black Mercedes tears through the midnight darkness as three motorcycles closes in behind it. Gunfire erupts. A final bullet strikes the driver, and the now uncontrolled car veers off the road, flips down a slope, and bursts into flames. A phone rings. Over the low growl of motorcycle engines, a calm voice says, “It’s done.”
An hour later, Brijesh Khosla, owner of Khosla Industries, is jolted awake by a call from Inspector Rathod.
“Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour,” the inspector says. “A black Mercedes registered to your son Piyush has been found completely burnt. There was a body inside… charred beyond recognition. Villagers reported hearing continuous gunfire before the crash.”
Shaken to the core, Brijesh rushes out of his room, calling for Bahadur, the family’s trusted helper. His voice echoes through the house, drawing everyone from the first floor to the balcony in alarm.
“Has Piyush come home?” he asks, breathless.
Nimmi, Piyush’s wife, comes running down the stairs, her terrified “No!” filling the hall.
When Brijesh finally manages to speak, his words freeze the room. Piyush’s car had been chased, shot at, and found burnt with a single body inside. Nirmala, his wife, nearly collapses. Nimmi turns pale, trembling in the arms of Piyu, his elder daughter in law. Ayush, his elder son, tries to steady the moment, but Brijesh’s hollow voice delivers the final blow, Piyush wasn’t at the farmhouse either.
With the son of a powerful industrialist missing, the police intensify their investigation, every second now carries weight.
Ten hours after the police reported Piyush’s car had gone up in flames, a sudden call jolted Pandara Police Station. A distorted voice said, “Piyush left in the car… he was in the back seat. His driver was at the wheel… and another man with a hood sat in front. They left Moonlight Manor at 1:15 a.m.”
Before the officer could respond, he snapped, “Hello? Who is this?” The line went dead.
He ran straight to Inspector Rathod, who exploded, “Why wasn’t the recorder on?” They dialled the number back. The automated voice replied, “This number does not exist.”
Three people had been in that car as per the caller. Only one body was found. Where were the other two? One was presumably Piyush. But who was the third man?
When the police informed Brijesh, a flicker of relief crossed his face, at least Piyush hadn’t been driving. But the relief vanished instantly. If his son wasn’t behind the wheel, then where had he gone? No other body had been found anywhere near the wreckage.
The uncertainty rattled Brijesh to the core. The entire family hovered between hope and dread.
Moonlight Manor confirmed Piyush had been there that night. The owner said Piyush arrived around 10 p.m., went straight to his private room, and later allowed a hooded, masked man inside, someone no one could identify. Piyush left around 1:15 a.m., heavily intoxicated, practically carried out by two bouncers. The owner hadn’t seen who drove him away.
When asked if Piyush had a secretary or caretaker who usually accompanied him, Brijesh said no. The presumed dead driver was Ganesh, the chauffeur who drove Piyush most days.
As hours passed, the search intensified. Meanwhile, the media pounced. Old scandals resurfaced that very day, women’s testimonies, drunken brawls, drug cases, hit and run allegations, arrests followed by quick bail. Brijesh had always shielded his son with money, influence, and silence. Even now, he paid heavily to keep fresh stories from exploding across the news cycle. But the truth was already public property. To the world, Piyush was a spoiled heir, a stain on the Khosla name. And now, with him missing, every buried controversy clawed its way back into the spotlight.
Next day night after the first mysterious call, the silence at Pandara Police Station shattered again but this time, the call didn’t hit the landline. It went straight to Inspector Rathod’s personal mobile.
No one had expected that. Every number had been rerouted to official lines. Yet the caller bypassed everything.
The voice on the other end was fast: “The man with the hood… he’s dead. You’ll find his body under Beasant Bridge.” The line clicked off.
Rathod dialled back instantly. Again, the cold message: “This number does not exist.”
His jaw tightened. Three people had been in that car. Only one body was found. Now another corpse supposedly lay under a bridge. And more importantly, where was Piyush?
The newly discovered body was shockingly easy to identify. The man had been on the police radar for years, wanted for murders, rapes, money laundering. A right hand man of a major underworld don.
Which only deepened the mystery. How could someone so dangerous be killed so effortlessly and left out in the open, almost staged for discovery? Was he truly the same man who sat in Piyush’s car that night? Was Piyush entangled with the underworld? And who was calling the police with such precise information… then vanishing behind numbers that didn’t exist?
The case was no longer about a missing industrialist’s son. It was spiralling into something far darker.
The police kept searching, but frustration simmered. Leads evaporated. Witnesses contradicted each other. CCTV footage was missing or useless. Every trail died before it began.
Pressure mounted on Inspector Rathod. The media hounded him. Politicians demanded answers. And Brijesh Khosla, powerful, desperate, and running out of patience, finally snapped.
He hired Mr. Who, a discreet but formidable private detective agency led by Pramod Bakshi, a man known for being relentless, methodical, and disturbingly sharp.
Bakshi arrived at the Khosla mansion with a small team, quietly converting a guest room into a command centre. He asked questions the police hadn’t. Dug into Piyush’s finances, phone records, enemies, habits. He visited Moonlight Manor, interrogated bouncers, tried tracing the underworld man’s last movements.
Bakshi sensed something was wrong, when he was in midst of grappling into his findings, the case twisted into something terrifying.
Every phone at Pandara Police Station was now recorded. Every incoming number logged. Rathod’s mobile monitored. They were prepared. Or so they believed.
At 11:47 p.m., Rathod’s personal phone lit up.
Caller ID: Brijesh Khosla. Rathod stiffened and answered.
A calm, steady voice, unmistakably Brijesh’s said, “Hello, Inspector. This is Brijesh. Three days have passed… and you still haven’t found the culprit.” Then a pause. “It is me.”
The line went dead.
Rathod froze. His officers stared at him, stunned.
He dialled back immediately. Brijesh answered at once, “Hello, Mr. Rathod. Any update?”
Rathod forced his voice steady. “Sir… we’ll come to you shortly. We’ve found something important.”
Within the hour, Rathod and his team stood in the Khosla mansion. The entire family gathered, Nirmala, Ayush, Piyu, Nimmi, the servants, every face tight with fear.
Rathod asked permission to play an audio clip. Brijesh nodded, bewildered. The recording played.
Brijesh’s own voice filled the hall: “Hello Inspector… this is Brijesh. Three days have gone by… you couldn’t trace the culprit. It is me.”
Gasps rippled through the room. Nirmala clutched her chest. Ayush staggered forward. Piyu covered her mouth. Nimmi trembled violently.
Brijesh’s face drained of colour. “This… this is impossible,” he whispered. “How can I be involved in something so horrific?”
Rathod lowered his head slightly. “Sir, I sincerely apologise… but we must request you to come with us. We need to record your full statement, and until we uncover the truth, we are required to keep you in our custody. Since you deny making that call, we must verify how your voice and number were used.”
The room erupted in anxious whispers. Servants exchanged frightened glances.
Nirmala clung to Brijesh’s arm, shaking. “Brijesh, what is happening? Who would do something like this?”
Brijesh looked at his family, fear, confusion, disbelief etched on every face. And for the first time since this nightmare began, something colder than fear settled in his chest. Someone was orchestrating this. Someone who knew the family. Someone who understood the system. Someone who wanted him destroyed. And that someone was closing in.
The moment Rathod asked Brijesh to accompany them, the entire Khosla mansion fell into a stunned, suffocating silence. Nirmala held on to him desperately. Ayush stepped forward, instinctively protective. Piyu and Nimmi stood frozen, unable to process what they had just heard.
Before Brijesh could speak, Ayush cut in sharply, “Inspector, my father is not going anywhere without legal representation.”
Rathod nodded. “Of course. You may call your lawyer. But we cannot delay the statement or the inquiry.”
Ayush immediately called their family attorney, Advocate Raghav Malhotra, a seasoned criminal lawyer known for dismantling police cases with surgical precision.
Within twenty minutes, Malhotra arrived at the mansion, briefcase in hand, his expression unreadable as the tension in the room shifted around him.
Malhotra listened to the recording twice. His expression stayed composed, but his eyes turned razor sharp. “Inspector, this cannot be treated as evidence of guilt. At best, it proves tampering. Someone cloned Mr. Khosla’s number and voice. This is a deliberate setup.”
Rathod replied evenly, “We agree, sir. That’s exactly why we need Mr. Khosla to cooperate. We must rule him out.”
Malhotra turned to Brijesh. “You will not answer a single question without me present. Understood?”
Brijesh nodded, still shaken.
As he prepared to leave with the police, Malhotra walked beside him like a shield. Before stepping out, Brijesh faced his family.
“I have done many things in life… but this? This I have not done. Trust me. Ayush, stay here. No need to come, take care of mother, Malhotra is with me.”
Nirmala nodded through tears. Ayush placed a steadying hand on his father’s shoulder.
Nimmi looked hollow, as if the floor had vanished beneath her.
Inside the interrogation room, Malhotra’s tone shifted, calm replaced by steel. “Inspector, before you begin, I want the call logs, tower location, timestamp, and the recording’s metadata. And your cyber cell officer must be present.”
Rathod agreed since, he wasn’t here to trap Brijesh, he wanted the truth.
The cyber cell officer entered with preliminary findings. “Sir… the call originated from Mr. Khosla’s number. But the SIM wasn’t used. It appears to be a spoofed signal.”
Malhotra leaned back, satisfied. “There you have it. Someone is orchestrating this.”
Rathod didn’t argue. “Which means, Mr. Khosla… someone wants you implicated. Badly.”
Just then, a constable rushed in. “Sir… we traced the tower location of the spoofed call.”
Rathod stood. “Where?”
The constable swallowed. “Near Khosla Industries’ old warehouse… the one shut down ten years ago.”
Brijesh’s eyes widened. Malhotra whispered, “This is no coincidence.”
Rathod looked at Brijesh. “Sir… we need you to come with us to the warehouse.”
A chill ran down Brijesh’s spine. Something or someone, was waiting there.
The interrogation room felt colder than before, unnervingly quiet. Brijesh sat stiffly, Malhotra beside him, arms folded. Inspector Rathod entered with a cyber cell officer carrying a laptop and a stack of logs.
Rathod began carefully. “Mr. Khosla, Advocate Malhotra… before we ask anything, we want to show you what we’ve uncovered so far.”
Malhotra gave a single nod. “Proceed.”
The cyber‑cell officer connected his laptop to the projector. A call‑log map flashed onto the screen, three different nodes lit up across the city instead of a single tower location.
He cleared his throat. “Sir… the call you received at 11:47 p.m. didn’t come from any physical SIM. It originated through a VoIP gateway.”
Brijesh frowned. “Meaning?”
Malhotra answered before the officer could. “It means the caller used an internet‑based VoIP service to place the call and overwrote the caller‑ID metadata with your number. To the telecom network, it appears as if the call originated from your device, even though it didn’t.”
Rathod added, “Which is why, when we called back, it rang on your actual phone.”
Brijesh looked shaken. “So, someone pretended to be me.”
The officer nodded. “Yes, sir. And they used a voice‑synthesis layer. The waveform matches your voice pattern… but the noise profile is artificial.”
Malhotra leaned forward. “Show us the routing.”
The officer clicked again.
A diagram appeared, three arrows branching out from a VoIP server:
Node 1: A foreign server in Eastern Europe
Node 2: A cloud relay in Mumbai
Node 3: A scrambled packet bouncing off a tower near Pandara
Rathod exhaled. “This is where it gets complicated.”
The officer explained, “VoIP calls break into data packets. Each packet can take a different route. Most packets travelled through foreign servers. But one packet, just one, pinged a tower near your old warehouse.”
Malhotra raised an eyebrow. “One packet isn’t conclusive.” “Exactly, sir,” the officer replied.
Rathod looked at Brijesh. “Sir… this isn’t a normal spoof. Whoever did this understand telecom routing, VoIP masking, and voice synthesis. This is someone with serious resources.”
Brijesh swallowed. “Inspector… I have no idea who would do this.”
Malhotra placed a steady hand on the table. “Inspector, this cannot be treated as evidence of involvement. It’s evidence of a sophisticated setup.”
Rathod nodded. “We agree. That’s why we need Mr. Khosla’s cooperation, to rule him out completely.”
Brijesh’s voice trembled. “Ask whatever you need.”
Before Rathod could begin, a constable burst in, breathless.
“Sir… cyber‑cell found something else.”
Rathod stiffened. “What now?”
The constable handed him a printout. Rathod scanned it, his jaw tightening. He turned the sheet toward Malhotra and Brijesh.
“This is the metadata of the spoofed call.”
Malhotra’s eyes narrowed. “There’s a timestamp mismatch.”
The officer nodded. “Yes, sir. The call was placed at 11:47 p.m.… but the VoIP gateway logs show the masking request was initiated at 11:32 p.m.”
Brijesh blinked. “Meaning?”
Rathod answered quietly, “Meaning the attacker prepared the spoof fifteen minutes before calling. This wasn’t impulsive. It was planned.”
Malhotra’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Someone is orchestrating this with precision.”
The cyber‑cell officer added, “And sir… the masking request came from a device connected to a public Wi‑Fi network.”
Rathod asked, “Which one?”
The officer hesitated. “Sir… it’s the Wi‑Fi outside Khosla Industries’ old warehouse.”
The room fell silent.
Brijesh’s breath caught. “That warehouse has been shut for ten years.”
Rathod met his eyes. “Sir… we need you to come with us. Not as a suspect. As someone who might be the real target.”
Malhotra nodded grimly. “Inspector, we’re coming.”
The moment Rathod stepped out of the interrogation room, chaos detonated outside the police station. Reporters swarmed the barricades, cameras flashing, microphones thrust forward, shouting questions about Brijesh’s supposed confession.
Rathod grumbled an ordeal. “Constable, call the Special Protection Unit. We’re moving Mr. Khosla under full cover.”
Within minutes, two armoured SUVs, a bulletproof command vehicle, and four motorcycle outriders pulled into the station’s rear exit, the only escape from the media frenzy.
Malhotra insisted, “No open roads. No signals. No public exposure.”
Rathod nodded. “We’ll take the Greenway Route, the emergency corridor behind the industrial belt. No civilian access.”
Brijesh was escorted out through a service passage, shielded by officers. His face was drained of colour, his hands trembling, but he forced himself to walk upright.
As the convoy rolled out, the media caught only a blur of tinted glass before the vehicles vanished into the restricted lane.
Brijesh stared ahead, hollow. “Inspector… it feels like someone is tightening a noose around me.”
Malhotra placed a steady hand on his shoulder. “That’s why we’re going to the warehouse, to see what they wanted us to see.”
But even from a distance, something was wrong. A thick column of black smoke curled into the night sky. Rathod’s eyes widened. “No… no, no.”
As they turned the final corner, the scene erupted into chaos: a crowd of locals, while flames tore through the warehouse roof, fire engines arriving and beginning to battle the raging inferno, and the air hung thick with the stink of burning chemicals and old timber.
A fire officer shouted, “Inspector! Someone tipped us off fifteen minutes ago, the warehouse was already burning!”
Rathod clenched his fists. “Fifteen minutes… the exact time we left the station.”
Malhotra muttered, “They’re erasing something.”
Brijesh stared at the flames, horrified. “What was inside that someone needed destroyed?”
A fire officer ran up. “Sir, the fire started at three separate points. This is arson.”
“Of course it is,” Rathod growled. He barked orders, “Seal all roads within two kilometres. Check every CCTV, every toll booth, every petrol pump. I want every angle.”
The fire chief added, “Accelerants were used, petrol or some industrial solvent. Someone wanted this place to burn fast.”
A thermal drone was launched to scan for human remains, heat traces, hidden spaces, and any vehicles that might have escaped.
The drone operator reported, “Sir… the fire is too intense. But I see a collapsed metal locker near the north wall.”
Rathod: “Mark it. That’s our first dig site once the fire cools.”
The cyber officer added, “Sir, the stray packet from the spoofed call pinged this area. If the attacker was here, they may have used a portable router or burner laptop.”
Rathod ordered his team to search for any melted electronics, even tiny fragments. Outside, officers scanned the crowd for anyone filming too intently, leaving too quickly, or watching the fire with an unnatural calm. Arsonists often returned to admire their work.
As the flames weakened, a firefighter, “Sir! We found metal locker!” and everyone rushed toward the north wall. A fire‑resistant metal locker lay on the ground. Rathod immediately instructed his team to send it for forensic unveiling.
Pramod Bakshi, standing at the site, murmured, “Everyone is chasing the calls. Everyone is chasing the fire. But no one is chasing the boy.”
He stood abruptly. “Time to visit the farmhouse.”
Without informing anyone, not even his assistants, he grabbed his coat, notebook, and a small forensic kit. He drove into the night, and three kilometres before the farmhouse, he switched off his headlights. The road vanished into pitch darkness, forcing him to crawl forward, guided only by the faint outline of trees and the crunch of gravel.
Two kilometres short of the farmhouse, he pulled over and killed the engine. Something felt wrong immediately, no lights glowed from the windows. The entire property sat in suffocating darkness.
Instead of taking the main tar road, Bakshi slipped onto the narrow dirt track running parallel to it. The soft mud softened his steps. He moved like a trained operative, controlled, silent.
The farmhouse loomed ahead, unnervingly still.
Was it supposed to be empty? But the front door was slightly ajar.
Bakshi’s hand moved instinctively to the tactical flashlight on his belt. He pushed the door open gently. No guards. No police. No one.
Back at the cyber lab, the USB was checked, had one file.
Rathod leaned over the monitor. A video clip flickered to life. A dim room. A man tied to a chair. A hood over his head. A tattoo on his forearm, the same tattoo found on the underworld man dumped under the bridge.
Rathod’s breath caught. The hooded man was alive in the video. A distorted voice asked, “What has Piyush disclosed to you?” The clip ended abruptly.
Malhotra requested it be played again and asked Brijesh to watch closely. Rathod replayed it frame by frame.
Brijesh leaned in, eyes narrowing, then he shouted, “This video was shot in the warehouse! That hunter gun on the wall, it’s in the warehouse!”
Rathod stared at him. “Are you sure?” “Positive.”
Just then, Bakshi called. “Listen carefully. The farmhouse is dark. The door was ajar. And the guards you posted, gone.”
Rathod froze. “My God… we’re heading there right now.” Bakshi warned, “No noise. No sirens. Approach like a snake.”
Meanwhile, at the morgue, the forensic pathologist called urgently. “Sir, you need to hear this.” The doctor said, “Sir… this hooded man did not die under the bridge.”
Rathod frowned. “We know. He was killed elsewhere.” The doctor shook his head. “No, Inspector. He died after the car explosion.”
Rathod’s mind raced, the hooded man in the video… the doctor’s findings… the timeline.
Malhotra whispered, “Meaning… he escaped the car before it exploded.”
The doctor nodded. “And someone captured him alive. Tortured him. Then dumped him.”
Rathod concluded, “So three men were in the car. One died in the crash. One escaped and was murdered later. And Piyush…”
Malhotra finished quietly, “…Piyush is the only one unaccounted for.”
Rathod and his team sped toward the farmhouse while Brijesh remained at the police station under heavy guard.
Inside the moving convoy, Rathod addressed his officers. “Listen carefully. We have some pieces to see a pattern.” Spoofed calls, Warehouse fire, USB video, Underworld man alive after the crash.
Rathod spoke slowly, each word deliberates. “This isn’t random. We are dealing with someone with access, planning, and motive.” Then he said the word no one wanted to hear: “An insider may be involved.”
At the farmhouse, Bakshi waited in the shadows, choosing not to enter alone. He wanted Rathod’s additional force, to avoid disturbing any clue the killer might have left behind.
When Rathod arrived discreetly, he whispered, “Mr. Bakshi, we’re here.”
Rathod spread the farmhouse blueprint on the ground. The team geared up, headlamps, gloves, protective footwear, to avoid contaminating evidence. They agreed not to switch on the farmhouse lights until they were certain no one was inside.
They decided to move in pairs, torches slicing through the darkness. Suddenly, bats fluttered overhead. From the floor above came a faint sound, quick, light footsteps, followed by a soft, uncertain growl. It wasn’t loud, but strange enough to make everyone freeze.
A constable was signalled to climb up. The moment he reached the top; he saw the door closed, opened the latch, and gently pushed it open; something lunged at him out of the darkness. He screamed. Two officers rushed up to help, only to be attacked as well. Their cries echoed through the farmhouse, sharp and terrifying.
Rathod and Bakshi reacted instantly, firing three silenced rounds. Silence fell, broken only by faint moans. Rathod fumbled for the switch and turned on the lights.
The scene was horrific.
Three wolves lay dead from the gunshots. One of Rathod’s men was killed instantly. Three other bodies, likely the farmhouse caretakers, were already lying there, turned blue, white forth coming from their mouth. Two officers had deep neck bites. Two more, in the chaos, had crashed into a heavy teak table, bleeding from head wounds. Three bodies have been ravaged so completely that it no longer resembled human beings. Whatever the wolves found, they tore through with a ferocity born of hunger, leaving behind only the faintest suggestion that the persons had ever stood there at all.
Rathod immediately called for ambulances. “Send three ambulances. Now.”
He ordered reinforcements to the farmhouse and additional forces to surround Brijesh’s mansion so no one could slip out. More officers were deployed to the warehouse and the police station. Total secrecy was enforced.
The injured and the dead were taken away. Three bodies were sent for postmortem. Rest tattered body parts were asked to be examined by the forensic experts. Six additional comprising of officers and forensic experts joined the farmhouse search.
But villagers had already gathered outside with lanterns, drawn by the gun shots.
There was no sign of Piyush inside the farmhouse.
Bakshi suggested, “Use the villagers. They know the terrain. If Piyush’s body is anywhere within two kilometres, they’ll find it.”
Surprisingly, many villagers admired Piyush, he had quietly helped them financially over the years. A side of him no one in the Khosla family had known.
The area around the farmhouse was cordoned off, and villagers volunteered to search the fields for any trace of Piyush.
Inside, forensic teams from both Rathod and Bakshi’s sides combed the farmhouse meticulously. Meanwhile, Bakshi, working from Brijesh’s mansion earlier, had quietly collected fingerprints from every family member, using household items sent for forensic analysis. A few glasses and plates had disappeared in the process, but in a house that size, no one noticed. For Bakshi, they were potential keys to identifying the killer.
But the search yielded nothing. No body. No clue. No sign of Piyush.
By morning 6.00 am., the press and villagers crowded outside the cordon, desperate for updates.
Inside the farmhouse, Rathod, Bakshi, and some seniors sat in a circle, exhausted, trying to piece together the impossible.
The question hung in the air like smoke: Was Piyush missing… or murdered?
The postmortem team delivered their findings: three of the victims had been killed severe food poisoning. Brijesh confirmed all three were helpers employed at the farmhouse.
A chilling question hung in the air: Was the unidentified caller the murderer or there was another person?
At the mansion, Ayush called Rathod in a panic. “What is happening? We’re worried about our father. There’s no news about Piyush. We’re being told to stay home like prisoners. Let me out, I need to be with him! My mother is fainting every hour; her BP is all over the place!”
Rathod tried to calm him. “A doctor is on the way to check on your mother. Your father is shaken, but he’s safe.”
Ayush snapped, “Shut up!” and hurled his phone across the room.
Back at the farmhouse, the investigative team was still struggling to make sense of the chaos when a forensic expert from the attic shouted,
“Bakshi! Inspector! Come up here!”
Everyone rushed upstairs.
The expert stood beside a wooden plank leaning against the wall near the fireplace. Just beside the chimney, several of the wall blocks had been removed, leaving a four‑by‑four‑foot opening.
“Look closely,” he said. “Take the microscopic lens, two parallel lines, small wheel tracks. And this gap… it’s large enough for a body.”
Bakshi crouched, torch in hand, gloves on. He peered into the narrow space between the chimney and the wall. Something was down there, but the angle was too tight.
“Arun!” Bakshi called. “You’re the leanest. We’ll lower you down with a rope. Take a high‑power torch and a collar mic. Do not touch anything.”
Arun was strapped securely around the waist and shoulders. Six officers held the rope as he descended into the suffocating heat of the unused fireplace.
“More… more… keep lowering!” he shouted. Then suddenly—“STOP!” Silence….
“Arun! What is it? Speak!” Rathod yelled.
Arun’s voice came back, trembling. “There’s… a coffin down here.”
A chill swept through the attic.
A coffin. Could it be Piyush?
Bakshi took control. “Pull him up. We’ll pull the coffin next.”
Arun was re‑equipped with a heavy hook (made from a bent iron rod found near the farmhouse) attached to a thick rope. He descended again, secured the hook to the coffin’s latch, and the team slowly hauled it up. Arun followed.
The hook was removed carefully. Forensic experts examined the surface for fingerprints, nothing visible.
With gloved hands, they opened the latch.
Inside lay Piyush.
His face was ghost‑pale. A thick rope was wound around his neck, cutting deep into the flesh, he had been strangled. The rope lay beside him, soaked in blood. A gun was inside the coffin as well, along with what appeared to be Piyush’s wallet.
Bakshi ordered, “Do not disturb anything. The coffin, the body, the items, everything goes as is.”
The team moved out with the coffin, taking extreme precautions to avoid the crowd and especially the media.
Eight to nine hours passed.
The Khosla family made frantic calls, but Bakshi and Rathod were too deep in the investigation to respond. They were, however, kept updated on Brijesh’s condition and Nirmala’s health, both had doctors attending to them.
After a marathon of forensic tests, vendor verifications, and repeated analyses under Bakshi’s supervision, Rathod made the call.
“Everyone back to the mansion. And make sure to bring Mr. Brijesh at the same time with total security.”
The stage was set for the next revelation.
The atmosphere in the mansion shifted the moment Brijesh walked in. His family rushed to him, checking his condition. Ayush snapped at the lawyer for being “useless,” but Brijesh calmed him and asked everyone to cooperate with Bakshi and Rathod. Ayush exploded again, “Where is Piyush?” but Brijesh urged him to listen first.
Bakshi began with the first clue: the Moonlight Manor access keycard. Nimmi confirmed Piyush always carried it. Brijesh admitted he paid the annual fees. Ayush grew impatient, but Bakshi firmly reminded him the questions were relevant.
Bakshi then asked Ayush what time he had returned on the night Piyush’s car was burned. Ayush claimed he was “home by 10 p.m.”
Mr. Brijesh, before we plan our next steps, let me share what we found. When we reached the farmhouse, it was unusually dark, strange, considering you said the place runs round‑the‑clock with three helpers always present. As soon as we entered, we heard faint movement on the floor above. None of the helpers were visible, and even the two police officers posted there were missing, so we knew something was wrong.
We sent a constable to check the first floor. He reached the landing, removed the latch, and began to open the door, something attacked him instantly. That’s when we discovered three wolves inside. They hadn’t touched the actual caretakers, who had already died from food poisoning, but they had mauled three unknown men beyond recognition. Two of our officers are still in the hospital with severe bite injuries, and two more suffered head wounds during the chaos. We had no choice but to fire, and fortunately the wolves were brought down; otherwise, none of us might have made it out alive.
Bakshi turned to Mr. Brijesh and said, “Sir, you never mentioned there were man‑eating wolves on your property.”
We found through our expert at the attic there was a plank with tracks of a small wheel. We also found near the fire chimney gap enough for a person to go in.
We found a coffin lying below between firewall and chimney. The coffin was pulled up and opened to find Piyush body. The entire family and servants were absolutely stunned. Nimmi ran towards Mr. Bakshi and cried “where is his body? I want to see right now.” Bakshi requested to wait for postmortem formalities will get over and the body will be brought to the house. Brijesh and Nirmala were absolutely speechless.
So, since Piyush is no more, it is important we know the culprit. While it is difficult for all to accept his death. Let me put across the findings:
1. The purse please do not touch anybody has all the credit and debit cards, but the access key card is missing. Madam Nimmi sometime back said he always used to carry.
2. We found his access card in the fire resistant metal box. Not easy to do the same, we had to take court authorization and manufacturer cooperation to open the Metal box.
3. There was another car following the car carrying Piyush and the hood guy. Ganesh was asked to stop the car and both the hood guy and Piyush were taken in the next car. Ganesh, the driver, had to be killed for obvious reasons.
4. Piyush in drunk state and hood guy were taken to the warehouse, through face reading of Piyush the person could open the metal box. The suspect knew the metal box only opened through face recognition of Piyush.
5. Piyush mobile was opened through his finger sensor. He was drunk and knew nothing of what was happening. The suspect immediately changed the password so that he can access.
6. The suspect being happy he got the all the details using a thick rope strangled him and murdered.
7. The hooded man was overpowered by two accomplices, tied to a chair, and repeatedly pressured to reveal what he knew about Piyush. He refused to talk unless he received his promised share. He had joined the operation only because he was assured a bounty. When he continued to resist, he was shot and his body was dumped under a bridge.
8. The suspect placed the access card back inside the metal box to avoid raising suspicion. He believed the warehouse, and the box itself, would be the last place anyone would doubt.
9. Then the suspect instructs the guy in Europe to make the call to Mr. Brijesh mobile number directly as planned.
10. The coffin was ordered specially with front wheels one week prior to the car fire incident. So, the suspect knew very well what he was doing. The coffin was put in the car and drove to the farmhouse.
11. The suspect entered the farmhouse, poisoned the caretakers’ food, and they died shortly afterward. Their bodies were then left inside the room with the wolves.
12. Both the guys within their knowledge had taken enough precaution to leave no clues.
13. The coffin was taken up to the attic, placed on a slanted plank, and pushed through the wall gap, dropping into the space below. It hadn’t been easy to figure out, but our expert noticed the faint wheel marks on the plank, tracks so subtle they would escape anyone who wasn’t looking closely. That observation became the key to understanding how the coffin was moved.
14. The person helped to drop the coffin was pushed to the wolves to eat and door was closed from outside with a latch. That makes two police personnel and one who helped in murdering. The forensic experts could find there were three individuals killed by the wolves.
15. The person drove back in his car.
16. We conclude there are two persons at the warehouse and farmhouse because the fingerprints on the rope with which Piyush was murdered and the fingerprint on the access-key are of two individuals. Moreover, moving the coffin all the way to the attic and positioning it on the plank could not have been done by a single person.
17. The gun found in Piyush’s coffin had been placed there on the suspect’s instructions. Its registration or owner couldn’t be traced, but the fingerprints on it appear to belong to the second accomplice, the one who was later thrown to the wolves. Forensics is still working to confirm this, though the process is slow because the bodies were severely damaged.
18. We called up in Piyush mobile number, since it was missing in the coffin, it rang once by mistake and was immediately switched off. We took court order and mobile service provider to track the location. We got the location.
19. While forensic experts were checking Piyush body they found through Subdermal technology the other access card was implanted in his outer forearm. Sadly, the suspect wanting to access the room couldn’t make out and obviously not possible to detect under any imagination unless the person is highly tech savvy having in depth knowledge. We too were surprised.
20. Bakshi says the reason for the suspect not to throw the mobile because Piyush being tech savvy had kept the passcodes in his mobile which will open only by face recognition and not by finger sensor and can be only with a said phone not possible to transfer to another phone.
21. The suspect also called Moonlight Manor from Piyush’s phone, pretending to be him. He cleverly framed his questions, but when he learned there were actually two key‑cards, he became confused and anxious about the location of the second one.
22. The suspect established links to the underworld contact Piyush used to deal with. We don’t know the exact nature of their transactions, but the suspect clearly did. He contacted this underworld associate, the hooded man, and promised him a ransom if he could extract information from Piyush, including the access key. Piyush was forced to drink so he remained intoxicated and vulnerable. Piyush also knew the suspect was involved in large‑scale money laundering and other illegal operations. Mr. Brijesh, according to our sources, you narrowly escaped serious damage, this suspect had planned to leak sensitive Khosla Industries data in exchange for hefty kickbacks and heading new business ventures in Dubai.
23. Lastly, you have a system in you mansion Mr. Brijesh where automatically vehicles exiting and entering along with driver face is recorded. This has also helped us a lot with our findings.
Rathod stepped forward, calm but firm. “Mr. Ayush, if you just tell us where Piyush’s mobile is, it will save us a lot of time.”
Hearing Rathod’s words, the entire family froze in shock. Ayush’s resistance collapsed; he sank to the floor and broke down. In that moment, it became clear, Ayush had murdered Piyush, his own brother.
Bakshi turned to Brijesh.
“Mr. Brijesh, you will need additional security. We’ll arrange it. We also need to investigate everyone connected to Ayush and possibly Piyush as well, given the illicit activities he may have been involved in.”
Outside, an ambulance siren cut through the silence, and the noise of gathered media grew louder.
Bakshi announced, “Piyush’s body has arrived. Ayush, you are under arrest. I doubt you’ll be needing Khosla’s criminal lawyer, Mr. Malhotra.”
As the police led Ayush away, he looked back at Nimmi, Piyush’s wife, who stood motionless, unable to react. Bakshi noticed the exchange, their expressions revealing more than words could.
He murmured to himself, “There’s still so much to uncover.”
