Betrayal and Trust

Chapter 10

G rushed upstairs and into his private bedroom on the third floor of The Barn and hid in the closet, inching backward until he was wedged into the far corner of the walk-in closet. The flashbacks of Charles's first attack on him coursed through his mind. He shuddered with each new execrable image and shoved his face between his drawn up knees, encircling his arms around his knees.

Sam entered G's private bedroom and searched the room and bathroom until he found his partner sitting on the closet floor. He inched into the closet until he was less than a foot away from G and sat cross-legged on the carpet.

"No games."

"No problem."

"I feel as if my whole world is turned upside down with these memories of Charles and what he did to me." G shrugged his shoulders. "Trust is betrayal and betrayal is trust. I trusted him with my thoughts, emotions, and my life, and now I discovered he lied to me. Worse, I've remembered when the betrayal began, and it was well before Bolivia. I don't know how I'm gonna resolve this and move on."

"Talk it through with me as you are doing right now."

"Easier said than done, because trust is the foundation or the glue in our relationship."

"And?"

"I don't know if I trust you now."

"There's no rush, no pressure, take your time."

"We have an ops looming over our heads and I need to be functional for it."

"Hetty postponed anything to do with Pure."

"Anything?"

"Well, except what you're dealing with, G."

"You had me worried for a minute," he said. "All I feel like doing is hiding or running away from you and our team."

"I think I'd feel the same way if someone who I had trusted betrayed me." Sam moved closer to G. "I think we need to continue where we left off."

"What do you mean?"

"I hold you and you talk to me about what happened."

"No perving on me, Sam."

"What?"

"Perving."

"I have absolutely no desire to have a sexual relationship with you."

G sighed. "Good, I wondered."

"Don't need to wonder about me," Sam said. "But I do believe you need to be held."

"I want it, but don't want it."

"We don't need to do it in a bed as before, right here is fine."

"Is this Hetty's idea?"

"Nope, mine, a spinoff from Navy SEAL training," he said.

"How so?"

Sam laid on the closet floor on his side. "Join me."

"Tell me."

"As a Navy SEAL, your partner and the trust you place in him are the foundations of a strong team."

"Teamwork is everything?"

"Yeah and without trust there's no team," Sam said. "Join me."

G inched over to face his partner. Everything inside him screamed 'get away and fast,' but he stayed facing Sam. "Now what?"

"Back to me."

"I don't know—"

"Don't think, G, move," Sam said. "Act as if your life and your survival on this ops is contingent on your connection with me."

He rolled over until his back faced Sam's body.

"Inch backward into me."

"Damn it, you don't know how hard this is for me."

"Stop thinking about it and follow through," Sam said. "Pretend you're on a Navy SEALs mission and your very life and existence depends on our partnership and our team relationship." He wrapped his arms around G's chest, pulling him snug against his body. "No man left behind. Understood? That means you, G, I'm not leaving you behind suffering from the aftereffects of what Charles Waite did to you. You're on my team and I'm on your team. We're partners." G relaxed in Sam's arms. "There, the first sign of trust, relaxing and knowing your teammate is here to protect you at all costs. You and I are gonna endure Hell Week in a different way though. You tell me what Charles did to you and I'll support you and hold you. It will be as if you and what you endured are the raft and I am the team which lifts you up in the air and holds you above my head."

G closed his eyes. "I got the word picture, thanks Sam, it's clear in my head."

"Now, simply let go and allow me to support you."

He sucked in a huge breath and released it slow. "I remember Charles drugging me for the first time."

"How long before the mission to Bolivia?"

"At least six months," G said, "I had my own office and Charles didn't. He was jealous. I kept it low key, never talking about my office and how I enjoyed it, even though I did."

"So you couldn't have a normal supervisor to trainee relationship?"

"Never."

"He believed you wanted one-upmanship?"

"Yeah, but I didn't, I purposely kept that part of our relationship low key knowing he was extremely jealous." G remembered back to how odd it felt to be a supervisor over someone who didn't wished to be supervised. Charles only wanted to be top dog over him. A constant power struggle ensued when they faced anything together. It was supposed to be a team, a partnership, and it was anything but that. "Charles visited me in my office on a daily basis. We engaged in small talk for the most part. I stayed away from any mention of a partnership, yet that is what I needed from him."

"And Charles didn't want that from you?"

"No, he wanted to rule over me." G remembered the day Charles drugged him as if it happened this morning. He shivered and jerked away from Sam.

"Easy, G, we have a partnership." Sam redoubled his efforts and drew G snug against his body. "You and I are a team."

"He and I sat on the sofa in my office talking and joking around, as if it were an ordinary day in our relationship." He shuddered hard, flashing back to the scene in his office. "In a quick maneuver, Charles grabbed me and wrestled me onto the carpet, shoving me face down and smashing my face sideways into the carpet. He kneed my upper back hard, knocking the wind out of me. I came around, still not breathing normal, and he was injecting something into my neck. After a few minutes, my body was reduced to a flaccid, lethargic, and unresponsive form, yet I was aware of everything happening around me. He positioned me before the sofa, placing me on my knees with my torso on the sofa. Afterward, he secured my hands behind my back with handcuffs. I couldn't scream or talk due to the drug he gave me. Charles left me there."

"He left the room?"

"I guess, but I was too drugged to think about his whereabouts," G said. "He returned a few hours later. I know that because of when I took my breaks and when I left for the day. This is the part, damn, it's hard to talk about it." He squeezed his eyes shut pushing away the execrable images of Charles's violation.

"Don't think simply tell me."

He shivered, tears wetting his face. "Charles stripped off my pants and raped me." Sam tightened his hold on G. "Yes, tighter. It hurt and I screamed and cried, but he didn't stop. He told me to scream all I wanted, because no one was there to stop him from getting what he wanted. I knew he wanted one thing and it wasn't sexual gratification. He wanted control over me."

"Sounds about right, G, he wanted leverage in your relationship."

"After that day, he had it, but I never understood why or how," G said. "I just knew things were different and I felt odd. It wasn't from the rapes which had become a daily occurrence by the fifth day of our altered relationship. It was the drugs, but I didn't figure it out, ever, until now." He sighed. "Worse stuff happened than getting raped."

"Worse?"

"Yeah, he forced me to amend his records."

"Which ones, G?"

"Anything where he received poor reviews and failed to make the promotions he sought." He remembered that nightmarish time in the CIA's archive room where it took over eight hours to change those documents.

"Doesn't that pretty much describe his promotions?"

"Yeah, Sam, he didn't get anything he wanted and thought I was to blame for his losses," G said. "While he raped me, I was forced to redact the information on those documents."

"What, that's insane?" Sam said. "I'm sorry he put you through that."

"It was too, but I decided to mark my changes with a code with the possibility that someday I could look back and prove those were altered documents."

"How?"

"I used morse code in the only two letters I could remember, my initials, G and C."

"That is one of the best demonstrations of standard operating procedure I've seen you display, while beside the one with that extreme militia group and your bobby pin," Sam said. "I think Hetty needs to know about those altered documents. Your CIA record needs to be changed to reflect the truth. Anything else you need to share, G?"

"No, that's where it all began, my office and Charles's need to control my world."

"Sounds as if this guy is beyond a narcissist with these new revelations about his behavior."

"I wished I never befriended him," G said. "I used to wonder why no one else wanted to be his friend, that is until he raped me." Now I have to face this bastard, and all I can think of doing is destroying his life. If it was legal, I'd drug Charles. It was time to turn the tables on Charles and his life, which meant confronting him and Charles's organization, Pure.