THE DRY CLEANER'S MESS

CHAPTER 18

"Leon was your cousin?!!"

Luke simply nodded. "Leonardo Tony Martin is his father." Her blank expression made him further explain. "The hotel we slept in at Davenport? Geraldine Hotels? Yeah, the CEO was his father. Leon was the hotel heir."

A shocked gasp escaped Arielle's lips and she slapped her hand over them. She stayed like that for a few seconds, trying to regain her composure over the revelation. "Wow." She whispered. "His father, is he the leader of The Eyes?"

He shook his head in response. "The Eyes have no actual leader, you've seen the way they operate. Decisions are made based on the majority rule. However, Leonardo is the most devout, most vocal and unarguably the richest among them. It's only natural he'd be the hypothetical leader. Plus, he'd made some decisions in the past that proved his loyalty to The Eyes and The Family as a whole."

She ruminated on his words for a while. A member of The Eyes having a traitor as a son, it was just like a judge having a criminal as a child. "So Leonardo was present in the council meeting when his son was given the death sentence?"

Luke spotted the stack of papers she removed the paper clip from and opened the drawer to get another one for it. "He spearheaded the motion. He was the one who insisted Leon got the death penalty." He nodded at Arielle's wide-eyed reaction. "That's how faithful he is. He took The Eyes oath to heart. That's why you shouldn't be surprised about what Maximilian did."

"My grandpa?"

He nodded. "If Leonardo could do that to his own son who was also a Brother to prove his loyalty, why wouldn't your grandfather do it to you who is not even a member of The Family?"

She nodded slowly in understanding before her lips formed a scowl. "That doesn't justify his actions though. Blood is thicker than water. That's the saying, isn't it?"

Luke shrugged and righted all the things she'd scattered on his table. "Not in The Family though. Blood means nothing in The Family. Besides we conquer the issue of blood during the initiation process into The Family."

"How do people get initiated into The Family?"

She quirked her brow at his obvious discomfort at her simple question. "Uhmm, it depends."

She persisted. "On?"

"Whether the father of the person is a member of The Family. When a Brother gives birth to a son, he has the choice of initiating the child from birth or not doing that. Children that are initiated from birth don't do nothing at all to join The Family but adults who want to get initiated need to give a member of their family."

She scrunched her face in confusion at the last statement. "What do you mean give a member of their family?"

He cleared his throat uncomfortably and mumbled his answer. She asked him to repeat it and also had to crane her ears closer to his mouth. "They sacrifice them."

Her shriek of horror made Luke hiss. "What?!!!! They kill their family members??? To join a cult? Human sacrifices? In this century? What is wrong with you people????"

Luke frowned slightly. "The sacrifice just seals their loyalty, their loyalty to their new family."

She stared at him incredulously for a couple seconds. "Wow." That was all she say at that moment.

Luke shrugged. "I might not completely agree with the practice, but it'd been put in place even before my grandfather was born. There's nothing I can do about it."

"Even as the current Chef de famille?"

He nodded. "L'œil est la lumière du corps. Le seigneur n'est qu'un homme. The eye is the light of the body. The lord is only a man." While Luke explained the statement, she tried to recollect where she had seen it. "Although I am Chef de famille, my powers are limited because I'm constricted by the law. The Eyes however, make the law."