What does the text suggest to your about the conflict between personal values and societal values?

I remember my childhood fairly well. I lived in a large mansion out in the country with my parents and many servants. Our lands seemed to stretch for miles and miles, all of it fenced in with a large brick wall and steel front gate and protected by the various guards that my father hired. My father was a very paranoid man, you see. It wasn’t common knowledge (something like this shouldn’t be common knowledge), but he was the head of a mafia organization and felt that the guards were needed to keep the family safe from any of his rivals. Our house usually was home to various members of our family’s organization, from my uncles, godfather and other men who served as my father’s head council to the hitmen and spies that carried information information that needed to be known and my father trusted them enough to stay.
I was the only teenager allowed into the meetings they held at my house. I was the oldest boy my father had. My only two siblings were female and so they couldn’t become the don after my father chose to leave his position. Both of them had married other members of the organization though, because they were part of th efamily and had to keep within the family business. My eldest sister kept many of the records of our family while my other sister had moved back to Italy so she could keep tabs on our people there. That left me as the sole child in our house, not that I minded. I almost always got what I wanted and my opinion was always heard because I was the heir. Except for one thing.
I didn’t want to be part of something so criminal. I watched the news enough with my mother to hear about all the bad things we did. And I sat in meetings so I got to hear them all first hand. So many people I knew well, from my uncle to a couple of my cousins, were killed in this business. My father was responsible for so many innocent people’s deaths. I didn’t want that same burden. I didn’t want to become like him, cold and heartless. But, I didn’t have a choice. It was my birthright.
I was autumn. The first signs of winter had come that morning and covered the outside world. Noon had come and gone, leaving me with a full stomach and nothing to do. I was home schooled and my studies only took place in the morning so I had little else to think of. I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling when one of the maids let herself in. She was elderly, comapred to some of the others, and had been with the family for as long as I could remember. She told me the heads of the council were starting that week’s meeting and my presence was reuqested. I scowled at the ceiling.
“I’m not going.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them. I winced at how childish they must have sounded. She didn’t say a word; she merely slipped out of my room and disappeared down the hall. That wasn’t the end of it though. Ten minutes later, my door was thrown open.
My cousin stood there, dressed in a suit with a loose tie. I could just barely make out the outline of a gun shoved so carelessly into his pocket. His tall, slightly muslced frame seemed to take up most of the doorway from the angle I was at.
“What’s this about you not going?” he asked. His Italian accent was only slightly there in his speech but I could still make it out.
“I don’t want to.” I rolled over on my bed so my back faced him.
“You’re seventeen,” he retorted. “Quite acting like you’re a child and get your sorry ass downstairs now.”
I didn’t reply to that. I knew that would agitate him. He swore under his breath in Italian and crossed my room in a few large strides. Before I knew it, I was flying across my room. I hit the gorund and rolled out of my bedroom door. Dazed, I remained where I was. His arms appeared out of nowhere and lifted me to my feet. I stood there, swaying on the spot. I could feel an immense headache coming on.
“Get moving,” he said, giving me a light push. I listened that time, walking down the hall. I thumped as slowly as I could down the stairs. He passed me, giving me a shove and disappeared into a side room. I followed him in, wary at what I would meet.
My cousin had dropped into a seat at the long table. All the crime bosses seemed to stare at me, unblinking, as I stood awkwardly in the doorway.
“Well, sit down,” my father ordered, taking a puff at his cigar. “You kept us waiting long enough.”
“No,” I argued. I backed myself a little out of the doorway as my father began to glower at me.
“We need to start the meeting,” he insisted, his expression quickly changing to one that was impassive.
“Start it without me,” I replied. “The less I hear, the less I’ll know, and the less involved I’ll be.”
“That’s not how it works. You need to hear everything. It’ll help you when you take over.”
“I won’t be taking over anything.” My voice sounded squeaky rather than defiant. That made me wince. Silence had suddenly filled the room.
“Sit down.” My father’s voice seemed to fill my every being.
“No,” I said again. “I don’t want anything to do with this … this … stupid family business.” I found my last words a little discouraging to my argument from how foolish they sounded, but that was all I could come up with. Everyone’s eyes were still on me and that was making me really nervous.
I heard it before I saw it. The cock of a gun being readied to fire. I shifted my gaze. My cousin stood, the gun that had previously been in his pocket was now pointed at me. I flinched. I should have saw it coming. That was how these people worked after all. It was how they expected me to be.
“Do it,” I challenged. I knew I should have said something like that. I signed my own death card with those words.
“I don’t want to kill you, cousin,” he said. “But if you continue to challenge your place, I’m going to have to.”
“So be it.”