My Mafia Fiancé Chained Me Underwater and Married My SisterChapter 1

The night before the wedding, my fiancé, Don Adrian Moretti, took me diving.

We ran into pirates.

They forced me to jump into a cage with sharks inside.

I was on the verge of breaking down when the person closest to me ripped off their mask, doubled over laughing.

It was my own sister, Lily.

She held up a waterproof camera. "The way you looked begging on your knees, sis—priceless."

"Don't worry, I got it all on tape. Perfect footage for your wedding video."

Through all the torment, no matter how much it hurt, I never begged for mercy.

Not until Adrian rushed over to save me—and they pinned him to the deck and beat him bloody. That was when real fear hit me. I dropped to my knees, sobbing, begging them to let him go.

But Adrian, who had looked half-dead just a second ago, got right back up.

He wiped the blood from his face, the corner of his mouth still curled in a smile.

"Relax. It's ketchup."

He said, "Lily made a bet with me. She wanted to see if you'd get on your knees to save me."

"You should thank her. If it weren't for her, I'd never have known you loved me this much."

I stared at him, cold spreading through every inch of my body.

When I didn't speak, Adrian softened his tone, coaxing me, saying the real surprise was still waiting on the ocean floor.

But after I put on my wetsuit and followed him down, he turned around and locked me inside an iron cage on the seabed.

"Claire, I lost the bet."

He signed to me through his mask.

"A bet's a bet. This wedding can only go to Lily."

"But you've always been headstrong. I'm afraid you'll make a scene. So be a good girl and wait here. Once the ceremony's over, I'll come back for you."

I watched his silhouette turn and swim away, and my heart sank inch by inch.

The tank was down to a third.

I was afraid I wouldn't last long enough for him to come back for me and the baby.

...

I gripped the bars of the cage.

The deep-sea cold seemed to cut straight through the wetsuit, boring into my chest one inch at a time.

Seeing me go silent, Adrian's expression eased slightly, and he signed an explanation.

"Don't blame me. You once said you'd die before you'd beg anyone on your knees."

"I didn't expect you to break your word."

My fingers clamped harder around the iron bars, a raw ache spreading through my chest.

He'd forgotten.

The one who once said "Even if it kills me, I will never let you kneel" had been him.

Back then, Adrian wasn't yet the Don of the Moretti family—just the notorious playboy heir everyone whispered about.

At a dinner party, his stepmother accused me of stealing a necklace. She had her bodyguards bend my spine, forcing me to kneel and apologize.

I refused.

So she had them throw me into a frozen swimming pool.

Adrian pulled me out. He held me so tight his whole body was shaking.

"Claire, I swear—from this day on, no one will ever dare make you kneel again."

Over the next five years, that reckless young heir became the Don Moretti everyone feared.

No one ever dared force me to my knees again.

But now, the person who most wanted to see me ground into the dust was him.

Only I couldn't afford to grieve right now.

I pointed frantically at the residual pressure gauge on the tank.

It showed only a third of the air remaining.

"Let me out," I signed desperately.

"I'm going to die."

Adrian didn't even glance at it.

"Enough. Stop playing games. I prepared that tank myself. There's nothing wrong with it."

He acted like he was soothing a child throwing a tantrum.

"Relax. The wedding goes to Lily, but the title of Mrs. Moretti will always be yours."

I pressed my lips together and pointed at my belly, shaking my head hard.

"I'm pregnant. I can't stay down here too long."

Adrian froze for a second, then his brow furrowed tight.

"Claire, that's a pathetic excuse."

"Have you forgotten? You can't have children anymore."

Every word was a knife driven into my heart.

When I was thrown into that frozen pool, I had already been pregnant.

But the water was too cold. The baby didn't make it.

And my body was left permanently damaged.

The doctor said I would likely never conceive again.

That night, Adrian sat in his study holding the tiny silver lock he had designed for the baby himself, and smoked until dawn.

From then on, he never mentioned children again.

But he never threw that little silver lock away.

It stayed locked in his desk drawer for five years.

I knew he had been waiting for a miracle.

So when I found out I was pregnant, I slipped the ultrasound photo into a waterproof pouch, planning to tell him on the ocean floor.

Afraid something might go wrong—that the seawater would ruin the picture—I even scheduled a timed email to him in advance.

My whole body trembling, I fumbled to find the waterproof pouch.

But when I looked up, all I saw was Adrian's retreating silhouette.

I pounded on the cage, holding the photo as high as I could.

He stopped and looked back from a distance.

But he didn't care what I was holding.

"Stop making a fuss," he signed.

"I'll come back for you as soon as I can."

His figure vanished into the darkness.

The ocean floor went utterly silent.

The cold spread from my chest to my limbs.

My lower abdomen tightened in waves.

The tank could last an hour at most.

I wouldn't make it until he came back.