1. Fateful meeting

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, but of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, but a thing to be achieved." - William Jennings Bryan

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In a secluded corner of the bustling city, under the dim glow of a street lamp, Stella stood confused about where she was supposed to go, not after she was chased away from her family mansion. She was always the outcast in her family, and friends, not like she had any anyway, never quite fitting in with her peers in class for reasons she didn't know. It was not once that she had heard that it was all because of her skin color, they called her an alien because her skin was paler than normal.

As she walked along the deserted alley, lost in her thoughts, she stumbled upon a figure slumped against the wall, and since it was so dark, Stella had to use her flashlight.

She took note of a pale haggard-looking young man, his face was so calm that one might mistaken that he was not in any pain at all.

The scene before her was horrible, the young man was sitting in a pool of blood, and an angry, crimson river flowing from the several wounds that scattered all over his body, there was the smell of iron that filled the air.

The young man seemed so weak, he was only struggling to keep himself awake. The sight of shattered bone protruding through torn skin added to the horror before Stella. With each breath that he took, there was clear evidence of how much agony he was in.

It was Lucian, the famed mafia king, injured and shrouded in an aura of bitterness. He was known for his arrogance and rudeness. Stella's heart skipped a beat as she approached him, her instincts urging her to help him, she was not the social media kind of a person so obviously she didn't know who exactly he was.

At a clearer glance, Stella could see that the wounds were a result of gunshots, in addition to that there was a big bite mark on his tummy, at the left side. It was as if he had been bitten by a wild animal, but it only surprised Stella more because there were no forests around.

"Hey, are you okay?" Stella asked softly as she scrutinized his wounds, her voice barely audible, it was more of a whisper.

Lucian glanced up, his expression a mix of surprise and annoyance.

"What do you care, just leave me alone " he snapped, his tone sharp and dismissive, indirectly asking her to mind her own business.

Stella felt annoyed with the guy's tone, he was injured yet he was acting all mighty to her, she hated his guts.

Stella would have wished to leave him, even if he were to die that would be none of her business, but thinking of the guilt that she would feel all her life thinking that she had left a helpless dying man on the streets all alone to die she was not sure whether she would ever forgive herself on that, she was not that kind of a person at all.

Stella persisted, her empathy overriding her ego, with gentle insistence, she offered him her right hand, ignoring his rudeness.

"Hey look here, am just trying to help, and please don't use that tone with me, I have a lot to think about, or do you think the world revolves around you, don't make me force you up, I beg you," Stella spoke up trying all her best to maintain her composure, but still annoyance evident in her voice, she just could not take his rude outburst to herself.

"Everyone deserves kindness, even when they don't deserve or ask for it," she had thought to herself, after all all her life until now it was only because of empathy from a stranger who had brought her up.

Lucian reluctantly accepted her help but was more shocked by the way she had reprimanded him, he was not used to being reprimanded or having a voice raised to by anyone, let alone just a mere young girl whom he could have crashed at the snap of his finger.

A flicker of something unfamiliar crossed his face — gratitude admiration, and a hidden passion that faintly glowed in his eyes but disappeared immediately as it had appeared.

In that particular moment, destiny seemed to weave its threads around them, binding their fates together in an unexpected twist of fortune, which sure enough tangled with their past, present, and the future.

Stella slowly guided him to the main road, she was sure by then they would find at least a cab to take them home so that she may attend to his wounds, not her family home at such because she had just been driven from her home by her aunt and cousin.

There was only one place in her mind that hundred and one percent passed as home to her, no matter where she was to stay, and that was her grandmother's house! She was not her biological grandmother, she was only a good Samaritan who had empathy for her, she had picked her from the edge of the forest when she was just one month and two weeks old, that is what she had told her. As for how Stella had got there she didn't have any recollection of it at all, not even of her parents.

Sure enough, they were lucky to get a late-night cab, Stella had a little coins that she had left from the monthly allowance that she was always given by her uncle, other than that she didn't have anything that she could call hers not even a changing pair of clothes, everything that she had had been taken away from her by her cousin and aunt.

"You are nothing but a poor beggar who should die on the streets begging, you don't deserve to be here at all!" These painful words still lingered in the corners of her heart, they were the same words that her aunt had said to her before chasing her away from the mansion.

The driver packed the car at a dark alley on the outskirts of the city, in the suburb area and since the condition of the road was too bad for the car to go ahead due to the numerous potholes on the road, the driver left them at a distance of around a hundred meters from her grandmother's house.

At the moment Lucian was already nearly unconscious because of the large quantities of blood that he had lost, Stella applauded him in her mind, she thought he was really strong to have stayed awake up to the moment, normally with his injuries and the amount of blood that he had lost he was supposed to have been unconscious or even dead before she had met him.

Stella was still wondering how she was supposed to manage to carry the wounded guy all by herself to the house but that's until she heard a very familiar voice from behind her in the dark, she could never forget that voice, it was still the same only that it had grown a little husky and manly.

"Steh! What are you doing here, and who is this injured guy?" Morgan called Stella by her nickname, his voice sounded troubled immediately he saw the stained blood all over the guy's body, he had been phobic to blood ever since he was young, he didn't know the reason because there was never a time that he had seen such wounds his whole life anyway.

"Help me carry him in first, before asking me these stupid questions you fool, he might die here!" Stella spoke smacking her younger brother's head making him yelp in pain. Even though they had just been separated for eight years, to them everything was still the same, it felt as if they had never been separated at all.

Just as the old lady ushered them into the house, she didn't act surprised or horrified at all when she saw Stella with a wounded guy, instead there was pity and an unfathomable expression on her face, a blue glint radiated in her eyes which disappeared immediately, no one had taken note of it.

"Finally!"

Grandma Rosie murmured as her eyes watered at the corners before she followed them inside.