30th September, 1998; nearing midnight.
It was a feeling Levi was familiar with, if not wholly used to yet: the gentle swoop-dip of his stomach, lingering with butterflies as a new setting materialized around him. The bedroom was almost uncomfortably minimalist, like a furniture showroom or a sample development home. Levi wrinkled his nose and glanced either way to gain his bearings, gaze coming to rest on the purpose for his intrusion: a man settled comfortably asleep, back propped against stiff and uncomfortable looking pillows, a book open and abandoned in his lap.
Levi didn’t have all of the details, but he didn’t need them. January had told him enough. She was the guiding hand and he was the weapon, the precision instrument uniquely suited for this particular job. As such, even if Levi wasn’t one for torture, never had been, some part of him still thought it was a pity he couldn’t take more time with this; give the man settled so obliviously in bed the slower, more painful death he no doubt deserved. But instructions were clear: the death had to look natural. That was the whole reason Levi was here. No signs of struggle, no telltale bruises, no blood. An unearned peaceful end.
Levi approached the bed with feather-light footsteps, knowing that January St. James was watching even if he didn’t know exactly how. The only sounds in the room were the breaths that matched the soft rise and fall of Levi’s target, and the quiet fabric hiss of one glove as he slipped it off. Leaning over, still unnoticed, Levi flattened one hand against the modern, minimalistic headboard as he leaned in close enough to let his next words brush the sleeping man’s ear.
“Jonas Goetsch,” he whispered, enough that he could hear those sleep-deep breaths interrupt. Levi barely drew back, eyes locking with a startled pair barely focusing, understandably surprised not to be alone.
“I just wanted you to know it was a mutant that did it.”
Levi waited a beat and a half, watching the shift from bleary confusion, to dawning realization, to some mixture of anger and fear. As soon as the man opened his mouth, though, Levi acted: his bare hand, already hovering nearby, found gentle but purposeful contact against Jonas Goetsch’s cheek. The man settled back into the pillows again with little more than a sigh, as though he’d only fallen back asleep — if not for the heavy-lidded glassiness of his eyes, still partially open.
Straightening, Levi looked down at the body with a subdued but unadulterated hatred, pulling his glove back on unnecessarily before he reached out to slide those eyelids shut. He wouldn’t touch the man again if he didn’t have to, even to complete the perfect tableau of uninterrupted, calm sleep.
Still: so much more than he deserved.
Taking a step back, Levi surveyed his work with an inscrutable expression. Anticlimactic, certainly, but well within the confines of the order he’d received. What the execution lacked in flair it made up for in pure satisfaction: so much of what Levi had done since April had been focused on making up for that ill-fated mission. Burning Essex to the ground had done most of the trick, but as with any sinking ship, so many rats had still escaped. Tonight, at least, there was one fewer — one of the biggest.
“It’s done,” Levi said to the empty room, probably unnecessarily; he assumed January was still watching, graciously letting him have this moment. Just like that, though, just like he’d arrived, he was gone again — and the room Levi left was even quieter than before.
January St. James hasn’t much cared for how days have been, after setting up the Hellfire Club and cementing the empire that she’s built for herself over days and weeks and years of clawing at the power structures that line the New York city skyline. But it is a beautiful day, and one that she starts with by watching the news. She doesn’t expect much, but what she sees makes her smile for a good, long while.
“[...] leaving a complicated legacy behind.” The woman, a blonde bob and a smart suit in front of a palatial mansion says, reading off a teleprompter as the howling of the wolves at the gate grow louder. “There has been no one like Jonas Goetsch, one of the co-founders of the now dissolved law firm Brandt and Goestch, has died from natural causes.” There are no more things that give her joy than this; the death of a rival, of someone that’s done her wrong. That’s done mutants wrong, by allying himself with Essex House—a peaceful death is not what he deserves, but it’s the job she was given.
She reminds herself to at least give Levi a larger cut. Not bad for his first job.
“The former CEO died peacefully in his home at what coroners might say is simply of old age. He is survived by his three children, Maude, Benedict, and Matthias Goetsch. He has not made any comment as of this time.” Her smile curls up to her lips as she takes an envelope of sealed wax, sent to Maxine’s bedside table in a flash. There is only a note there, that it’s done, and that she looks forward to their continued partnership in the future.
She would have done much more horrible things to him. Poison. Harm. Perhaps a little arson, with the body left on the top of the tallest tower as a warning. But Maxine didn’t hire her for theatrics, simply a good, old-fashioned assassination, and she is simply intent to deliver.
“Recently, Jonas was implicated in the Essex House scandal, upon which his company was apparently legal counsel to one Nathaniel Essex, who still remains at large. The mutants that were said to be traumatized from the institution were covered in legal red tape from his same law firm.” An eyebrow raised as she drinks her coffee, fresh off the pot. “They were barred from seeing friends and family, as well as kept in dehumanizing conditions, all thanks to the legal framework that allowed private individuals and corporations such as Essex House to keep them there.”
“Following this story, Maxine Brandt, former CEO of Brandt and Goetsch, has declined to comment about her former partner’s death.”
She looks out over the city’s skyline, the rush of questions and comments spouting from the television about Jonas, his legacy, and his death flowing to the backdrop of her mind. This was a beautiful day.
“The man was a controversial figure, with a severity that all those in his vicinity felt. Jonas Goetsch died at the age of 63, with a small following of colleagues and comrades that respected him.”
This was a beautiful day indeed.
