He smiles as DanTheMan approaches him, handing him a glass of whisky.
With a grateful nod he takes it. Taking a few sip he gestures at the empty seat across from him. 

"Have a seat", he states, his voice is gritty and worn.
The two sit in silence for a moment before DanTheMan clear his throat... "You look troubled" he remarks, while loosening his tie a bit.
"Troubled?" he responds with a shrewd laugh.
A look of distaste passes through his eyes, "You don't even know half of it brother", Starscream replied.

- "Do you wanna talk about it?" DanTheMan says, lighting up a cigarette and taking a drag.
- "Yeah. sure, maybe I'll talk about it... See, I was thinking about my family secrets.

DanTheMan visibly became uncomfortable. Starscream chuckled.

- "What, you think I'm an idiot? Not my family's secrets. My family's secrets. You know? Mom, dad, siblings?

DanTheman lets out a sigh of relief.
Starscream continues;

- "There's something my father always used to say that never really made sense to me... until recently.
The words are burned into my mind.
Sometimes I hear them late at night when I'm laying in bed, trying to sleep.
It echoes through my head like an internal alarm clock; and with it, this horrible memory floats to the front of my subconscious; 


Family always comes first.


"My father always said that to me when I was very young, and used to sit next to him in the couch next to the fireplace.
Every night he would tell me a story, damn he loved telling his stories.
And just before the moral he would gently take his hand and tap my cheek lightly. "Family my son... Family always comes first."

I'll admit I never really quite understood what that meant at the time.
To me 'family' was my Father, my Mother and my two younger siblings.
Never did I think his biggest piece of advice had more weight to it than I originally gathered.
Never did I think that his advice would be the very words that would shatter our household into pieces.

I knew from a very young age that my father was part of the "mob".
My brothers and I were never allowed to know the ins and outs of it, but we had a crash course few years later, an incident that caused me to grow up fast.


At the time of the incident I was 10 years old.
I was walking home from school with the son of my neighbour.
When we parted and I came to the front door of our house I almost immediately sensed that something was wrong.
I remember that it was dark and silent inside, and creaks from footsteps echoing over my head.
Someone was in the house.

He pauses to take a sip of his glass, then takes a deep breath and continues...

I walked towards my parents bedroom at the end of the hall.
Part of me wanted to turn around and run out of the house, but for whatever reason, I couldn't. 

Their bedroom door was open.
My Daddy was there, sitting on the edge of the bed, wiping a red substance off the end of a kitchen knife with a hand towel .
Beyond him on the floor, I could partially see bare legs adorned with high heels I knew those high heels.

As soon as my Father became aware of my presence, he stood up quickly, dropping the knife and striding over.
Before I knew it his hand was on my arm, he shoved me back into the hallway and shut the door behind him.

He put his arms around me in a hug. "It's okay. It's alright," he kept whispering.
"Why?" I asked while crying.

"Family my son".
My Father had murdered my Mother and he felt no remorse. 
"Family always comes first, my son, remember that"

The same words he had spoken to me many, many times before suddenly took on a more twisted and grotesque meaning.
We, his flesh and blood, were not his family.
Those people, the people we called Uncle and who came to our house, they were his real family.

I didn't want to understand back then, hell I didn't even try to understand. Yet the older I get the more I realize... my father was right.
He knew.
This life means that family, the ones you pledge your loyalty... it's them that will always come first.
Since joining this thing of ours I've thought back several times to that day.

My Father killed my mother in cold blood for his family.
When you decide to give yourself to this place, you literally give all of yourself. Even your heart.

And even though I've been burdened with that thought for years... It was the best piece of wisdom he I ever passed on to me.

His heart felt heavy as he took another sip from his whisky.
Watching people walking up and down the street for a moment he mumbled once more: Family always comes first.

What if what's best for the family is for you to kill yourself and ban your children from following this way of life? Would you actually sacrifice yourself and your children for any reason if it was what's "best" for the family? Even if that reason is to keep a rival who has shown no signs of attacking happy?

Despite this being a direct conflict between self preservation and obeying and carrying out orders, if a decree of this sort was issued by the Head of the family, requiring that I had to put an end to my own life for the best of the family, then so be it.

I would of course ask about whether the decision was based on an error on my side or something else, the crew being out-numbered and out-gunned and my death would guarantee it's existence.

I can however not ban my offspring from choosing their own paths of life.

You could by slaughtering all of your children before taking your own life :D

A man who kills himself is usually considered sick in the brain, a man who kills his children is usually a monster. My points is just that there is nobility in giving as much as you can and are willing to to the family, but only if the family lives up to what you're giving it :D

Nothing has unlimited value :D

I have to agree with starscream... the world that we chose to be in is not like the world around us. Our world has a different definitions to a lot of words. Where honor for others would mean living an upright life...for us honor means living by your word even if it would mean lying to your family. Now family also means a lot different for us. A family for the outside world would mean a mother, father a son or daughter...here..when we speak of family we pertain to our crew.

This world we live in may provide us with wealth...but this world is a world of violence too. While I believe that organizations like ours are created for business purposes...sometimes using violence is needed to protect our assets. And survival of organizations like ours greatly depends on loyalty from its members. So yes....there are orders that may be hard for us to swallow but have to be followed.

So you would willingly kill yourself and all of your children for your family?

Maybe not willingly...but I can assure you if my boss will order it....it will be done.  That is the way of life we have chosen. If you're not prepared to live by it then you might have made a mistake of joining the wrong club.

I didn't join to blindly follow orders as long as it's for the family and I don't trust any man who pretends to. If you joined a killers club for a reason other than a chance at a better life you're seriously twisted in the head. I heard things like blind trust are starting to make headway in Germany, yeah they're bouncing back economically and militarily but I still don't like the vibe I'm getting from blindly following orders coming from over there.

I believe a member would have made a decision that the goals of a crew he or she will be joining are in congruent with his or her own goals. Hence I don't see blind obedience in following orders from the upper structure. Now there are times I guess, that the crew's direction will differ from the personal goals and so we see some retiring and even sometimes going rouge. The once powerful Bonano crime family was taken over not by rival crime family...but by one of their own under boss.

And how can anyone know what the crew will and will not have to make decisions on? I don't have a crystal ball, so I won't pretend my leader convinced me he would always do things I can agree with or stand by because I'm sure by now he knows I would leave if he ever did do something of the sort and I won't willingly kill myself in the process of leaving, and that's what keeps the Dons of our world in check, the fact that most people will do what's best for themselves in the end.

As for the Bonanno family, I'm sure that said underboss was also likely claiming loyalty and shouldn't have been blindly trusted.

So.....ted, this is you saying that if your life depended on it, you wouldn't hesitate to turn your back on Don N4G? Sweet. What rank are you,mate? Just curious.

If I stood to gain more from leaving than staying I'd do so, I'm a Capo because I've proven loyalty through work and worked to get trust to not do so lightly :D

Not promising to blindly follow isn't the same as not being loyal, if there were more benefits to leaving than to remaining loyal then I would leave if I could but I wouldn't do so quietly either because my leader has proven to be worth putting my own faith into and I would owe him that at the least for what he's done so far. That being said there are many costs and benefits beyond survival so if a situation where the circumstances came about I would and I'm sure he'd assume I would. I wouldn't leave midwar because I assume that's the other side trying to get me to put my gun down and wait to be a plus one unless I thought the war was really over which is circumstantial so just saying there might be circumstances where I'd leave doesn't make it likely it just means they exist :D

that's what keeps the Dons of our world in check, the fact that most people will do what's best for themselves in the end

Dana steps from between her bodyguards, having heard the men speak and deciding to weigh in on this as it was an important thing to her.

"I'm afraid I have to agree with Mr. Starscream here about following difficult orders. Perhaps, what 'keeps the Dons in check' is the fact they have been round for awhile and know what is going on in the world far better then those below them. They are 'in the loop' as it were with politics, and events far more then those below them could hope to be and thus, shouldn't their decisions carry the weight of their rank? If you jump ship, not only are you going to be seen as disloyal its certainly not going to be an act of self preservation. The first chance that Don gets they are going to walk up behind you and put one in the head, two in the chest for the betrayal of leaving them over an order you didn't want to follow. This isn't a matter of "I'm going to walk away because I don't like what my boss ordered me to do'. You 'know too much' to be allowed to just walk away and just like the real mafia those Dons you spoke of know how to get rid of people who know too much and aren't of any use any more. Once you join a family and get a little rank under your belt you are there for better or worse and its far better to be killed fighting for ones family then be seen as someone who jumped out when things got bad to save themselves. I'd go so far as to say your children will be looked on immeasurably better if you stuck it out to the end and died on orders rather then leave for something you disagreed with. In this case, 'I was following orders' is the right answer.

With that Dana turned on a heel and stepped back amongst her guards to continue listening.

Ted, let's turn the tables on your question and ask you this:

If you were leading a family, would there ever be a scenario were you were forced to ask/order a member to kill himself? (or to be prepared to be HQed)
Would you expect your orders to be carried out or questioned?
Or would you allow that member to leave your family?
I personally don't think that a sane leader would throw one of their members under the bus without the family safety being part of the primary reasons.

There is always two sides to this phrase; Family always comes first.
It could also mean that the head of a family is forced into retirement, from within, due to their incompetence and lack of leadership, to save the family.

 

Not promising to blindly follow isn't the same as not being loyal, if there were more benefits to leaving than to remaining loyal then I would leave if I could but I wouldn't do so quietly either

It is exactly that, to show complete and constant support, that's the definition of loyalty.
But as mentioned in my previous post; family doesn't necessary always equals the crewleader, an incompetent CL ought to be removed IF the family can be remain safe... Something that has been done previously by a GF (Removing a CL unfit of leadership)

...Because my leader has proven to be worth putting my own faith into and I would owe him that at the least for what he's done so far. 

Exactly WHEN do you choose put your faith into your leader? Does it have a ON/OFF switch? When the odds are on your favour? or when things doesn't look look so good?

I DO understand when you say that you wouldn't follow someone blindly, loyalty also requires having respect for your CL but having been with someone for such a long time in order to obtain the rank of Capo must mean that he/she did a good job as a CL, which made you stay, wear the family tag and even take the MM auth.
That's one of the reasons why one is asked if one will FULLY commit to the family and its business upon taking the Made Man auth.
 

Of course you have...you've proven loyalty?Sweet. Like how you just said that if you stood to gain, you would leave? That's a symbol of your loyalty? 

That's a symbol that I won't pretend to follow every order or any leader blindly, Alex. You can pretend it means other things if you wish but it doesn't and I think you just are incapable of actually reading, you just scan for phrases you don't agree with without trying to understand their meaning in context. :D

Dana, if you truly would kill yourself and ban your children to follow orders every time then I feel bad for you :D

Dons lead crews to have more power, and the ability to refuse an order is what keeps their orders from getting too crazy. As I said earlier I wouldn't leave lightly, not sure why you think I need to be reminded what happens when you leave but if death is better than following an order and I'm too drunk to try to negotiate safe passage into another family I guess I might just leave randomly.

This isn't a matter of 'I'm going to walk away because I don't like an order my boss told me to do.' This is a matter of me taking care of myself and not pretending I value anything so much I'd intentionally hurt myself more than it helps me to keep it because I'm not gonna lie about my intentions :D

You say it's far better to be killed fighting, that is your choice. Is it better to die fighting over a Pick Pocket incident though? Why can't we draw a line? :D

My children could be better looked after, or the opposing side could remember the people their father killed or helped kill while following those orders. Not sure why you still think I'd turn so quickly in a war because I admit there might be circumstances where I turn, but I probably wouldn't. :D

Starscream, I have seen people give that order :D

A time long ago, but not too long ago Crew Leaders commonly asked their members to commit suicide so that their children with better vision could join the family. Some people would do it despite not wanting to, I'm saying that I wouldn't do it :D

I would honestly hope that every order that wasn't straight forward was questioned, otherwise they might not only disagree with it but they might not understand it. Questions are a good thing :D

I wouldn't hold people against their will and so long as it was handled properly I would let people leave and even then sometimes I wouldn't be able to stop them from leaving (too busy warring and such) :D

My point was that it's never okay to sacrifice an innocent member but there are and have been situations where it could be what's best for the family and they did for a retirement or put the man down. :D

There are no two sides when it comes to opinion based questions, there are always many shades of gray inbetween black and white :D

Loyalty isn't showing complete and constant support no matter what, that's blind loyalty. Loyalty comes with certain circumstances set by the person being loyal :D

My faith in a person does have an ON/OFF switch. When they stop being worth the trouble it takes to maintain that faith :D

You say you understand, but that's what ALWAYS putting family first is, blind loyalty to some person or group. The word ALWAYS is the part that makes it blind. As for whether or not one has to fully commit, all I have to say is no one has a crystal ball so no one can tell if they'll hold true to what you believe is the way you believe they agreed to act. That's why the process should be more about the work and what the member has to offer the leader :D

Thank you for debating with me Mr. Starscream, I disagree but you have clearly read what I wrote in context and it's nice to have a discussion like this :D

Ah brilliant. So now I am incapable of reading,am I? AWESOME.

How about you answer the question(s)? Stop trying to deviate from what I have asked you.

Would you or would you not leave if you believed that you stood to gain something? It's a simple question. Answer it and then maybe I'll take your act seriously.

I did answer the question. I just answered one part of it later and previously so I didn't feel you deserved a response because you weren't listening :D