It had been a while since Tyki Mikk had been to the streets to talk. His father had made a few appearances and he simply wanted a way to honour his spirit and discuss something with the respected mafioso that surrounded him.

Tyki was aware of the cliche's but he didn't care, he enjoyed smoking and so he approached the stand and pulled out his pack of cigarettes, lighting one and taking a long drag before looking up towards the sky and blowing out a long plume of smoke. Turning his head to address the crowd, he began to speak.

"My dear Mafioso, I have a subject that I wish to discuss in order to understand the views and opinions of others.

Today's topic is a word which I have always lived by, a word that my father taught me. It's a word which has been passed down for generations in our line and it was always seen as the law. So, I am here to talk about Omerta.

Now, I have recently seen a huge number of occasions where young civilians have been taking to the streets to discuss personal family matters. On certain rarer occasions, it was actually individuals that still belonged to families when running their mouth's. So my question is, has Omerta been completely forgotten? Or do only certain people still live by this code?"

Tyki pauses for a second to take another drag on his smoke before continuing.

"I fully understand that there are scenarios where the young feel this is their only opportunity to discuss the deaths of their loved ones, but it appears to be happening in a way which is extremely disrespectful when considering the world we live in. As an example, if a civilian comes out on the streets and begins to shout out about a certain story, disrespecting the member/s of a well known family, then no authorisation would be required for his death, I would say that they have signed their own death warrant. They are deemed a rat or a snitch and that is how rats are dealt with. If they were family aligned, this duty was obviously fall to their leader to 'clean out the trash'.

So, if you are the individual who wishes to address something, how should it be done? Some may ask this and here is how I respond. Ask yourself, who reports on stories? How does it even work? The answer is, 'The Press'. Information passed to these scumbags usually has a way or surfacing, regardless of whether it be fact or fiction, as they only care about their sales figures."

"The reality of the matter is, you take your secrets to the grave with you. You do not break the code of silence to slander the heads of families in the streets."

"In this world, we are blessed with the opportunity to pass our knowledge onto our children but is this causing the codes of our world to become forgotten?"

He pauses once more, taking another long drag on his smoke before dropping the stub to the floor and putting it out, signalling the end of his speech.

"I am keen to hear the views of others on this."

“You bring a worthwhile subject to our streets, Mr. Mikk. Omertà, like honour and respect are traditional values within the mafia. I believe that within the mansions of most crime families one could still find those values written among their rules. The problem is that they’re are just written, but no longer instilled in the members of our society. We teach our youngsters how to make money, but less often how they should uphold themselves. Perhaps we tell people to be respectful, but not because we care about respect, but we rather don’t want any negative attention.”

“The question is do we need to tell people about these values? Why would a gangster need to know about Omertà if they won’t be privy of too much valuable information anyways. Why teach about respect if one doesn’t come out on the streets? And what does honour in fighting for your family mean if one doesn’t have the skills to fight?”

Rob pauses for a moment, as if he wants people to think about what he said, but it’s really just because a cute bird walks by, distracting him with the gentle sway of her hips.

“Continuing, I think we should tell people about those values. Each associate should get the proper attention that he becomes worthy of sharing information with. They should be shaped into capable fighters with an interest in the community and it’s participants. Our associates should become so valuable that we’d want to instil those values in them. More often than not, the issue is really with veteran bloodlines in our world anyway.”

The crowd scans for another cute bird as Rob pauses again, but this time he really wanted them to think about what he said.

“Often people with a rich ancestry in this world feel entitled to greatness. They feel entitled to loyalty. They feel entitled to preferential treatment. They befriend with the kin of their parents friends. They focus on the injustice done to, or simply deaths of their parents, while neglecting their current chance at success and fortune with their current leader. When the twisted attitude, or the negative focus becomes to obvious there will probably be someone that takes them down.”

“The victims, in their frustration, can often come out to the streets in an attempt to show why they were treated in a wrong manner. In that attempt it’s not uncommon to provide all kinds of information they got their hands on, whether it adds to the case people are making or not. If that happens it’s not shiny at all. For bystanders it can be interesting to learn about new information, but more often the disappointment exists on how childish people can turn out to be.”

“The thing here is that even when people feel they have been removed for the wrong reasons, which might actually be wrong reasons, at some point they slipped and made decisions that put them in a bad light. In this age undying loyalty is less common, thus people will be more wary of each other. Especially the more experienced bloodlines should realise there is no room for error, no room for behaviour that can be misinterpreted. Especially those with all that skill should understand that if they slip… they get taken out.”

“Remember, not being loyal to person A, means someone is probably loyal to someone else, or themselves. If that person is not their direct leader, it would be strange, but it can happen and it’s fully their choice as a person. People should just not expect to stay alive if they show that twisted loyalty, or unmatching agendas, to the wrong people who would expect differently from them.”

Rob smiles in his next pause as he sees some young fella’s actively scanning for another bird, while others try to look intelligent as if they think about his words.

“Back to the topic at hand. The sad thing here is that breaking Omertà by a civilian often means someone got killed by someone they trusted. Sure that hurts, but that person obviously found reason not to trust them back any longer. Really both parties involved should evaluate if it was worth making the choice like they did. Either trusting someone in the first place, which can be a necessity, or showing signs not to be trusted fully.”

Tyki watches on as RobOakheart makes his in-depth speech, trying to figure out exactly who he is looking at each time there is a pause.

Mr Oakheart, firstly please allow me to thank you for taking the time out from your busy HQ activities to share your insight here today. As a well respected member of our community, your opinion is greatly appreciated.

He removes a cigarette from its pack and lights one, spinning his Zippo before placing it back into his pocket.

Now, one thing I would like to stress is that this is not another discussion about what he or she said, there have been enough topics to cover that in recent months. I simply want to talk about whether it should even happen in the first place. Fathers and mothers die, it's part of the life that we must accept when we choose to be involved in a life of crime. My issue is simply the way in which it is dealt with after the incidents have taken place. My Father was shot down in cold blood but I had to accept it and move on, understanding that it simply happens and work my hardest to ensure my father would have been proud of me, not slander his name further. Of course every situation is different and we cannot judge the actions of one against the actions of another.

However, is there a better way to deal with these issues? My question is still on the code of Omerta. When we take a vow of respect and join a family, we are agreeing to put our faith in that leader and trust that they will make the right decisions. If you are allowed access to secret information, then it shows that you are being held in a position of trust and this is even more reason for the code of Omerta to apply to you.

The code represents taking family secrets to the grave. It's something which all mafioso should be proud to do for their leader. It's the ultimate sign of respect in my eyes. There are certain benefits we have in this life as I mentioned before in terms of knowledge being passed down generations, but I feel like that is where the issue lies. I understand there that are times where the emotions of the children are too overwhelming and they feel that they must vent their frustration, but this isn't a playground. When young civilians take to the streets, they are disrespecting some of the most powerful people in this city and that cannot be tolerated.

The saddest part is the long term damage which it can have on reputation. If their ancestor had been a hard worker and did all they could for the family, then perhaps sticking to the code of Omerta would show the greatest respect of all.