The laptop yielded more than the endgame plan. It yielded the full architecture of Ajay Kulkarni's obsession.
The cyber cell spent forty-eight hours extracting and cataloguing every file. What emerged was a portrait of a mind that was simultaneously methodical and unhinged — a mechanical engineer's precision applied to a mission born from grief and rage.
Ajay had spent two years preparing. Two years of studying Priya's cases, mapping her routines, building relationships with people who had grievances against the police investigation system. Dev Sir had been one of many contacts, but the only one who'd been foolish enough to engage. Others had dismissed Ajay as unstable, obsessive, a young man who needed therapy, not revenge.
Among the files was a folder titled "CASE 6 — TIWARI." Manoj Tiwari — the journalist found hanging in his office. The case that Priya believed was a murder staged as suicide but couldn't prove.
Ajay's research on the Tiwari case was more extensive than any of the others. He'd obtained copies of Tiwari's unpublished articles, his email correspondence, his source files. And in those files, Priya found something that made her sit very still for a very long time.
Manoj Tiwari, in the months before his death, had been investigating a network of real estate developers who were using a private security firm to intimidate residents in redevelopment zones across Mumbai. The intimidation had escalated to arson, assault, and at least one suspicious death. Tiwari's notes identified the security firm as "ShieldForce Solutions," and his emails contained correspondence with a source inside ShieldForce who'd been feeding him information.
The source was anonymous. But the emails referenced specific details about Crime Branch operations — details that could only come from someone inside the department. Tiwari had been killed before he could publish, and his laptop had been wiped. The investigation had been steered toward suicide by — Priya checked the original case file — by ACP Sanjay Deshmukh.
Her current superior.
Priya read the emails three times. Then she locked the laptop in her office safe and told no one. Not Vikram. Not Rajan. Not Deshmukh himself, for obvious reasons. If Deshmukh had steered the Tiwari investigation toward a suicide ruling to protect himself — or to protect the network Tiwari was exposing — then Priya's entire chain of command was compromised.
She was now investigating two things simultaneously: a serial copycat killer who wanted to destroy her life, and a potential corruption scandal that reached into the highest levels of her own department.
And she had to do it while keeping her daughter alive.
She moved Ananya to her parents' house in Pune. This time, there were no arguments. Ananya had seen the look on her mother's face — the look of a woman staring at a document that described the kidnapping of her child — and had packed her bag without a word.
At the train station, Ananya hugged her mother for longer than she had in years. Priya held on, memorizing the feel of her daughter's arms, the smell of her shampoo, the heartbeat against her own chest.
