Hunted & Bred By the Bratva (Bred By The BRATVA #8)

1. Perl

PERL

W hen I tell people I work in the family business, they usually expect me to describe something like working in a real estate office, a retail store, or maybe a law firm. But my family’s business is politics.

Politics and obtaining more generational wealth.

And tonight is filled with dollar signs in the form of sequins, cufflinks, and diamond chokers.

The eight massive chandeliers of the Grand Hotel’s largest ballroom illuminate not only the bright, shiny people but also festively decorated tables bulging under their loads of canapés and desserts.

Servers dressed like Renaissance Harlequins glide through the throng with golden trays holding champagne flutes.

An open bar in the corner serves cocktails and top-shelf well drinks.

Glitz and sparkle fill the room, as do fake laughter and trivial small talk.

New arrivals stop and gasp like they’re walking into an actual Italian palazzo. I, however, see only invoices stacked to the sky, and the sobering reality that the melting swan ice sculptures cost over six months of my salary.

This is the glamorous, high-pressure world of political fundraising. Which means a ballroom full of champagne-sipping elites feigning interest in the government policies while really calculating the tax benefits of their donations and how many favors they can gain.

My role in this extravaganza is much less glamorous. I’m the ringmaster of this circus, sassy liaison, logistical janitor, and niece of the man every single one of them is here for.

My uncle, the senator.

He stands in a tight knot of donors across the room, dazzling them with that all-American smile. It’s so bright, it ought to come with a warning label about corneal damage. My phone buzzes with text after text from my aunt, reminding me that everything must be flawless.

As if I don’t already know.

As if she and my uncle haven’t reminded me, several times a day for the last eight months, about how much is at stake tonight and how utterly disappointed they will be in me if this evening’s event isn’t executed perfectly.

We’re close to the end of this political race, and tonight marks the beginning of the final sprint toward the election.

Everything is on the line now, and if my uncle is not reelected, my family will lose all the social standing and power it’s built up over my uncle’s last three terms. I rub my sweaty palms against the black fabric of my dress until I remember that it’s silk. My damp hands will leave greasy stains.

And then I feel it.

A strange sizzle on the back of my neck. Heat crawling up my skin, making me hyperaware of how the material of my gown clings to my body. Someone’s watching me. And not politely.

This is focused and intense attention.

The disastrous state of my dress forgotten, I slowly turn around and spot him instantly. Across the ballroom, half-shadowed near a marble column, standing still while the tide of donors eddies around him. He doesn’t mingle. Doesn’t move.

Just watches.

Broad-shouldered, dark hair, tattoos peeking from beneath the collar of a pristine black dress shirt. And those eyes.

Green, sharp as if they could slice me open and sort through my messy insides with clinical precision.

He’s one of the few men in the room not wearing a jacket and probably the only one not bothering with a tie. And yet, it doesn’t make him look casual. If anything, the small fuck-off to the dress code lends him more power.

Heat pools low in my belly, surprising me. I don’t like feeling seen. Not by strangers.

Not by anyone, really. In my family, it’s safer not to stand out.

I snap my attention back onto safer ground. Safer, meaning donors drunk on my uncle’s charm.

“Perl!” The senator’s voice blasts across the ballroom like an air horn. “Over here!”

Of course. I am my uncle’s underling, and he’ll not let me forget it.

I make my way through the crowd on the stiletto strappy sandals I shouldn’t have chosen as tonight’s footwear.

My arches are already aching, and I stumble a little, not only from that but also because I can still feel the green-eyed man’s heated gaze following me. It excites me as much as it scares me.

Keeping my head from turning his way requires effort, but then I’m distracted by a middle-aged man, already tipsy, gesticulating with his arms so wildly, he slams a hand into a passing server’s tray.

I quickly grab the edge of the tray and keep it balanced.

The man who hit it doesn’t even notice. The server rolls her eyes behind her harlequin mask, and then shoots me a quick smile before she glides on through the crowd.

She’s like me, an invisible support person not worth the guests’ notice, until we’re summoned.

“Uncle,” I say when I reach him, my smile bright enough to pass his inspection. “Lovely crowd. Lovely turnout. Honestly, you could win reelection purely on the merits of the canapés.”

He chuckles artificially, throwing an arm around my shoulder, but his laugh is for the donors. His glance down at me is pinched around the edges.

“Perl has been very diligent,” he tells the group, patting my shoulder like I’m a pet who finally learned not to pee on the carpet. “She’s a pro at handling the little details at an event. Decorations. Menu. The feminine touches.”

My molars grind. Feminine touches? I coordinated the entire party. From spreadsheets made into complicated pivot tables to negotiating with a violinist who swore he’d never play for “mere politics” unless I doubled his rate.

But sure. Feminine touches. Like balloon colors. Golden, of course. My aunt and uncle are wannabe Kennedys, with a touch of modern-day royalty. They’ve never met anything gilded that they didn’t like, and ostentatious is not in their vocabulary.

Whenever I showed my aunt the event plan, she’d insist on more.

More sparkle, more food, more drink, more ice sculptures.

We’re way over budget, but who cares when the five hundred guests have deep pockets.

The buzz from the champagne and their competitiveness of not wanting to be outbid by others will make them add zeroes to their checks.

I force a laugh. “Yep, all me. Just sprinkling glitter on democracy to make it shine.”

A donor chuckles.

My uncle’s smile doesn’t waver, but his elbow presses tighter against my side, his sneaky little warning system.

“Excuse us, ladies and gents.” He propels me half a step away, his voice low enough for only me. “What did I tell you about tonight?”

“To make it flawless,” I whisper back with an infuriatingly charming smile plastered on my face as I gesture toward the ceiling.

“Have you seen these chandeliers? Even heaven’s jealous.

” I’m not sure what’s come over me, but I can’t keep the words I usually bite off from bubbling out of my mouth.

And I haven’t even touched the champagne.

“Perl,” he hisses my name. “You are not here to perform. You’re here to work. Stay in the background. Let me handle the people.”

My throat tightens. I’m not sure why his words anger me. Maybe because I’m tired after months of being belittled. Or maybe because my feet hurt.

Or maybe it’s the stranger’s gaze I can still feel focused on me, heating my skin.

But tonight, I’ve had enough of playing the perfect niece and unpaid assistant.

I can juggle the entire gala like I’m auditioning for the Political Circus Olympics, but to the senator? I’m background noise. A stagehand who doesn’t deserve applause.

It’s not that I want a big public acknowledgement. But I want my uncle to recognize my hard work so that he pays me, like he does the rest of his staffers. I want independence.

No, I need independence. Crave it.

Right now, I depend on my uncle and aunt for everything. They own my condo, and only their allowance allows me to eat.

I should know better, though.

Family should always do their duty. Always be available to support the members currently running for office, without asking for something in return. Especially poor relations like me.

In our family, you are expected to run for office if you’re a man and to become the perfect political wife if you’re a woman.

And that doesn’t mean grooming just the outside of yourself—although that is required—but you also must educate yourself about the political landscape.

Who are the people most beneficial to the campaign?

Who needs a little wining and dining to open their wallet wider? Who needs their ego stroked?

Despite knowing I’ll be punished, I can’t help sassing my uncle. “But I handled the people. I wrangled them here. I bribed them with expensive appetizers and wine. I turned down their friends begging a spot on the guest list, making this the most sought-after social event of the year.”

“You’re exaggerating again,” he says. “And that tone of yours might be amusing with your friends, but here?” He tilts his chin toward his glittering circle of donors. “Here, it undermines me. You want to help me win? Then stop trying to be funny.”

“You’re the one that called me over here,” I snap.

He knows I don’t have friends. I am at my family’s beck and call all hours of the day—and night.

There’s no time for a social life. The few people I befriended in college have all moved on after I constantly turned down their invitations, or cancelled at the last minute.

“Only because you looked awkward standing in the corner when you should move around the room, making sure that everything is running as it should.”

I grit my teeth. That’s exactly what I had been doing from my vantage point, surveying the room to see where I might be needed.

I plaster a fake smile on my face, because that’s what survival looks like in the Gahr family. “Of course. I’ll just melt into the drapery then. You won’t even know I’m here.”

“That would be ideal,” he says smoothly, completely missing my sarcasm, and then he’s back to his donors like the conversation never happened.

Dismissed. Again.

Made to feel unworthy. Again.

I slink away with my brightest fake smile plastered on my face, but inside, the words gnaw.

Invisible.

Stay in the background.

Don’t undermine the important people.

You’re not equal in this family.

I grab a flute of champagne from a passing tray, needing something to do with my hands. I don’t even drink. It makes me blotchy. But right now, I need the fizz to force down the ugly feelings rising inside me more than I need unblemished skin.

And even through the haze of irritation, I still feel it. That weighted, heated gaze.

I look back. Still there.

Green eyes. Still on me.

He doesn’t dismiss me as background. His stare holds me as if I’m center stage and the spotlight just found me. Which, frankly, is inconvenient because the parts of me heating under that gaze are parts that have never gotten so much as a summer tan. Parts that nobody but me has touched.

His hands are in his pockets, so I can’t see what they look like, but I bet they are strong.

As strong as his broad shoulders and the width of his arms that the shirt clings to.

As if he knows what I’m thinking, his biceps flex.

His eyes heat as I stare back, and I wonder what it would feel like to have all that coiled strength focused on me in bed.

Heat coils low in my belly, and my pussy gets damp. I lick my suddenly dry lips.

The man quirks an eyebrow, and I gasp, quickly spinning away.

Mortified, I realize he knows what I was thinking.