The novel opens up with a conversation of the author of the book, Chetan Bhagat, with a fellow passenger on a midnight IndiGo flight from Hyderabad to Delhi.

At first, he sees Zara in bed and believes she's asleep already, but upon coming closer, he notices dark handprints around her neck and no pulse, discovering that she is, in fact, dead.

He informs the police, then Raghu - who is currently in hospital in Hyderabad after suffering injuries by being beaten up by local goons - and Zara's parents.

The police ends up arresting the watchman of the hostel, who was missing from the CCTV camera footage during the time Zara must have been killed.

He digs deeper with the help of police Inspector Vikas Rana, first suspecting Prof. Saxena, Zara's PhD guide, who had made passes at her, but quickly realising that he is not involved in her murder.

After proper investigation, he finds out that it was Faiz who gifted Zara the expensive earrings, and he raids his house in Delhi with Saurabh.

Keshav and Saurabh discover gold bricks, more of the same pregnancy tests found in Zara's safe, and links to abortion clinics and divorce lawyers in his search history.

While these plans are set, Keshav suddenly decides to take a trip to Hyderabad, where he checks the airport CCTV only to find a shrouded man travelling to Delhi during the hours prior to Zara's murder.

Raghu also reveals that he paid some goons to injure him, so that he would have an alibi for when he could escape hospital to fly out to Delhi with a fake ID and strangle Zara in her sleep.