Author's Note: Hi everyone, I hope you enjoy the chapter! Thank you to those who have been extra supportive. I really want you all to enjoy this story. Keep hanging on with me. Not everything is predictable.

School sucks, and I hate group projects, save me. So I am finishing this chapter angry.

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Since my last update, I finished my story "The Hitchhiker," which is now 3 parts, and I finished "Manipulation," which has 2 parts. Then my next update will be my Valentines Day One-Shot for the Counting Series titled "Sweethearts."

Disclaimer: I do not own TMI, and I am not a published author, nor do I have a beta. So ignore the spelling and grammar errors.

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Chapter 14 (2.2K)

Jace's POV

When I come to, all I smell is roses, and a smile reaches my face, and I have a strong desire to bury my head further into Clary's hair, but I somehow manage to hold myself back by shifting myself away from her to sneak out.

She grumbles for a second, something inaudible as I successfully pull away and land on my feet, quickly throwing on jeans and my black leather jacket as I watch to make sure she doesn't wake.

Once dressed, I risk it and walk over to her and look at her face and see how relaxed she is. Here she is just Clary, not a wife, not a victim, not a mother. She is her own person, not having to worry about the stresses of life.

I take one last look at her face before I leave, trying to memorize it because even though I trust Kyla, I have a bad feeling in my gut, and it isn't my wounded; it is worse. It is my gut instincts being on high alert, so as I make my way through the apartment, I grab an extra knife that goes in my sock and steal one of Clary's bobby pins and slide it into my gold curls.

I climb the stairs all the way down to my car and unlock it before climbing in and sliding my keys in and staring at the car and drive down the street, and drifting in and out of my thoughts before realizing I have arrived at the dock.

I park the car block away and walk through the draft air until I am almost at the pier in which, in the light from the single lamppost, I see the figure pacing back and forth.

As I near closer, keeping my hand on my gun on my hip, I see more details and see Kyla's brown hair blowing wild in the cool hair.

When I am in earshot, I say "Hi," which causes her to jump, and I roll my eyes and then say, "For someone who has as much experience as me, you should pay more attention."

She sighs and crosses her arms defensively before saying, "It isn't every day you are trying to take your boss down."

I nod, and ask "Do you have your phone on you?"

She shakes her head no and snaps back at me with, "I am not new to this; I know how bugs and trackers work."

"Just had to make sure," I answer as I move further into the darkness to be sure.

"So, what is it that you learned?"

I sigh and run a hand through my hair, "I have an inside source in the NYPD that got a few files for me that cleared things confirming my suspicions, and we have a plan in progress."

"What flies? Who's involved? What sour-" and I wave my hand silencing her.

"One question at a time, there is too much," and I pause in case she argues, which she doesn't, and I continue with, "if I tell you this, you have to take it to the grave because it can get you killed, are you sure you want to know?" I ask, and she narrows her brown eyes before nodding in agreement. So I take a deep breath before continuing with, "One of the files was on me, Valentine had me kill my mother encase I steer away from him and look for my family he had me kill her to further is manipulation. Next, my hacker found a bunch of dealings behind our back of him feeding money to Hodge for reasons unknown. I personally think it was buying him to be a scapegoat since the man's medical records showed he had stage 4 liver cancer. So, the money was more of a payout. What I don't understand in all this is why did he want to use to find a mole he created? It doesn't make sense. Next, there is a file on Sebastian Verlac, who is wanted on domestic abuse charges and battery."

Her eyes stay wide, and the first words that leave her mouth are, "The police chief?"

"Yes," I say.

"How is he involved?" and I stiffen a bit because I realize I am exposing Clary to the situation. Do I trust Kyla with her life? Alexis life?

"He is someone I am investigating for the last while, but he was squeaky clean, and all those chargers are fake because everything has been buried, meaning there is very little evidence for me to go off of. He is my priority, and he needs to be taken down first before we go for Valentine. Those chargers are the ones I want him on. I have been planting rumours to tie him in with Valentine to make him look dirty since it is a losing battle."

"Does the wife not want to come forward?"

"It is he said, she said, even though there are photos, he is powerful and has money."

She nods and adds, "I know she has a kid too, tough break. I meet her once, seems sweet."

I raise an eyebrow now, "Wait, You know her?"

She shrugs in response, then continues with, "Well, not personal, but I used to attend those banquet meetings and met them a few times. She didn't show any of the usual signs."

I nod, because truthfully, Clary hides all her tells very well, making it hard to harder to document. Her focus has been to protect Alexis.

"She is the priority; we make Mr. Verlac connections to Valentine clear either it is discovering something or creating it to begin an investigation, we can take them both down. The rumours have been started, but I need real photographs. If you can set up a honey trap where you can be disguised to stay out of it, then we manage to get him to meet with some of our known associates. I think that is our best shot."

"Okay, I will look into it tomorrow; we will meet again then; I need to get home before my wife notices I am missing."

Shock fills me at this new piece of information, "Wait, you have a wife?"

She holds her ring up and says, "Maybe you should be more aware of the people you are working with. I have been married for 3 years; so, it shouldn't be a surprise anymore."

I shrug and answer with, "I haven't really been looking into others' personal lives since I would expect they would stay out of my business."

She eyes me for a second and nods and mumbles a bye and spins around, and walks away, keeping her head high walking off the dock and down the road.

After a minute, when I can no longer see her, I make my way down the road as well.

I constantly look around for the faintest movement in the darkness since my instants are still all on high alert as I climb into my car.

As I now drive down the road carefully to ensure I am aware of anything out of the ordinary, especially as I step out of the car away from a safe space. Walking towards the building, I see a hooded figure inside the building at the mall box.

But whoo I am to judge? I am awake at 4 am wearing a hood as well. Making me the exact person I would be worried about.

I crawl to the right trying to stay out of sight as I watch the figure sort through their mail.

Now I might be a bit paranoid, but this seems like something out of the ordinary.

The figure finishes and closes their mailbox and spins around facing me for a quick second, not enough for me to get a glimpse of their face, but I do see a lock of blonde hair, but nothing else to go off of as they choose to take the stairs instead of the elevator.

As they disappear up the stairs, I grab the door and pull it towards me as I use my key to unlock it.

The door opens, and I suddenly feel a prick and my neck, and I curse as I fall to the ground and my vision goes dark.

But my last thoughts are that I need to wear neck protection.

When I open my eyes, I am blinded by the light and quickly snap them closed as I react and close them again before slowly opening them again, trying to allow them time to adjust.

"Oh, look who's awake," a voice says.

"Must you drug me every time? It leaves me with a horrible hangover without the fun of the booze." I say as I adjust to my seat and sigh with relief as I realize this time I am not handcuffed. I don't want to have to explain those bruises.

"Always the jokester. How is your progress?" Jonathan asks from across the metal table.

"You know we could just meet somewhere every couple of days instead of you drugging me," I said, ignoring his questions while crossing my arms.

"This way, if someone sees you, you can truthfully say you were kidnapped. Now, what is new with the case? I don't have time."

It is now I look at his face and see the worry lines.

"Why are you so anxious? It isn't like it is your life being messed with." I state, and then I don't react quickly enough to Jonathan grabbing me by my shirt and shoving me over, so I hit the ground hard because of the headache and sedative.

I moan from the pain to my ribs that isn't hasn't fully healed, and roll over and stand up facing him, ready for him to go again, as I yell, "Man, what is your problem? Valentine didn't kill your parents; he is messing with my life, not yours."

He wipes the sweat from his forehead as he frowns at me and says, "He did kill my parents, so you aren't that special."

I freeze and look at his eyes, trying to see if there is a lie, but I see nothing.

Darn, another of Valentine's victims.

"My guy moved the money from Valentine's account almost undetected; the system flagged the movement, but they haven't noticed the money missing, so he believes we failed. Rumours on getting Verlac looked into have been set up. I let Kyla into our plan, and she is going to convince Verlac to meet with some known associates of Valentine's."

Jon then asks me something I didn't want him to ask, "I need you to look into Verlac's wife."

"Why?"

"She is missing, and she is important to both cases."

"She has nothing to do with Valentine," I argue, trying to keep Clary as far away from this man as possible.

"We need her, so please located her, she isn't in her home, and we can't find her daughter either. Those two together stick out like a sore thumb, so someone of your skill should find it easy," he states.

"You want me to find illegal channels to find her."

He nods and smiles a Cheshire cat smile with how wide it is; it becomes blinding.

"How did you find me again?" I ask as he continues to smile that stupid smile.

"You are easy to find," he states, and I roll my eyes.

"What's her name?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

"Clarissa Verlac, but she might go by her maiden name Clarissa Fairchild."

Where I nod and ask to leave, then Jon escorts me out of the rooms with a bag on my head this time and doesn't speak as we drive 15 minutes in silence until the vehicle stops and I am given a nudge, and I stand up and jump out as the bag comes off my head.

I look around and discover it's still dark, and I am only a few blocks from my house now.

I nod at him, and he says he will be in touch and drives away as I walk to my building.

This time as I push the door, there is no hooded figure, but I still have a bad feeling in my gut until I reach the apartment and let myself inside, and as normal, Ollie runs towards me with his small legs bringing him as quickly towards me as he can, and I can't help myself but smile. I have to admit, the rat is growing on me, and the next thing you know, my bad feeling has faded once I walked into the bedroom and see Alexis and Clary in bed.

I pull my jeans off in the corner and through shorts on and crawl into bed, careful not to touch either of them, but as soon as I am here, Clary senses me and moves closer and reaches out to me and rolls to meet my warmth and her head rests on my chest.

If she were awake, this would never happen, so apart of me is happy for this moment.

Since I feel as if there won't be a lot of them left.

AN: Honey trap next chapter!

So Valentine killed Jon's family. Personal conflict makes things messy.

Speaking of messy, things are calm right now... will be Changing soon...

Questions:

Can we trust Kyla? If you could see someone's POV, who would it be? Will the honey trap be enough? Why does Jon want Clary for the case against Valentine?

Thanks to Deblanchard34, Jling, Kazzo, BeautifulGal and clacepercabeth4ever for their reviews, and thank you to everyone who has followed and favourited as well.

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-Stay Safe as always