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“Where is she now?” Remi asked.

“I’m not sure, but it would be wise to keep an ear to the ground. If she’s in Blackwater, she might be looking for you two and the kids.”

“You think?” Colt rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t want the kids within a hundred miles of Tasha, and not knowing where she was only turned his stomach.

Camille sighed. “There’s more. She made some accusations while she was here.”

“Accusations? Against you?” Remi asked, disbelieving.

“Not me. Colt.”

Colt caught Remi’s stare, and her face turned a sickly shade of white. His probably looked the same because the edges of his vision blurred and a chill raced down his spine.

“What?” Remi’s question was barely a whisper.

“She claimed her using days were over, but she said she first met Colt through Mark. She said they were affiliated with the same dealer.”

“The same what?” Remi shouted. She tightened her hold on the coat she wore until her knuckles turned the same white as her face.

“She said Colt was a drug abuser. She didn’t mention the time frame for the accusation, but she was adamant that you were a user.”

Colt shook his head and stared at Remi. “I’m not. I’ve never touched a drug. I’ve never even smoked a cigarette.”

“She said your dad was an alcoholic, and that you and Mark had followed in his footsteps.”

When Colt pushed a hand through his hair, his cold fingertips left a trail of ice. His dad’s curse was coming to bite him, and no amount of caution had done him any good. He’d been so careful. No, he’d been terrified to touch anything known for addictive tendencies. If addiction ran in the family the way it had with his dad and Mark, he didn’t want to know if he’d been marked too.

Remi shuffled her feet. “She’s right about them, but not Colt. He doesn’t do any of that. I’ve known him for years, and I would swear to it before a judge.”

Remi had always stood beside him, but was that faith fragile? Camille said Tasha was a force to be reckoned with. Would Remi ever side with someone over him?

“I don’t think that will be necessary. She’s pulling out all the stops, and I suspect she’s trying to slander your name to disrupt the guardianship case.”

“Can she do that?” Colt asked. “I mean, we have custody, but she can’t reverse that, can she?”

“Custody can be modified if the circumstances are right.”

“But it won’t be. No one would give her custody, right?” The panic in Remi’s voice reverberated through the small office and sank into Colt’s skin.

Camille sighed. “She brought screenshots of text messages. Of course, these are inadmissible evidence since the name can easily be modified on the text string, and there are no timestamps, but–”

“But what? Text messages.” Colt interrupted when the panic bubbled over the edges of his sanity. “I’ve never texted with Tasha in my life.”

“What do the texts say?” Remi asked.

She wasn’t looking at him. Why wasn’t she looking at him? Why wasn’t she screaming that all of this was stupid? She’d stood up for him a minute ago. Why not now?

“She claimed that she and Colt were once in a romantic relationship.”

“No, no, no. No, we weren’t. We definitely weren’t.” His words were hurried, pushed together by fear.

“Colt, prepare yourself for this one. She claims you were physically and verbally abusive.”

“What?” His shout echoed through the small office, as Colt backed up until the cold, wooden wall was hard against his back. It was all lies. He’d never do that. No one would believe her.

Except, someone would. If Tasha screamed violence, the crime would sit on his shoulders and be branded into his skin for the rest of his life. Everyone would always wonder if she’d been the one telling the truth. And how could he prove his innocence?

He couldn’t. The sad truth stared him in the face as Remi kept her gaze locked on the phone he held. He could see the wheels in her mind turning with every deep breath she inhaled.