Pierre Merkalov did not believe himself to be a cruel man. A just man, a fair man, a man who only dealt out pain when he thought that others deserved it. If he had taken Trevelyan's daughter, then Trevelyan deserved it. It was a simple matter of justice.

Justice for wrongs done in the past.

Natasha Trevelyan had not bloomed in captivity.

Her thick dark hair that had tumbled carelessly down her back now hung in limp strands around her face. She fumbled for a strand of it, feeling the coarse texture with unknowing fingers. Dully she chewed the end of it, a comforting habit. If her mother was here, she would be chastised for it, but her mother wasn't here to see. She watched with dead eyes as the man who had held her captive stalked round the room, occasionally muttering under his breath. He glanced every so often at the child and marvelled that the Trevelyan spirit had been broken so easily.

Natasha was huddled in the corner of the room, her back pressed against the cold wall, her shoulders slumped. The guards had taken her from her small room some days before, and she had found herself on an aeroplane for the first time. She had been frightened, trapped inside the hollow metal tube with its flimsy looking wings, and she had screamed until someone had sedated her once more. She had screamed for her father, for her mother, for anyone who would save her from the terror that seemed to fill her life now. The plane journey had been the last straw, now she was silent, watching and waiting for the chance to do something. Quite what, she didn't know yet, but she knew that she had to do something.

The bearded man scared her too. He tried to be nice to her, but there was a coldness to him that she didn't understand. He talked of her father, but her daddy when he was younger. Before he had been married, before he had even known her mother. She didn't understand all that he told her, only that her father had been a kind of soldier, a secret soldier, and that was why he hadn't told her about it. Natasha had frowned. She had only seen soldiers in pictures, and she couldn't quite match up the uniformed image with the tall, well dressed man that was her father. She didn't like the stories that the man told her. He had told her his name was Pierre, but now he wanted her to call him 'Granpére', which he told her meant 'grandfather'.

She had refused.

Her grandparents were dead, she had argued, they had died before she was born, so the bearded man couldn't be her grandfather.

He had been angry then, and she had been frightened again, but at the same time defiant. She had seen pictures of her mother's parents, and they had seemed strangely young, but her mother had explained they had been young when they had died. They would have been good grandparents, she thought, she would have liked to have had some, but this man would never be her grandfather.

He was the closest thing she would ever have to a grandfather, he had snarled at her.

Now she remained wary of him, she didn't trust him. If she stayed quiet, he wouldn't know what she was thinking, and she liked the thought of that.

Merkalov paced the room. His encounter with the dark haired woman in Paris was playing on his mind. He had been curious to see the woman who had captured Alec Trevelyan's heart, and against his better judgement he had orchestrated to literally bump into her.

His head snapped round back to the child. Yes, he thought, yes. He could see it now. He strode purposefully across the room to where Natasha was huddled, taking some pleasure in the way she cowered when he approached. Roughly he grabbed her chin, jerking her face up so he could look into it.

Definitely her mother's child. He wouldn't have called the woman in Paris beautiful, but definitely attractive. Hardly Alec's taste though, he thought, recalling some of the model like beauties that had caught Alec's critical eye before. The face had been warm and friendly, with gently rounded cheeks, and a full mouth. The eyes had been startled, and unnaturally blue.

He stared into the child's face. Yes, she had the same rounded face as her mother, the same mouth. The cool green eyes were wide with terror, as his thick fingers dug into her face, as the frozen blue eyes carefully analysed every detail. Finally he let her go.

'Get me the Vixen,' he snapped to a nearby guard.

A slim screen lit up on a table. He waited patiently while the woman he mockingly called the Vixen was connected. It was a poor play on his own moniker, but he enjoyed the wounded look on her face whenever he used it.

'Yes?' she snapped.

'Trevelyan's wife,' he said bluntly. 'Everything you know about her.'

He saw the expression of superiority appear on her face. 'I told you she was important.'

It was true. The Vixen had been pushing for the focus to be shifted onto the wife for sometime. 'Just tell me.'

There was a pause, and suddenly the screen was dominated by what appeared to be a personnel file. The Vixen's voice filled the room.

'Ashleigh Trevelyan. Married Trevelyan five years ago, after only knowing him a few months. Now this is the interesting bit. She used to be a spy, working for MI6, was involved in a couple of high profile assignments, before suddenly vanishing abroad. It appears that she met Trevelyan in St Petersburg while attempting to retrieve a biological weapon.'

'So?' The scorn in Merkalov's face was clear.

'So?' The Vixen was incredulous. 'So? What this means is we have access to her entire background. She was a spy, and an infamous one too.'

'Infamous?' Merkalov frowned.

'For two reasons. Our dear friend 007, a certain James Bond just happens to be her godfather. Which does explain why he has taken such a close interest in this little fiasco. Secondly, her maiden name is Kain. Ashleigh Kain. Daughter of David Kain.'

The name was one he knew, but why? Confusion, for once, was clear on his face.

There was a trace of triumph in the Vixen's voice this time. 'Or as you may have known him, 009 of the British Secret Service.'

The realisation hit him in seconds. For a moment he was there, the cold snow whipping around him, watching as the British spy was forced to his knees, the bitter laughter of the men filling his ears as they watched the humiliation of the enemy.

He saw the stoic determination in the man's dark brown eyes, and knew that the man knew he was about to die.

He saw the gun in Alec Trevelyan's hand.

Pierre Merkalov was lost in the past. He didn't see the way Natasha crept forward silently, until she could stare at the screen. He didn't see the way her small hand pressed against the photograph of her mother's face.

He didn't see the tears that slid silently her cheeks.

'You were having a nightmare, Alec,' a concerned voice broke through Alec's subconscious.

Slowly he was coming to, trying to hold back the bile that rose in his throat. He was soaked in sweat, it was in his hair, his eyes, coating the stubble that covered his upper lip, trickling down the muscles of his chest.

'Alec?'

The sheets beneath him were satin, his skin stuck to them uncomfortably, with some effort he peeled himself from them so he could sit upright, fighting to untangle his legs from the twisted fabric.

'I'm okay,' he finally managed to gasp.

'You were moaning, Alec. Talking in your sleep. I was worried.'

He didn't believe her, but he stayed silent, holding back the vicious comment that had immediately sprung to his lips.

Her hand went to his shoulder, and he resisted the desire to flinch away from it. Instead he let her cold hand press against his burning flesh.

'Tell me,' she whispered into his ear.

No, he wanted to scream at her, push her away, anything to avoid thinking about the dream that tormented him so often.

The snow was cold around him, despite the thickness of the leather boots his feet were still numb. He forced them forward, towards the courtyard, letting the snowflakes that fell settle on the short stubs that were once his eyelashes. The hair on his face had been burnt away in the explosion, it was only now, six months later that his eyelashes and eyebrows were re-growing. Another humiliation to add to his livid flesh, and twisted grimace.

The courtyard was filled with men, if one could call it a courtyard. No, it was more like a prison exercise yard, now filled with soldiers and languid officers.

He walked faster, panic beginning to course through him. His body refused to move quickly enough, it would be over before he could get there. He tore at the buttons on his thick parka, fumbling within its warm depths for the revolver he had placed there earlier. He would need it now.

David was there.

David.

David, kneeling in the snow, blood soaking his clothes. It seeped into the snow around him, staining it a diluted pink.

He hadn't seen David for nearly seven months. His soul soared to see the man he had called a friend, but his sensibilities reminded him that he had a new loyalty now.

He drew back the safety on the revolver.

'No,' he heard himself speak as if from some distance away. 'No.'

His eyes met David's, those eyes that were the same rich brown as bitter coffee. He saw recognition, surprise, anger, and then dismay flicker through them all in a single heartbeat.

David didn't speak. He merely bowed his head, knowing the end had come.

A gunshot rang out into the cold Siberian afternoon, and Alec woke from the dream.

'Alec, what's wrong?'

In any other voice, the words would have come across as concerned, but in her voice, they grated on his nerves, whining, petulant, a spoilt child demanding to know a secret.

'Tell me!' She demanded.

'Nothing!' Alec snapped back, twisting away from the porcelain hands that tried to trap him to her.

Her rosebud mouth pouted, china blue eyes flashed with anger, defiling the usual doll like effect. Alec felt nothing when he looked at her but disgust with himself. He had allowed Lucinda to seduce him with her ravishing looks, but however beautiful she was on the outside, he had seen into the core of her, seen her pathological greed, and a desire for power that bordered on the psychotic.

He turned towards her, hands gripping her, and he saw her flinch away from his scars. The urge to hit her had never been stronger, to wipe that revulsion over her face with a well placed blow, but his days of hitting women were long behind him. The question was whether Lucinda even counted as a woman. She was a witch, he decided, who charmed men and then destroyed them, a modern day Siren.

'Is your conscience bothering you, Alec?' she taunted him, refusing to show pain at the tightness of his grip.

'At least I have a conscience, Elliot,' he growled.

'It'll destroy you in the end,' she hissed.

He had kissed her then, grinding his mouth against hers, crushing her to him, knowing he was hurting her, and not caring.

Anything to stop her from speaking the truth.

The incident was praying on Alec's mind as he meticulously slotted the high tech semi –automatic rifle together.

One day he would have to explain to Ashleigh what had happened.

He didn't think that she would ever forgive him. He dreaded the day when the truth would out