The monsoon had hit Bhubaneswar with a vengeance. Thunder cracked across the skies as rain washed over the city’s narrow lanes and glistening flyovers, cleansing nothing but only masking the rot that festered underneath. Beneath the facade of temples and tech parks, Bhubaneswar was bleeding.

Jagendra Nayak, a man carved from grit and secrets, lit a cigarette with a hand that had seen too many corpses. He wasn’t the kind of detective you called when your cat went missing. He was the one you called when the police turned a blind eye, when bodies were found without faces, and when daughters vanished without a trace.

He leaned against his rusting Royal Enfield, eyes scanning the old town as a white tarp was being pulled over a body near the railway tracks. Female. Young. Naked. Throat slit. Third victim this month.

The police were calling it a “possible drug-related incident.” Jagendra knew better. The girl had a lotus tattoo on her wrist — the same symbol found on the back of two other women.

This wasn’t random. This was ritual.

And someone was hunting.