He couldn’t imagine promising to love one woman for the rest of his life and then to spend the rest of his life trying to make that one woman happy. Even though he didn’t want that for himself, Dalton stood at Ash Stryker’s side as the FBI special agent vowed just that to Claire Molenski.

      Ash turned and looked at him, his blue eyes narrowed in a warning glare. Realizing he’d missed his cue, Dalton hurriedly reached into his pocket for the ring. Why the hell had he wanted to be the best man? Wearing the monkey suit was bad enough, but having to keep track of the damn ring, too...

      It was too much. He would rather have mobsters shooting at him than this pressure of the whole church watching him. At least the church was small. But it was hot and stuffy, too. Sweat beaded on his lip, but then his fingers encountered the band. And he pulled out the delicate gold ring. It was tiny—just like the bride.

      The first time he had met Claire Molenski, he’d thought the little blonde was hot. But she looked like something else in that white gown—like an angel. Dalton had always preferred bad girls, the ones who wore too much makeup and too-little leather skirts.

      As soon as the ceremony was over, he rushed outside and gulped some air.

      “You’d think you were the groom,” a man teased him from the shadows of a huge oak. “With as much as you were sweating up there...”

      “That’ll never happen,” Dalton replied with the confidence of a man who had never been in love and never intended to take that fall. “I won’t ever be anyone’s groom.”

      Finally the man stepped from the shadows. He’d beaten Dalton outside, so he must have been there before the ceremony had even ended. Apparently, though, he had been inside the church long enough to see Dalton sweating at the altar. Since he’d left early, he didn’t seem to like weddings any more than Dalton did.

      Then Dalton recognized him and realized why. “You’re Jared Bell...”

      The man was a legendary FBI profiler. Recruited out of college into the Bureau, he already had a long and illustrious career for his young age. But he was almost more legendary for the serial killer he hadn’t caught than for all those that he had. The sick bastard who’d eluded him had had a thing for killing brides...

      It probably hadn’t been easy for him to see Claire in that white dress and not imagine all those other brides who hadn’t lived long enough to wed their grooms. All those victims...

      Jared Bell extended his hand to Dalton. “And you’re Agent Reyes.”

      He should have been flattered that the profiler knew him. But then Dalton Reyes wasn’t so much legendary as notorious—for growing up in a gang but then leaving the streets to become a cop and then an FBI special agent assigned to the organized crime division.

      “Nice to meet you,” he said. With a glance back at the church, he asked, “I take it you know Ash...”

      The grinning groom stood on the stairs of the stuffy little chapel with his smiling bride clasped tightly against his side. Ash Stryker couldn’t take his hands off the petite blonde, but Dalton didn’t blame him.

      Bell nodded. “Yes, I know Ash. Not as well as you do, apparently,