Hello, hello, hello! For those of you new to the story, welcome! For those of you new to me, welcome! For those who've been to this story before, welcome back, and to those who have been with me since the beginning, I am eternally grateful for your support and patience and understanding.

I've been struggling with this story and how to tell it. As some of you know, I lost all my outlines, notes and chapters for this story when my laptop broke a few months ago. Rereading it, trying to remember all the places I wanted it to go, there were some things that I wasn't happy with, some things I wanted to add or change.

So I've decided to edit and re-upload my chapters. The general storyline has not changed, so feel free to skip these chapters right to the new one, but I've definitely added some additional content, some direction, and some fluff. :)

During my hiatus, I've been writing, working on other projects, and wrestling with a part of my past that I've not yet been strong enough to deal with, but I'm hoping to be back and better than ever, and hold myself accountable for updating!

Thanks for sticking with me through thick and through thin, just like we stick with our faves from the Mortal Instruments. 3

I'm putting the same A/N at the beginning of all updated chapters, so if you're reading this right now, feel free to skip it every time following. I love and appreciate every single one of you. And for whoever needs it, you are not your past. You are not the wrongs done to you. You are worthy and strong and so entirely perfect. Please know that.

Love you all.

Dancing With Demons

Chapter 1: A Demon Deal

Song: Blood / / Water - grandson

"Boss." The word still sends a shiver down my spine.

It's silly, really. It's just a word, a title, one that's been used to address me since my seventeenth birthday. You'd think I'd be accustomed to it now, to the men working tirelessly beneath me, keeping operations smooth as I sit in my penthouse office, looking down at the city I've inherited, at the kingdom I rule.

Instead, the word makes me jump in my seat a little, warily eye the room for the man who'd raised me, who'd made me. Boss had been my father's name for as long as I could remember, a term that had long been associated with the feared tyrant, described by national news outlets as the man whose eyes were as blue as the seas and as black as hell itself.

He'd been Stephen Herondale, leader of the Shadowhunters. It was a mafia, a gang with foundations in Europe, dating back to my grandfather's great grandfather, who'd built carved a domain overseas and whose descendants brought organized crime to the New World.

But Stephan, he was the most ruthless of them all. He'd created a monopoly on gunrunning, on drug trafficking. He turned the Shadowhunters into an empire, with strongholds in major world cities. He'd turned crime, violence, and sex into an industry, capitalizing on the seven deadly sins.

"Morgenstern is on the phone. He's asking for you." I finish the last of my scotch, rolling the bottom of the tumbler along my mahogany desk. How many lives had that man destroyed from this leather chair? How many people had he damned to hell?

I slowly roll my attention to the prick in my office—Mark Blackthorn. If I were my father, I'd have knifed the guy simply for his impatient tone, but instead, I probe my chipped tooth with my tongue—a gift from Isabelle—momentarily sidetracked as I wonder how the leader of the Demons found my phone number.

"What did we say about knocking, Mark?" I ask, bored. He's filling in for the secretary I'd fired a few days ago, and the transition from field to desk is not suiting him. The green-eyed man sighs heavily, muttering the same line I'd given him two days ago when he'd burst in without permission. "And where the hell is Alec?" Before Mark even opens his mouth to answer, I accept the outstretched iPhone, waving this man away.

I eye the door, a habit picked up from years of watching my father attend to secret business in the walls of this office. Ensuring it is securely shut, I accept the call.

"Valentine, to what do I owe this pleasure?" My voice drips venom, indicating that I do not take kindly to the calls from the likeness of him. If my father was Lucifer, Valentine Morgenstern is Satan. The Demon's main source of capital has become sex trafficking, due mostly to the Shadowhunter's reign over the other areas of illicit dealings. Any face on the wall of missing persons at NYPD is surely to be found in the clutches of Valentine or his buyers, if they're not already six feet under.

"It's Jonathan, actually," a familiar voice responds, lacking the disgust so often heard in his father's. A spitting image of his father, Jonathan and Valentine Morgenstern couldn't be more different. I allow a lazy smile to spread across my face, leaning back in the chair and tapping my glass against the desk. "Look, Jace, I know you don't owe me any favors, but I could really use one right now."

He's piqued my interest, and I tap the ashes of my cigar in the ashtray before me. I don't exactly smoke them so much as light them to keep up pretenses. My father smoked while leading the Shadowhunters, as had his father before him. It's become a sign of power, of holding control over so much that you can even cheat your own death. I merely followed suit. "You have my undivided attention."

There's always something enticing about people owing you, especially those so deeply in enemy lines. Despite our secret friendship, Jonathan and I have never asked anything of each other. With competing families and businesses, it's not like there's much we can offer each other. Inside information would be betrayal—mutiny, even—and as the leader, actions like that would reflect poorly on me, maybe even cause a means for uprooting the hierarchy and starting an entirely new line of leaders. There's not much Jonathan can ask of me, short of placing my own head on the guillotine, but I listen anyway.

"I'm calling to set up a parley on behalf of Valentine. He wishes to reach a peace agreement." It does not go unnoticed that Jonathan does not refer to Valentine as his father, another indication of Jonathan's loose loyalty to the Morgenstern name and to the Demons.

"The Shadowhunters do not need peace with the Demons," I reply blatantly. We are not at war with them, but we are not friends. The Demons already long proved that they are terrible at keeping promises. I look at the jagged scar slicing up my forearm, shaped like the sickle that made it.

Jonathan sighs heavily, and I realize this is no longer a business conversation between gansters, but a phone call between old friends. "My favor isn't about what the Shadowhunters do or don't need. Hell, it isn't even about the Demons…" He trails off, and I decide to wait patiently to continue. There's no power in guessing, especially incorrectly. "He's going to offer you my sister's hand." I stop myself short of retorting severed? because the idea of lopping off someone's hand and offering it as peace is a bit revolting, even for me.

Instead, I furrow my brows at this strange turn of events, pulling a long drag from the cigar. It burns my lungs on the way down. I don't particularly like the feeling, but I don't dislike it. I've just become accustomed to it, much like most things in my life. "You need to start thinking about legitimate heirs," Jonathan continues, heedless, "and Valentine has only ever used Clary to increase his power." I nod, though he can't see me.

The rule of legitimate heirs is a remnant of the Shadowhunter's strongly Catholic roots, an old requirement that no one has found the time or energy to attempt to change. It's not that leaders can find love in this business. Because loved ones are only weaknesses in the eyes of our enemies, and leaders cannot afford to be weak. Jonathan is right. I do need to start thinking about heirs. I need to strengthen my place as leader by continuing the line. "I'd like you to accept his offer, Jace."

"Are you giving me your blessing, Jonathan? I'm blushing," I reply sarcastically. "Look, Jon…you know who I am…what I've done…are you sure this is something you'd want?" There's a forced laugh on the other end. Jonathan knows how crazy this sounds, too.

"She's been through hell, and Valentine thinks she's losing her use. There's no telling what he might do when he decides she has." I've never really put much thought into getting married, though I knew one day that I'd have to. I've also never met Valentine's daughter, who presumably shares the same startling black and white coloring of her father and brother. I suppose my sons wouldn't be too hard on the eyes if they were a mixture of myself and Jonathan, though those black eyes have proved to be quite unsettling.

"When?" It's not an agreement, but I can almost feel Jonathan's hope, tangible through the telephone.

Our friendship runs deeper than the spoiled blood of our grandfathers' feuds, thicker than the dividing enemy lines. Unbeknownst to our fathers, Jonathan and I had met in our college years, at a bar in Budapest while studying abroad. We'd cemented our friendship before even discovering we were the heirs to rival gangs. As most younger generations do, we'd admitted that we thought the wars of our ancestors were ridiculous, that both groups would prosper more from an alliance than a fight.

Which is exactly what is happening right now.

Except Jonathan isn't exactly setting it up.

Valentine is.

And when dealing with Valentine, one can never be too careful with their actions.

"Tomorrow night. Please, Jace, don't make me beg."

A slow smirk tugs at one side of my mouth. "Why not? You're pretty familiar with being on your knees—"

"I'm really regretting asking you to marry my sister," Jonathan deadpans, and I chuckle deeply, allowing, for just a moment, my façade to slip, allowing myself to pretend that I'm just a normal person with normal friends and normal problems.

A sharp knock on my door sobers me.

"I'll be there," I affirm, hitting the end button before he can even respond, placing my phone face down on my desk and beckoning the knocker in.

"What the fuck have you been doing?" I ask as I immediately recognize my second, though my words lack their usual harsh ring. His dark hair is misshapen, his black sweater slightly askew on his slim frame. "Or maybe I should have asked who you've been doing."

My brother, usually so composed, with unreadable ice blue eyes and a stern face, blushes a violent red, stammering a few syllables before I decide to put him out of his misery. "Never mind that. There's been a new development. We need to move the delivery tonight. Put Max on it."

"Do you think he's ready?" Alec asks, his eyes bulging slightly. He'd been preparing this delivery for the past month, plotting and planning and analyzing the timetables perfectly. Uprooting his entire plan has cocked his axis, but I merely shrug.

"I guess we'll find out." There's a defeated look on his face before I clear my throat. "But first, I need you to come with me. I'm going to need a new suit."