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"What were you doing before all this?" I ask. "Before the motorcycle club. What were you that gave you authority to counsel someone like Elaine?"

Gabriel sets down his coffee. Meets my eyes directly.

"I was a priest."

I blink. "What?"

"Catholic priest. Ordained at twenty-five. Served a parish for two few years." He says it calmly. Like it's not the most unexpected thing he could possibly reveal. "Elaine came to me for counsel about her marriage. I told her to pray. To be patient. To work through it with her husband."

I can't speak for a moment. Can't reconcile this man: tattooed, violent when necessary, wearing a motorcycle club cut, with the image of a priest in a collar offering spiritual guidance.

"You're serious."

"Completely."

"You were actually a priest. Like, ordained. Hearing confessions. Giving communion. The whole thing."

"Yeah."

"And now you're..." I gesture vaguely at him. At the leather cut he's not wearing tonight but I know exists. At the tattoos. At the man who just committed assault to protect me. "This."

"Now I'm this," he agrees.

"That's quite a transition."

"It was necessary." He picks up his fork. Cuts into his pancakes. "After Elaine died, I couldn't reconcile what I'd been taught with what I knew to be true. Couldn't keep counseling gentleness toward men who beat their wives. Couldn't keep choosing doctrine over action."

"So, you left."

"Within a year of her funeral." He takes a bite. Chews. Swallows. "Didn't lose my faith. Just lost trust in the version of protection I'd been trained to offer."

"And the motorcycle club?"

"Wandered for a few years after leaving. Taught myself to fight. Started intervening when I saw trouble." He pauses. "Ended up in Millhaven by chance. Got into a bar fight. The Iron Phoenix happened to be there that night. They stepped in. Fought beside me like we'd trained together for years."

"And they just... let you join?"

"Phoenix asked what I was running from. I told him the truth." Gabriel looks at me. "Asked to prospect on the spot. That was three months ago."

"So, you're not actually a member yet."

"Not patched. Still proving myself." He almost smiles. "But the brothers treat me like family anyway. That's what the club does. They find broken pieces and make them into something stronger."

I think about that. About a priest who couldn't save someone and became a fighter instead. About a man who joined a motorcycle club because they offered him the tools to protect people in ways prayer never could.

"I'm not her," I whisper.

"No," Gabriel agrees. "You're not. You're alive. And you're going to stay that way."

The certainty in his voice should feel presumptuous. Should feel like another man making decisions for me without my input. Instead, it feels like the first solid ground I've stood on in months.

"I can't go back to Cole. I won't. But I don't know where to go from here."

"We'll figure it out." Gabriel picks up his coffee. "One step at a time."

"And the first step?"

"The first step," he says, "is finishing these pancakes. Because Donna will be offended if we waste them."