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And it was all because of the Walias and this man—Vishnu. They all had driven my father to this end. They had destroyed everything. Dad’s last words kept echoing in my head on loop: “My blood will take revenge. My eyes will always be on you.”

‘His blood’… ‘His eyes’… He had meant ‘ME’.

He wanted me to avenge his death. That day, I swore that I would destroy them. Every single one of them. And I would begin with the one who pushed my father to the brink, leaving him with no way out. The one my father had called the Walia’s watchdog—Vishnu!

Dad’s dream had died today, but from its ashes, a new dream was born—a dream of vengeance, of making the Walias pay for every drop of my father’s blood spilled on that floor.

They probably didn’t know about me yet. They didn’t know that Qureshi’s legacy lived on in his son.

I couldn’t even perform his last rites. Couldn’t say goodbye. Couldn’t tell the world that the man they were about to crucify in the media was more than just a political scandal.

Back in New York, I locked myself in my room for days. My mom tried to coax me out, but how could I explain to her that every time I closed my eyes, I saw that scene play out before me again and again? Vishnu’s smug face. Dad’s desperation. The gun. The blood.

My phone buzzed incessantly with news updates, each headline more damning than the last.

‘Traitor in the NEP Party Exposed: Qureshi’s Dirty Secrets Come to Light.’

‘Failed Assassination Attempt on Pratap Walia Shocks the Political World.’

‘Qureshi’s Corruption: From Money Laundering to Murder.’

‘The Fall of a Politician: Uncovering Qureshi’s Ties to Smuggling and Human Trafficking.’

‘Was Qureshi Behind More Assassinations? Media Questions Past Murder Attempts.’

‘Pratap Walia Escapes Deadly Attack—Bodyguard Hero Foils Deadly Plot.’

‘A Corrupt Politician’s Dramatic End: The Truth Behind Qureshi’s Suicide.’

The reports were relentless, each new revelation dragging my father’s name deeper through the mud. They painted him as a monster, a man who would kill, exploit, and manipulate to climb to the top. They dug into everything—his ties with smuggling rings, the human trafficking networks he allegedly backed to fund his campaigns, and the offshore accounts linked to his name.

The media spun the narrative, questioning whether the attempt on Pratap Walia’s life was truly his first—or merely the one that had been exposed. Had there been others in the past? Unanswered disappearances, unexplained deaths of political rivals? They speculated endlessly, connecting dots that might not even exist, all to dismantle the legacy he had built.

Each accusation felt like a personal attack. But I wasn’t blind to the truth—I knew my father wasn’t a saint. He had to forge dark alliances and play the dirtiest of games to survive and thrive in the treacherous world of politics.

So what if he laundered money? So what if he made deals with smugglers or traffickers? So what if lives were destroyed along the way? He did it all to survive. To keep his ambitions alive.

They called his actions unforgivable sins. But to me, those weren’t crimes—they were the marks of a man who refused to kneel, who refused to let the system break him. They were the marks of survival, of ambition, of the sacrifices necessary to build a legacy and seize power.

And no matter what the world thought of him, no matter how loudly they shouted the word ‘suicide,’ I knew the truth.

It wasn’t suicide.

It was murder.

And Vishnu Walia was the murderer.

The world could call it whatever they wanted, but I knew better. My father’s death wasn’t an act of cowardice—it was a carefully calculated result, driven by Vishnu’s relentless provocation. He pushed him. Cornered him. Tore away every ounce of my father’s dignity and left him no choice but to pull that trigger.

Pushing a man to the brink and forcing them to take their own life is still murder. And for that, Vishnu would have to pay.

No amount of time or distance could change that fact. No amount of righteousness in his actions could erase what he had done. He took my father away from me, and for that, I would make him suffer.

***************

Six months after his death, people had already forgotten about him. But I couldn’t forget. The rage simmered within me, turning my blood to acid. At university, I picked fights, violent ones. One day, during a casual debate, someone dared to call my father a criminal, a ‘disgrace to politics.’ I saw red. Before I even realised it, my fists were pummelling the guy’s face. I beat him so savagely that it took three men to pull me off him. He was hospitalised for weeks, and I came dangerously close to being expelled.

But I didn’t care. My anger was justified. I was his son, after all—a Qureshi.