Cupid's Arrow hit me hard!

The mother and daughter had the same personality.

After some time, Belinda said, "Liberty is in Jensburg."

"I know."

Caroline was not surprised.

Belinda was taken aback before she let out a self-deprecating laugh. "Oh, right. You have an assistant now. They're really capable. I don't know which ancestor of ours thought of establishing a base to train the best assistants for us.

"I thought you knew nothing. This is good."

After speaking, Belinda drank a few sips of tea. She held onto the cup and leaned against the chair. Then, she turned the chair and had her back face Caroline while she looked outside the window. The city was illuminated.

She said, "I suddenly thought of Tiara's assistant, Patrick. He was competent and even better than my current assistant. Not only that, he had a good personality and looks to match. I saw him often because I was raised by Tiara.

"Time passed, and I found myself falling in love with him. However, the assistants are not allowed to marry or have children because those can become their weakness. Once they have someone else they want to protect, they won't be as loyal to us anymore.

"The only exception is if they married the matriarch and have children with her. That way, they can have children of their own.

"If the matriarch married someone else who isn't her assistant, he'll have to undergo a vasectomy. It prevents the assistants from having a child with other women behind the matriarch's back."

Caroline had no words.

She did not know Darren would have to go through such things in the future.

She felt her ancestors were brutal.

The assistants were orphans with no relatives at all. They were loyal to the matriarchs for their entire lives. However, she could not have imagined they were not allowed to have children of their own. That was unless they married the matriarch...

"Was Patrick Aunt Tiara's husband?"

"No."

Belinda denied it.

"Your aunt didn't have feelings for him."

Belinda liked Patrick, but he did not feel the same for her and simply treated her as a child.

Tiara had trusted him and exempted him from getting a vasectomy. However, he chose to do it himself after Tiara gave birth to her eldest daughter, Audrey Stone.

"Can't these rules be removed, Mom? They're too cruel."

The history of the Fishers went as far back as a century ago. While she had no say in what her ancestors did, it was now the twenty-first century. Such family rules were brutal and unfair to assistants like Darren.

Belinda kept quiet.

As matriarchs, they feared betrayal and the loss of power the most. That was the reason the rules were not abolished.

None of the previous matriarchs had attempted to amend the family rules. They were unlike the Lafayettes from Meadspring, who could easily change their family rules.

That being said, the Lafayettes had also paid a huge price to amend a portion of their family rules.