Gerard was always unusually sophisticated for a Bratovich. His interests lay less with the usual family interests of animal breeding and hunting and more with law and business. Perhaps it had something to do with the close proximity of the Prejeans, or perhaps it was just a fluke, but the matriarch was perfectly willing to indulge his interests for the good of the family, so long as he did pursue one of the family pastimes: procreation. In turn for the chance to attend law school, he agreed to marry his older sister's thirteen year old stepdaughter, Émeline.
Their marriage produced the requisite children and he got his wish. Graduating from Loyola, he briefly left the family to attend law school in Yale, returning to set up his practice in the rapidly growing city. Since then, he has been one of the major providers for the eccentric clan, much to the relief of the rest of the family, who had been forced to accept handouts from the Prejeans prior. This has also earned him something of a position of influence in the household, though all accounts are that he doesn't use it, preferring to defer to Marie-Thérèse and his wife.
The Camarilla raid in 1970 left he and his wife the oldest mortal members of the family, but little has changed for him. While his wife has become the mouthpiece of the matriarch, he continues to see to his legal practice and attend to the family's accounting, left mostly to his own devices. Of late, he practices mostly corporate law and has diversified the family's portfolio to include investments in several of the more profitable Prejean enterprises in Biloxi, Lake Charles, and Galveston. He has made a distinct effort to keep clear of New Orleans affairs, aware of the territoriality of the Lasombra and not wishing to get involved in the intense war of economic control thereabouts.
Despite the impression he gives, Gerard is a very skilled manipulator with a strong desire to be in control of his family's affairs. However, he is aware of how pointless it is to do this overtly and has thus decided to play the obediant servant and submissive husband while garnering as much power as he can through his financial control. He has, for the most part, succeeded. While his wife and the matriarch fight with Ida Prejean over the position of dominant personality in the household, he actually wields significantly greater control over its affairs.
In person, he appears exactly as he intends to, as a weak-willed, submissive man totally dominated by his wife. He seems to rarely get involved in family politics, quietly going about his mundane tasks in the background. When met in a professional capacity, however, a bit more of his real personality comes through. While seeming obsequious, he has a knack for twisting the law and the wording of contracts to make them do what he wants. Those who have had to deal with him in this capacity will be quick to admit that his whole manner is calculated to deceive.
He also has a more refined sense of taste than the rest of his family, something he shares with the Prejeans, and has a impressive collection of fine wines and oddly disturbing, but masterful, art. All of this is kept carefully secured in his locked office at home and he has been known to fly into vicious rages when this inner sanctum is defiled in any way by the presence of others.
Despite the arranged manner of their marriage, he had grown to be rather fond of his wife over the years, up until the raid made her the only candidate for the matriarch's mouthpiece. Since then, her will has been so regularly subjugated to the Tzimisce that there is very little of her original personality left. This saddens Gerard, but doesn't overly concern him as it puts him in a position to influence her as well to enact his own plans. He watched his older sister fall to the same domination and he has become somewhat hardened to the necessity of it, for the most part.
He is openly respectful of the kindred in the family, but secretly sees them as leechs so far detached from the modern world as to be little more than useful watchdogs to keep the Camarilla from wiping out the clan. Thus, he is careful to keep them happy but pay little attention to their wishes as he makes his plans for the family. Several of his schemes have been foiled, however, by Marie-Thérèse's two hounds, Gui and Gil, and he has been fantasizing about ways to remove one or both of them from the picture.
Since his wife is no longer particularly attentive to his needs, Gerard has taken his daughter, Jocelyn, as a lover. He has grown increasingly close to her over the years and is now terrified that she will share the same fate as her mother and aunt. He has shared this concern with his brother-in-law, Beranger, but the two have yet to come up with a viable means to put a stop to it.
Unsurprisingly, Gerard has a good relationship with the Prejeans and even a decent understanding with the Lasombra and their pawns in New Orleans, though he resents the danger their mechanitions put his family in. He shares, however, the family's nearly total hatred of the Camarilla and has thus been willing to put family resources at their disposal when necessary, a fact which annoys Uncle Rodolphe to no end.
Gerard has significant pull among the corporate and judicial powers of the city and very rarely calls on them, so they are usually more willing to assist him when he does ask. His reach does extend somewhat beyond the city, mostly due to his ties with the various gulf oil interests operating out of Lafayette and he has, on occasion, corrdinated efforts with the Lasombra where gulf shipping was concerned.