Mike Rotch stepped onto the wooden crate, the old soapbox creaking beneath his weight. The streets, once bustling with life and the murmur of illicit dealings, had grown eerily silent. Storefronts were shuttered, neon signs flickering weakly like dying stars, and the air carried the weight of something rotten, something beyond the stench of back-alley garbage and cheap liquor.

He cleared his throat and let his voice boom across the street.

"Gather around, folks! Come closer! Mafiosi of our world, I have a question for you: how far are you willing to go for the illusion of leadership?”

A few heads turned. Some ignored him, hands stuffed into coat pockets, eyes darting elsewhere. But curiosity was a powerful thing. Whispers spread, and one by one, people in bold suits and trench coats began to gather. 

"Ladies and gentlemen," he continued, his voice thick with conviction, "I know that many of your forefathers were leaders. Perhaps you aspire to be one yourself, or once did. That’s the way of things in our world, isn’t it? Leaders command, they build, they protect. They nurture their families, their cities. They inspire us. Or at least, that’s how it used to be.”

A murmur rippled through the growing crowd. Some nodded. Others crossed their arms, their expressions unreadable.

"Let’s not kid ourselves,” Mike pressed on. "There have always been good leaders and bad ones. But nothing, NOTHING compares to what we’ve seen in the past two - one and a half years. What we have now is the most pathetic crop of so-called leaders this world has ever seen. Leadership has lost its meaning. It’s become nothing more than a commodity to be sold, a cheapened thing. A handful of power-hungry men pull the strings while the rest of you dance like puppets.”

His gaze swept across the crowd, searching for familiar faces, for those who wore their bold suits like badges of honor but had long since surrendered their dignity.

"So I ask you, is it worth it?” His voice rose, cutting through the night. "Is it worth prostituting yourselves for a mere bold suit? Is it worth staining your own legacy, tarnishing your careers, surrendering your honor, for what? A false sense of power? A headquarters fortified like a fortress, yet offering protection to no one?”

He let the silence stretch and then his voice took on an edge of mockery, his lips curling in contempt.

"And I direct this next part to you, the so-called leaders who are not part of Mokus and SpikeS’s little jerk-off club. Yes, you. How much lower will you sink? How much longer will you whore yourselves out for a seat at a table that was never meant for you? You taint your own legacies, drag your names through the mud, sell your souls for what? A sliver of power? A false promise of control? You think you’re leaders?" He scoffed. "You’re leashed dogs, taking whatever scraps your masters see fit to toss your way."

A hush fell over the crowd, thick and suffocating. Some men clenched their jaws. Others shifted uncomfortably. But no one spoke.

"I see leaders ordering the deaths of many of their own men just to save their own skins. I see them standing idly by as outsiders execute their own family members. Without warning, without retribution. Leaders from one city dictating the fate of another, as if that’s just how things are supposed to be."

His voice hardened, cutting deeper with each word.

"Mafiosi are being slaughtered younger and younger, all in this paranoid, desperate grasp to maintain the status quo. But what status quo?" He gestured to the streets, to the emptiness surrounding them. "The streets have never been this empty. The cities have never been this lifeless. Every day, our numbers shrink. And what do we see? A mass exodus, people fleeing back to the Old Country in droves, like we’ve never seen before."

He took a step forward, locking eyes with those in the crowd who still had the nerve to meet his gaze.

"Is this the legacy you want to leave behind?" His voice was quieter now, but no less sharp. "Because let me tell you something. We won’t forget. And when the time comes, when this house of cards collapses, when the strings of the puppets finally snap… we’ll remember who sold their souls for a handful of crumbs."

Mike Rotch smiled grimly.

"How far will you go to be someone else’s puppet?"

And with that, he stepped down, leaving the question hanging in the cold night air.

It is not worth it to be a leader. Why would one spend hundreds of millions just to be killed by your own godfather? I’ll squirrel my tens of millions for another time. 
 

They demand loyalty but clearly demonstrate a laughingly low amount themselves. Hypocrites, they are. 

Threats are constant and loyalty is scarce, exactly what is it you'd differently if you assumed power? The fact you've already made a thinly veiled threat of future retribution doesn't bode well for change you so desperately seek.

Mr Rotch, with your interpretation of this world you’ve painted a grim picture, your rhetoric is impassioned I'll give you that, but it so conveniently distorts the everyday reality most of us are living. 

Yes, the leadership continues to evolve but have you considered that change does not have to mean decay and your adaptation does not necessarily mean surrender? You'd have us believe that our leaders have sold their souls, that they are nothing but "leashed dogs" but to me leadership is not about grandstanding or empty words shouted into the night, it is about the quiet and often unglamorous decisions that keep the families safe and the cities running. The fortress walls you speak of aren't built to shut people out, they're built to keep our world standing.

You speak of dignity and honour, yet I see no dignity in these relentless attacks, no honour in sowing the seeds of discord among us.

Be the change you want to see, set aside your anger that's consuming you, use your intellect to navigate this world for the betterment of the people you want to enlighten, prove you're capable of stability and politically astute enough to pick your battles because the truth is it's tiresome when you're offering no clear solutions and only condemnation towards the hierarchy.

To those encouraged by Mike's words, I say this, choose wisely, his path of destruction is easy to follow, but when the dust settles are these the people you want leading this world, those that only seek to divide?

First of all, Mike, you've done an excellent job in getting your name out there, so credit where it is due. A well-heeled street presence is one of the keys to success around here and I'm very pleased that you've embraced this and thrust yourself into the limelight so boldly. 

Would I have preferred it if my alpha associate hadn't referred to Mokus and SpikeS's little jerk-off club and every other leader as a puppet or leashed dog? Probably. But what can I say? You've got fire burning in your belly and I'm even feeling a bit vicariously toasty as a result. Is choice language going to make me reprimand my man? Of course not. We're all grown ups here after all, fighting the good fight for our mafia vampire leaders. I didn't claw my way to being an eight day old Wise Guy by flinching away from a bit of crude discourse and I wouldn't expect one of my posse to either. 

To the matter at hand then, is it worth it being a leader if someone else's hand is up your arse? I guess that depends how you feel about having your bum tickled. If you prefer tolerating it to being dead, then I guess you have to go along with it. Dress it up in a pretty protection glove with a lot of self-preservation lube on it, and I guess it might even be tolerable after awhile. ChopChop's making the best of it and who can blame them? Personally though, I feel there is a much more enjoyable middle ground that could be struck which requires a lot less wanton destruction, but does need a lot more effort and diligence, which is sorely lacking by this time in the show. 

"Mr. ChopChop, both you and I know that things don’t have to be the way they are today. They were different in the past, and they will be different again in the future. Purge-free regimes have existed before and will exist again. GFCs that governed their cities with autonomy, looking after what they believed to be in their best interest, have existed before and will exist again."

Mike Rotch took a step forward, his voice steady but laced with conviction.

"I've read about them in my family's journals, and I'm certain you've read about them in yours as well. These are not mere fantasies of mine, and they are certainly not scenarios that I have painted. After all, what am I but a mere thug? Promising, of course, but still just a thug. I am not a painter of any pictures, grim or otherwise. I am simply an observer, and I describe things as I see them."

He let a moment of silence hang in the air before continuing, his gaze locking onto ChopChop.

"However, with all due respect, Mr. Chop - may I call you that? - it seems to me that you are the one trying to paint a picture here. A narrative in which my speech is the force dividing people. A world where my words hold more power than weapons, where my so-called 'attacks' sow discord. My words! And not the dozens of lives cut short under this regime, with little to no justification. It is fascinating, truly, how you manage to twist the mere recognition of a fact into something worse than the fact itself."

Mike let out a slow breath, shaking his head slightly before turning to face another figure in the crowd.

"And as for you, Mr. SixPoundSoulCals," he smirked, "with every passing minute, I feel more certain that I made the right choice in becoming your associate. We are on the right path to making Demonic Shadows the greatest and most powerful vampire mafia family this world has ever seen."

His words hung in the air, a mixture of challenge and certainty, as he looked upon the gathered crowd.

Mr. Rotch, unlike Phil's officer, I see hypocrisy is alive and well.

I do indeed believe words and ideas hold more danger than a weapon, I think you will agree and have probably experienced quite a few violent experiences in your recent bloodline but as you know, these experiences are often temporary whereas this current view of the leadership appears to be persisting for generations which is perhaps contributing to the policies you decry so tactfully. 

You speak of the past as though it were a golden age, as though there was some utopian model we simply strayed from, but let's not rewrite history, those "purge-free regimes" you long for? They were not free of bloodshed, they were not free of corruption, of ambition, of the same struggles we face today. You mourn your fallen brethren but fail to mention that many of them fell with blood on their hands, or at least the intention of causing.

Our friend from Chicago isn't wrong, I am making the best of it, I believe it's our responsibility to work to maintain this world we're living in, whereas your words seem intent on unravelling it. You speak of change as though it is inevitable, as though the mere weight of your convictions will bend reality to your will but let me remind you, change is not something that simply happens, it is forced by those strong enough to shape it and when that moment comes, words will not be enough, however rousing they may be.

So, tell me, Mr. Rotch, when the time comes to do more than talk, when the weight of your so-called truth demands more than speeches, what do you hope to see?

Beautifully said, like a dynamite near fire! Ambition will unravel all men and streets will run red.

"Mr. ChopChop, at no point have I attempted to paint a different reality from the one we live in. We are all criminals here. We kill, we steal, we traffic, we conspire. That is the nature of our world, and no one is denying it, certainly not me, despite how cleverly you try to make it seem otherwise."

He let the words hang in the cold air for a moment, then took a slow step to the side, his eyes never leaving the man he was addressing.

"The point is, even within the cruel and violent nature of our business, there were still times of prosperity. There were times when it wasn’t necessary to execute a handful of people every single week, week after week, in a desperate attempt to eliminate a few perceived enemies. The very people who now rule with an iron fist (paranoid, grasping desperately for control over an ever-dwindling population) were once able to work, to live long lives, and even thrive under regimes led by those they now call their mortal enemies."

Mike shook his head, a humorless chuckle escaping his lips.

"You ask me what I want to see, when the time comes, Mr. ChopChop. That’s an easy question to answer. I want to see activity. I want to see leaders who truly care for their members. I want to see fresh faces, not the same ones being authed over and over again, bringing nothing new, no shift in direction. I want to see war survivors, men and women who died fighting for their families, with blood on their hands as you said, not being treated like rogues, their memories tarnished and discarded. I want to see new people given a chance, without being cornered and slaughtered simply because they don’t have a long and satisfactory enough list of ancestors deemed acceptable for them to be allowed to live."

He let out a breath, the tension in the air thick enough to cut with a blade. Then, he tilted his head slightly, fixing his gaze back on ChopChop.

"But enough about me. What about you, Mr. ChopChop, what do you expect from this world? Let me propose a little thought exercise. Think back to the last times when people cried out so desperately to the Gods that they had no choice but to intervene in our ordinary lives. Think of all the Disorder this world has witnessed in the past. How different was it then?"​

Mike let out a small, knowing smirk, shaking his head slightly before delivering his final words.

"There lies your hypocrisy."​​​

I would go to no extend to be someone else's puppet. I've never been one who follows, or lead. I have my own path in this world and I am content with my lot in this life.

As far as wanting the fancy suits, I would not even consider it under this reign. Why? I have a weird sense of loyalty where i could never demand from anyone else that I would not protect with my life. I guess I am a different breed around these parts. I could not be like Mr. Gambino knowing my leader would be slaughtered and say/do nothing while I sit back and watch the blood shed. Nor could I ever entertain someone walking up and asking me to slaughter one of my own just for their line. It would never work out and I would be dead in a heartbeat.

Fake loyalty, self preservation seems to be the goal for many in those fancy suits (even the hands it seems). I am just not built to waste people's time or efforts by pretending to be something I am not.

So basically under this current crop of "leaders" it is not something I would entertain.I'll however watch them and their super small, not really growing cities as they are more intent to kill their own families off.