?Chapter 1214:


    Jarrod was utterly,pletely alone.


    In the forest park on the outskirts, the nighty in total darkness.


    He pitched his tent, then fixed a peg into a tree ten meters away and hung a smallmp from it.


    With a click, themp lit, casting only a dim glow. From inside the tent, it looked like a fist-sized spark in the darkness, throbbing like a heart.


    A target.


    Jarrod lifted the crossbow, his knuckles turning white.


    “Maia Watson!” he snarled, teeth bared, hatredcing every word. “My parents raised you for seventeen years. Without them, you would have died. They gave you life, and you repay them by hurting them?”


    With a sharp pull, he squeezed the trigger.


    The bolt struck the tree, embedding itself just three inches from themp.


    He loosed another shot. Then another.


    Soon, five bolts were buried in the bark.


    “Damn it! All misses!” he cursed, the reality of the difficulty crashing down on him. But he couldn’t quit.


    He had failed at everything in his life, but not this. He would not fail at this.


    There was still time before the charity g, and he intended to practice until his aim was wless.


    His n was set: on the night of the g, he would cut the power, plunging the venue into perfect darkness.


    First, he would find a way to get close to Maia and daub her with glow-in-the-dark paint. In the ckness, she would be his one shining target.


    One shot was all it would take. After that, nothing else mattered—not capture, not consequence. Jarrod was a vessel of pure, single-minded vengeance.


    As for his parents, he had no worries. He trusted Rosanna would care for them.


    Keeping them alive in the ICU cost tens of thousands every day. Without the funds Rosanna secured from the Nelson family, his parents might not have made it.


    The thought only stoked his rage. He nocked another bolt and fired at the light as if it were Maia’s heart.


    Meanwhile, at Erygan Hospital, the heart monitor by Richard’s bedside suddenly surged, its waveform spiking erratically.


    A secondter, it settled back into its normal, steady rhythm. But his index finger had twitched—a minute, almost imperceptible movement.


    Just then, a nurse stepped into the room. After a thorough check, she found no sign of consciousness and no irregrities.


    “Must have been a glitch in the machine,” she muttered, frowning as she returned to the nurse’s station.


    A second nurse caught her arm, eyes shining with recognition. “Oh my God! I knew I’d seen her before! That was Maia—she came here to cover Richard and Sandra Morgan’s expenses!” she eximed breathlessly. “The gossip online is wrong. She never abandoned them.”


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