Bratva Bride

La Cosa Nostra wants an alliance — and possibly a bride

Illayana Volkov turns twenty-one hungover, with a stranger in her bed and her eldest brother Aleksandr banging on the door.

La Cosa Nostra wants an alliance — and possibly a bride

Illayana Volkov turns twenty-one hungover, with a stranger in her bed and her eldest brother Aleksandr banging on the door. She's the only daughter of Dimitri Volkov—Pakhan of the American Bratva, a man who annihilated an entire rival family after they murdered his wife, earning the name The Bratva Butcher. That morning, Dimitri summons his four children for an announcement: Alessandro De Luca, head of La Cosa Nostra, has requested a meeting. The Italians are at war with Nero Gambino and the Chicago Outfit, backed by the Los Zetas cartel. They need Bratva guns. Dimitri warns Illayana privately that a marriage may be proposed to cement the deal—and the choice will be hers alone. She studies the De Luca family photo, lingers on the eldest son's mismatched eyes, and begins sharpening her blades.

Illayana announces herself to the De Lucas with steel

In Kansas City, the two families face each other across a conference table. Alessandro explains his decades-old feud: he stole Isabella from her arranged marriage to Nero Gambino, and Nero never forgave him. Now backed by the Los Zetas, Nero is tearing the De Lucas apart. Alessandro needs Bratva firepower. When his brash younger son Vincenzo interrupts Dimitri mid-sentence, Illayana hurls a throwing knife across the table, pinning the apple in his mouth with surgical precision. Vincenzo is mesmerized. Alessandro proposes both a blood oath and a marriage between his eldest son Arturo and Illayana. Maxim—Dimitri's trusted advisor and Illayana's secret lover of three years—loses composure, shouting objections that expose their hidden relationship to the entire room.

Aleksandr discovers Maxim drugged Illayana three years ago

Back in Vegas, Dimitri corners Illayana in his office, hand around her throat, demanding the truth about Maxim. She confesses: on her eighteenth birthday, Maxim offered her drinks. She blacked out and woke naked beside him with no memory of what happened. Every time she tries to recall that night, her mind hits a wall of fog. Aleksandr recognizes the symptoms instantly—because Illayana and Lukyan once slipped him the same drug as a prank. He launches himself at Maxim, pounding him unconscious on the office floor. Dimitri pulls his eldest son off the bleeding man, but his fury is tightly controlled. He whispers an apology into Illayana's hair as she leaves, while her brothers prepare to extract a far steeper price from the man who violated their sister.