Bought By the Masked BRATVA (The BRATVA Masquerade #5)

Grace

The invitation sits on the hotel nightstand, thick black cardstock that probably costs more per square inch than my current net worth. I pick it up for the fifth time tonight, running my thumb over the embossed gold lettering.

The Bratva Masquerade.

My phone buzzes against the duvet. Another news alert. I don't need to look to know what it says. The same thing every alert has said for the past seventy-two hours, just with slightly different adjectives attached to my name.

I set the invitation down and walk to the window.

The city sprawls below, the river a dark ribbon cutting through the bright lights.

Somewhere out there, Senator Edward Hartley is sleeping soundly, his wife none the wiser, his career intact.

Meanwhile, I'm holed up in a budget hotel near the station because going home stopped being safe the moment my address leaked.

Three days ago, I had a career. An apartment near the park with exposed brick and a view of the city. Friends who texted back. A life built on fixing other people's disasters, on being the smartest person in the room, on knowing exactly which reporter to call and which story to bury.

Then Edward cornered me in his office after hours, his hand on my ass, his breath wine-sour against my neck, and asked if I was a team player.

I said no.

He said I'd regret it.

Turns out he wasn't bluffing.

The dossier appeared the morning after. Arms deals.

Illegal contracts. Shell companies. My name stamped across every page like a signature.

The press ate it alive. My phone exploded with calls I couldn't answer, emails I couldn't read, messages from colleagues who suddenly didn't know me.

By the time I understood what he'd done, the damage was complete.

I was the story now. The scandal. The traitor.

And Edward? He gave a press conference expressing his deep disappointment in my betrayal, his voice heavy with manufactured grief. The cameras loved him. They always do.

I pick up the invitation again. It arrived this morning, slipped under my door along with a keycard for a hotel room while I was in the shower. No return address. No explanation. Just an elegant gold script inviting me to an event I've only heard whispered about.

The Bratva Masquerade.

I think about the rumors I've heard over the years.

The carefully curated guest list. The masks that hide everything.

The kind of people who attend, people powerful enough to move mountains or bury bodies, people who operate in the spaces between legal and criminal, people who could make Edward Hartley disappear if they wanted to.

Or clear my name.

My reflection stares back at me from the dark window, pale and hollow-eyed. Before, I looked polished. Professional. In control. Now I look like exactly what I am: a woman with nothing left to lose.

The invitation says the masquerade runs for two nights. Tonight's the first. Tomorrow's the second, when the auction happens. I read that line twice when I first opened it, certain I'd misunderstood.

Participants may auction anything, with terms of their own choosing.

I laugh, sharp and bitter. An auction. How perfectly obscene.

But the idea takes root anyway, unwelcome and reckless. If I could offer something they want, if I could trade what I know for protection, for leverage, for a way out of this nightmare...

I have information. Names, dates, details about Edward's dealings that didn't make it into that doctored dossier. Things I kept to myself because that's what good consultants do. We keep insurance.

Someone at that masquerade would want it. Someone with enough power to make Edward pay.

My phone buzzes. I finally look.

Another message from a reporter. Another request for comment. Another nail in the coffin of my old life.

I set the phone face down and return to the invitation.

The second night. Tomorrow. The auction.

I could go as myself and be recognized immediately, torn apart by the same people who've spent the last three days destroying me. Or I could go in disguise. Masked. Anonymous. Just another body in a room full of monsters playing at civility.

The thought shifts something cold and heavy inside me. But underneath it is something sharper, hotter. Something that tastes like fury and feels like choice.

They've already branded me a traitor; I might as well own it.

I walk to the bathroom and stare at myself under the harsh fluorescent light. My hair is long, poker straight, dark brown. Styled the exact way I've worn it for years. Professional. Forgettable. Safe.

I reach for the scissors in my toiletry bag.

Twenty minutes later, my hair is shorter, layered around my face.

It changes everything. My cheekbones look sharper.

My eyes look harder. I look like someone who could walk into a room full of criminals and not flinch.

I reach for the bleach in my bag. I’d bought a couple of boxes the night I ran from my apartment.

I’ve never coloured my hair before, much less bleached it.

I hesitate for a moment, wishing there was a professional I could call.

But there’s no one.

The process doesn’t take as long as I expected with the help of a few tutorials online. It’s patchy in places, but a well-styled updo should hide the worst of it.

I don’t have a mask, so I quickly cut up a black skirt and stitch some ribbon that I cut from the inside shoulders of two cashmere jumpers to it.

The criss-cross pattern is enough to hide the worst of my stitching, and I’m suddenly grateful to my mother for forcing me to learn some sewing basics, even if I was never very good at it.

There’s just enough ribbon left to tie the mask around my head, and I’ll clip it into place for extra reassurance.

I hold the mask up to my face and study the effect. Up close, it’s obviously handmade, but from afar it looks delicate and anonymous. It covers everything from my forehead to my cheekbones and down my nose in a sharp point, almost like a beak.

Grace Casey, political consultant, is gone. In her place is someone else. Someone who can walk into that masquerade and offer herself up like a commodity. Someone who can look powerful men in the eye and name her price.

Someone who can survive this.

I hope.

The invitation catches the light, gold lettering gleaming like a promise or a threat.

The Bratva Masquerade. Tomorrow night. Terms of your own choosing.

I set the mask down carefully, precisely, next to the invitation.

Tonight, I'll disappear into that crowd of monsters and power brokers. I'll watch them move through their world, these people who've been pulling strings while I thought I was the one in control. I'll learn the landscape, figure out who's who beneath the masks.

And then, at the auction, I'll step onto that stage and offer them exactly what they want.

Information. Leverage. Truth.

In exchange for my protection. My survival.

My phone buzzes again, but I ignore it. That world, the one where I answer to reporters and scramble for redemption, is over. That Grace is gone.

Tonight, I enter a world I’ve only ever heard whispers about.

Tonight, I become someone new.