THE PRICE OF SIN

Chapter 1 The rain fell like tears from a grey Las Vegas sky, each drop a cruel reminder that even the desert couldn't escape sorrow. Elena Rossi stood at the edge of her father's grave, clutching a single white rose as the priest's words blurred into meaningless sounds. The small gathering of mourners—mostly her father's coworkers and a few neighbors—shifted uncomfortably in the unexpected downpour. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust..." Elena's grip tightened on the rose's stem until a thorn pierced her skin. The sharp pain was welcome; it was real, unlike everything else that had happened in the past week. David Rossi, her quiet accountant father who never missed her birthday or forgot to ask about her classes, was gone. Heart attack, the doctors said. Sudden and devastating at fifty-four. She was alone now. "Elena, honey, you should get out of this rain." Mrs. Chen, her elderly neighbor, touched her shoulder gently. "Your father wouldn't want you catching pneumonia." Elena nodded numbly and dropped the rose onto the mahogany casket. The white petals immediately darkened with rainwater, like everything pure in her life was slowly being corrupted. She turned away from the grave, her black dress clinging to her body as she walked toward the parking lot where only three cars remained. Her phone buzzed. Another text from her best friend Mia, probably asking if she needed anything. Elena ignored it. What she needed was her father back, and that was impossible. The rain intensified as she reached her beat-up Honda Civic, the same car her father had bought her for her eighteenth birthday. As she fumbled with the keys, her hands shaking from cold and grief, she noticed a sleek black Maserati parked across the cemetery road. The windows were tinted so dark she couldn't see inside, but something about it made her skin crawl. Who brought a car worth more than her college tuition to a middle-class funeral? Elena slipped into her car and started the engine, stealing another glance at the Maserati. Still there. Still watching. She shook her head, telling herself she was being paranoid. Grief made people imagine things. The drive back to her father's house—her house now, she supposed—took twenty minutes through the winding roads of Henderson. The modest two-story home looked smaller somehow, as if her father's absence had physically diminished it. Elena sat in the driveway for a long moment, engine running, unwilling to face the silence inside. Her phone rang. Unknown number. "Hello?" "Miss Rossi?" The voice was professional, clipped. "This is Robert Martinez from First National Bank. I'm calling about your father's accounts." Elena's stomach dropped. "What about them?" "We need to schedule a meeting as soon as possible. There are some... irregularities we need to discuss." "Irregularities?" "I'd prefer to discuss this in person. Can you come in tomorrow morning? Say, ten o'clock?" Elena rubbed her temples, feeling a headache building. "Mr. Martinez, I just buried my father an hour ago. Can't this wait?" "I'm afraid it can't, Miss Rossi. It's quite urgent." The line went dead. Elena stared at her phone, a new kind of dread settling in her chest. Irregularities. That word echoed in her mind as she finally forced herself out of the car and up the front steps. She fumbled with her father's keys—her keys now—and pushed open the front door. The house smelled like her father's cologne and the lasagna Mrs. Chen had brought over yesterday. Everything was exactly as he'd left it: his reading glasses on the coffee table, a half-finished crossword puzzle, his favorite mug still sitting by the sink with a ring of dried coffee at the bottom. Elena dropped her purse and keys on the kitchen counter, then noticed something she'd missed before. The basement door was slightly ajar. Her father never left that door open. He'd always been obsessive about keeping it locked, claiming it was just storage for old tax documents and Christmas decorations. Curiosity overrode her exhaustion. Elena flipped on the basement light and descended the creaky wooden stairs. The basement was exactly what she'd expected—boxes of old paperwork, holiday decorations, her childhood toys. But in the far corner, hidden behind a stack of Christmas trees, was something that definitely didn't belong. A safe. Not a small home safe for important documents, but a large, professional-grade vault that looked like it belonged in a bank. Elena approached it slowly, her heart hammering. The digital lock blinked red, waiting for a code. She tried her birthday. Nothing. Her mother's birthday. Nothing. On impulse, she entered the date her mother had died. The lock beeped once, and the heavy door swung open. Inside were stacks of cash—more money than Elena had ever seen in her life. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe more. Beneath the money were manila folders filled with photographs, documents, and what looked like financial records. Elena's hands trembled as she pulled out the first folder. The tab read: "SANTANGELO OPERATIONS - CONFIDENTIAL." Her father's handwriting was scrawled across the cover: "Insurance policy - E.R." Elena opened the folder and immediately wished she hadn't. The first photograph showed a young woman, maybe Elena's age, with terror in her eyes and duct tape over her mouth. The second showed men loading wooden crates onto a truck. The third made her stomach lurch—it was clearly a crime scene, blood pooled on concrete floors. What the hell had her father been involved in? She flipped through more documents: financial records showing massive money transfers, lists of names and dates, shipping manifests for cargo that definitely wasn't legal. And stamped on every single page was the same logo—a stylized 'S' surrounded by thorns. Santangelo. Elena's phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number: "We know you found it. We're coming." The basement lights went out. In the sudden darkness, Elena heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the floor above her. Slow, deliberate, like whoever was walking wanted her to hear them coming. She wasn't alone in the house anymore.