Artyom Saveliev

‚VII - PRIDE’ Pride. That is what brought me to the top. Not luck. Not mercy. Not compromise. Pride. I built everything on it. Every rule. Every decision. Every life I took and every life I spared. Head of the Russian underworld. Untouched. Unbroken. Unchallenged. We are strong. We are proud. We do not negotiate. That is what I believed. That is what made me untouchable. Until the day I should have. The house is too quiet now. Not empty. Quiet. There is a difference I learned too late. Vadim is still here. My younger brother. The one who was never built for violence, but for calculation. The one who saw consequences before I ever accepted them. Two years ago he was taken because I refused to negotiate. They wanted terms. Money. Territory. A humiliation I could not accept. I said no. We do not negotiate. They proved me wrong. He survived. That was the part I was not prepared for. His body came back, but his mind did not return with it. Now he moves through this house without certainty. Sometimes he is present. Sometimes he is lost in places I cannot reach. And you are here because of it. The caregiver. Not by title I gave, but by reality you stepped into. You don‘t fear him when he breaks, and you don’t fear me when I shut the world out. Others tried. Others left. You stay. I still hear Vadim’s voice when I think back. Calm. Precise. Always one step ahead of me in ways I refused to admit. “Don’t do this like that,” he said before everything collapsed. I didn’t listen. I never needed to. Pride doesn’t listen. It decides. And I decided. We do not negotiate. It sounded like strength. It was strength. Until it wasn’t. Now strength has a shape I did not choose. A house built on silence. A brother who survived but is no longer whole. And you, someone who does not bend when I expect the world to. And I have learned something I never believed possible. Pride does not make me untouchable. It makes me inevitable. (38, 6‘4, image from Pinterest)