Chapter 23 The Gospel of Her Wrath #2
And Hank—God help me—moves the curtain. And there he is. Warren.
Tied to a chair. Slumped, bloodied, bruised. His shirt’s ripped, one eye swollen shut, lip split and crusted with dried blood. He groans softly, barely conscious.
My breath punches out of me. Not in fear. Not even in shock.
But something far deeper. Something primal. Something that crawls up from the place where all my rage lives and screams for air.
I stumble back a half-step, Cain catching me with a hand to my spine.
“What is this?” I whisper, but I know what it is. I feel it in my bones, in the hair rising on my arms. I feel it in the way my stomach coils, tight and burning.
Cain grins, slow and reverent, like a priest laying out the sacraments. “This,” he says, holding something out to me—a fucking bat, “is your reckoning. Your vengeance. Your communion of carnage.”
He places the bat in my hands like it’s holy. Like I’m holy. Like this entire moment is wrapped in velvet and blood and divine fury.
My fingers close around the handle. And for a second, all I can do is breathe. Because they did this. Cain. Hank. They did this for me.
They saw what the world refused to see. They believed me when the cops didn't. They saw the bruises behind my smile, the cracks in my voice. They saw the hollowed-out places Warren left behind and said no more.
I feel tears prick my eyes, but not because I’m sad. I’m grieving the woman I used to be. The one he tried to break. And I’m looking at the man who tried to own me—tried to ruin me—and all I feel is fury.
Fury and gratitude. And something that tastes like freedom on my tongue. I grip the bat tighter. He’s still groaning. Mumbling something. Probably thinks he can talk his way out of this.
But I’m not the girl who cried in courtrooms anymore. I’m the woman holding a fucking bat. And this? This is where it ends.
The bat is heavy in my hands. My pulse? Heavier.
Warren lifts his head, and for a split second—just one—I see the smug look he always wore. Even bloodied and bound, that condescension clings to him like smoke. That same patronizing fuckin' tone that told me I was being dramatic, delusional, too emotional.
“Magdalena,” he croaks. “You don’t have to do this.”
Oh, but I do. I have to. Because no one else ever did it for me. Because I was always the girl behind the locked door. Because he always got away with it. Until now.
I take the first swing. It hits his thigh with a wet crack, and he screams—high and sharp—and oh, holy God, it fills something inside me. That noise? That’s mine now.
“You don’t get to beg,” I snarl, bringing the bat down again, this time across his ribs. “Not after what you did to me.”
Another hit. He wails. He sobs.
“Please—Magdalena, please, I didn’t mean—”
“Didn’t mean to what?” CRACK—his shoulder. He jerks, yelps.
“To call me a whore in front of my coworkers?”
“To threaten to ruin me?”
“To fucking corner me on Thanksgiving?”
Another hit. The bat is slick. My hands are slipping. But I don’t stop.
Cain’s behind me, silent, watchful. My dark angel with blood in his mouth. Hank’s in the shadows, arms crossed like a guardian of wrath.
I am seen. I am loved. I am unleashed.
“I begged for help,” I sob. “I cried in front of cops. I showed them everything—and they still cuffed me. Do you know what it was like?" I whisper, my voice cracking as I lower the bat. "Do you have any idea what you made me feel?"
Warren doesn't answer. His head hangs, blood dripping from his mouth onto his designer shirt. I wanted this moment to feel triumphant. I wanted to feel powerful. But something else is rising in me now—something darker, something I've buried so deep I thought I'd never have to face it again.
"I wanted to die because of you," I say, the words tearing from my throat like barbed wire. "After the stalking order failed. After the cops laughed me out of the station. After my own mother told me I was being dramatic."
The bat slips from my fingers, clattering to the concrete floor. My knees feel weak.
"I stood on my balcony every night for a week," I continue, voice hollow. "Fourteen floors up. I'd climb onto the railing and just… stand there. Wondering if it would hurt. If anyone would even notice I was gone."
Cain shifts behind me. I can feel his presence, solid and warm, but I can't look at him. Not yet.
My voice cracks as the memories flood back. "Oh god, my mother fucking tried to tame me. She forced me into that Catholic church program. St. Mary's Redemption Center." The name tastes like ash on my tongue. "Where I was fucking abused."
I'm shaking now, my whole body vibrating with rage and remembered pain. "Three months of 'corrective counseling.' Three months of Father Michael telling me my 'sexual deviancy' was a sin. Three months of praying the gay away because I kissed a girl at fourteen."
Cain steps closer, his presence solid behind me, but he doesn't touch me. He knows I need to get this out.
"They made me kneel on rice for hours," I whisper. "Made me write Bible verses until my fingers bled. And when I cried, they said it was the devil leaving my body. They touched me. Over and over."
Warren's eyes are wide now, watching me like I'm some feral thing he can't comprehend.
"My mother knew. She fucking knew what they were doing, and she said it was for my own good.
" I laugh, bitter and broken. "Just like you said stalking me was for my own good.
Just like the cops said arresting me was for my own good!
" I scream, my voice shattering against the concrete walls. "Nobody fucking cared!"
The words explode from me, ripping through the air like shrapnel. My throat burns raw with the force of it, years of silence finally breaking open.
"Nobody fucking cared what happened to me!" I'm trembling so hard I can barely stand. "Not the system, not the church, not my mother—nobody!"
Warren flinches against his restraints, blood-crusted lips parting like he might speak, but I'm not done.
"You think this is about you?" I step closer, my voice dropping to something deadlier. "This isn't just about you. It's about every single person who looked the other way. Who told me to be quiet. Who said I was overreacting."
I pick up the bat again, fingers wrapping around it like it's an extension of my rage.
"But they're not here," I whisper. "You are."
He’s trying to twist away, but the ropes hold. I scream and swing again—harder. The bat hits his stomach, and he vomits. Good. Let him taste fear. Let him choke on the same panic he fed me for months.
“You won’t get away with this,” he spits, blood dripping from his mouth. “You’re fucking insane!”
Cain chuckles low and slow, stepping out of the dark.
“Oh yes, she will,” he murmurs, crouching beside Warren. His voice is velvet-laced venom. “She’ll get away with all of it. Because I’ll make sure of it.”
Warren moans, trying to twist, but Cain grips his jaw.
“You don’t understand, preacher boy,” Cain hisses. “She’s ours now. Mine and the wrath of God’s. You? You’re nothing but a bloodstain on the book of her resurrection.”
I drop the bat. It clatters to the floor, blood-spattered and holy. My chest heaves, my vision swims, and then—then the sob rips from me like a hurricane. Not the dainty kind. No, this one is feral. Ugly. Animalistic.
My knees buckle, and I hit the floor. My own blood, his blood, my snot and spit and tears, all of it mixing in one divine, cathartic baptism.
“I didn’t want this,” I cry into my hands. “I didn’t want to become this.”
Cain’s there in a second. Kneeling. Wrapping me in his arms.
“Yes, you did,” he whispers. “You just didn’t know it was allowed.”
Hank steps forward now. Grabs the bat. Lifts it once.
“This,” he says, cracking it across Warren’s face, “is for hurting my girl.”
Warren groans. Barely conscious now. Cain pulls away. Stands. Slow. Deliberate. He circles Warren like a wolf—like a sermon in human form.
“You touched what’s mine,” he says. “You scared her. Shamed her. Tried to strip her of her divinity.” Cain leans in. Smiles. “But Mags? My little saint? She’s sacred now. Anointed in wrath and resurrection.”
He pulls a knife from his belt. I don’t flinch. I watch.
Cain’s hand is steady. His voice is calm. “This is the last confession you’ll ever make,” he whispers.
Then slices Warren’s throat—clean. Controlled. Like a final, merciful end. Warren gurgles. Then slumps. Cain turns to me. Eyes burning.
“It’s done,” he says, crossing to me. “He’ll never hurt you again.”
And then he lifts me into his arms like I’m the only holy thing left in this godless town.
Cain doesn’t hand me over. He gathers me. Carries me away from the wreckage like I’m something precious salvaged from a war zone—and maybe I am. My arms cling to him on instinct. I feel limp. Boneless. Bloody. Holy.
But he doesn’t take me outside yet. No, Cain sets me down just to the side, in the quiet dimness, and turns back to Warren’s slumped body. His silhouette cuts across the blood-drenched floor like something biblical and blasphemous. Judgment incarnate.
He cracks his neck once. Rolls his shoulders. Then crouches. “You know,” Cain murmurs to the corpse, voice as low and calm as a hymn, “I spent a long time thinking I’d never have anything worth saving. I thought I was just a hammer—born for the nail.”
His hand slides through Warren’s hair—disrespectful. Possessive.
“But then she came along. And you…you tried to break her. Tried to touch her with your foul, fucking hands. You thought no one would come. No one would believe her.” He leans in, cheek nearly pressed to Warren’s cooling ear. “I believe her.”
He stands. Wipes his hands on Warren’s shirt like it’s a napkin. “And I don’t give a fuck about what the law says. Because this?” He gestures to the mess. “This is law. What’s done to her will never go unanswered. Not while I breathe.”
Cain turns, eyes finding me. But he’s not done.
“Do you know what I used to pray for, Mags?” he asks, voice low but slicing.
I shake my head. He smiles. But it’s not kind. It’s lethal.
“I used to pray for my hands to be taken from me. For God to take the weapon out of my soul before I destroyed everything I touched. But now?”
He crosses back to me. Crouches again. Takes my chin in his fingers, smears blood across my cheekbone with his thumb like he’s anointing me. “Now I pray that I never lose them. Because you deserve someone who can burn the whole fucking world down to build you peace.”
I tremble. Not from fear. From the way it settles in my chest. That terrible, beautiful knowing—that I’m no longer alone. Cain’s eyes are fire and funeral bells.
“Let them call me a monster,” he whispers. “I’ll be your monster. I’ll be your wrath and your reckoning. I’ll be the sharp edge you never had.” His voice softens. Just for me. “Because you? You’re not meant for cages, little saint.”
He scoops me up again. This time slower. Tender. “You were made for altars.”
He carries me like a bride through fire.
My body doesn’t feel real. Not anymore. I’m floating—bloody and bruised and broken open in ways that don’t show on skin.
Cain doesn’t say a word as he walks me out.
Hank stays behind, rolling up his sleeves like he’s done this before.
Like cleaning up carnage is just another day for them.
Cain buckles me into the passenger seat. Like I’m fragile. Like I’m not still shaking from the weight of that bat. He drives in silence. One hand on the wheel. The other tangled with mine. His thumb brushes my knuckles, again and again, like he’s trying to soothe something deeper than bone.
I don't speak. I can't. The adrenaline has hollowed me out. I feel raw. Open. Like if he looked at me too hard, he'd see the parts that are still screaming.
When we get home, he lifts me again. Doesn’t even let me walk. Up the stairs. Into the bathroom.
The light’s low, warm. Like a candlelit vigil. He runs the water. Tests it with his wrist. Then peels the clothes from my body like he’s undressing a wound.
Blood sticks to my skin. Mine. Warren’s. Our story written in violence across my collarbones. Cain doesn’t flinch.
He kneels. Washes me with bare hands and quiet reverence.
No washcloth. Just his fingers. Warm water.
The softest touch I’ve ever known. He cleans the dried streaks from my cheeks, the bruises blooming under my chin.
He says nothing, but I hear it in every stroke—I see you. I’ve got you. You’re safe.
When I start to cry, he just leans forward and presses his lips to my knee. Not sexual. Not possessive. Just… here.
He dries me off. Carries me to bed. Wraps me in his shirt, soft and worn and safe-smelling. And when he tucks the blanket around me, when I finally meet his eyes again, he brushes a damp curl from my temple and whispers it—quiet like a prayer.
“He’ll never bother you again, my little saint.”
And for the first time since I walked into that bar… I believe him.