Chapter 333: Aliases
"By the way... what were you two doing earlier?"
Red and Betty opened their mouths, then shut them. Their eyes darted to the faces watching them from across the cabin with open curiosity.
"I mean..." Rum, seated up front but twisted around to look at the duo, tilted his head. "Why?"
Why. That was the question on everyone’s mind.
They were already on their way home. Things had been so hectic earlier that this was the first chance anyone had to ask.
Why would these two think that tying blankets together, dropping them out a window, and climbing down was a reasonable escape plan?
The guys had found them dangling off the side of the building.
Red ruffled his hair irritably. "It shouldn’t have gone like that, okay?"
"From our calculations, we should have reached the balcony on the floor below," Betty added, then muttered to herself, "Clearly, we miscalculated."
Lucky for them, a chopper had been hovering close enough to the High Chamber castle that they were rescued before the knotted blankets gave out.
Rum laughed, looking between the two of them. Before he could get a word in, Red shot him a glare.
"I’m not making fun of you," Rum said, raising both hands. "I’m genuinely asking because that is not what I was imagining at all."
Red leaned back and clicked his tongue.
"Rum." He pointed at him, then swept his finger around the cabin. "All of you — Khan, Vodka, and especially you, Tank. You should be grateful and focus on what actually mattered."
Khan and Tank furrowed their brows. They hadn’t been part of the conversation a moment ago, and now they were being stared down by Red with no clear reason why.
"You all got the grand entrance because you were with the Madam and the Master," Red continued through gritted teeth. "Meanwhile, Domination and I had to buy you time. Stop fixating on what happened after. If not for us, the Madam wouldn’t have had the window to do what she needed to do."
"I wasn’t looking at how the two of you trapped yourselves dangling off the side of the castle," Khan said — and immediately flinched under Red’s glare.
Before things could escalate, Betty sighed.
"Not you all too," she muttered, just loud enough for them to hear. "Why are you calling me Domination? That was just the Madam’s joke."
Ashley had been calling her Domination for a while now — Primo and Lucian had picked it up too. Every time it happened, Betty felt her heart stutter with a mix of nervousness and secondhand embarrassment. But now the rest of them were starting to use it as well.
"Huh?" Rum tilted his head.
Khan and the others looked equally confused.
"It’s a joke?" Khan asked. "I thought it was your alias."
Betty blinked. "Huh?"
"You’re part of Dominion," Red said flatly. "The Madam’s assistant, at that. You’ll need one."
Everyone nodded. Rum added,
"Just like the rest of us in here."
Betty’s eyes swept across the faces in the cabin. "Oh!" Her mouth formed a small O. "Your names are all aliases. I completely forgot."
When she’d joined Dominion, she had already known everyone by those names. She’d always been aware that people in the underground used aliases — it just hadn’t clicked until now.
"Seriously," Rum shook his head. "You think Red’s parents named him Red? What is he, an orange?"
"When we formed our crew, we all picked aliases," Vodka chimed in. "Since we liked drinking together, we went with our favorite drinks or brands. Mine’s easy — Vodka."
Rum nodded and pointed to himself. "I like all kinds of rum — it’s my go-to. Gin is gin. As for Red, he’s a beer man."
"Huh?" Betty furrowed her brows and glanced at Khan, who wore the same expression.
Khan blurted out, "I thought it was Red because his favorite color is red."
"Hey!" Red scoffed. "I can hear you. If you’re going to get it wrong, at least assume I picked Red because I like blood. Carnage. Massacre."
Khan zipped his mouth. Privately, he thought that description fit Rum far better.
"But beer isn’t red," Betty pointed out.
"It’s a brand," Red said, clicking his tongue. "I like beer, but during a mission in the Philippines, I got hooked on a particular brand."
His crew nodded in unison.
"Ohhh..." Betty, Khan, Nelek, Warriyo, and Rus — the three who had been quietly listening — all nodded in understanding.
Then Nelek furrowed his brows. Almost in sync, he, Warriyo, Rus, Betty, and Khan all turned to look at Tank.
"What about him?" Rus pointed. "Why Tank?!"
"Ahh..." Red waved a hand. "He didn’t drink back then."
"Then why Tank?!" they demanded in unison.
Red, Rum, and Vodka looked up, thought about it, then shrugged and turned to Tank.
"What was your reason again?" the three of them asked.
Tank blinked at his own crewmates, opened his mouth, and closed it again.
"Just say it!" they shouted together.
But Tank kept his mouth shut even as Rum and Rus grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him sideways, trying to rattle an answer loose.
"Stop being mysterious!"
"Just tell us!"
"What’s Tank for?!"
"We won’t be able to sleep if you don’t tell us!"
Tank, like a man made of stone, let them shake him with a completely straight face.
In his head, though, Tank was also wondering the same thing. He genuinely didn’t know the reason behind his own name. How was he supposed to answer a question he had no answer to?
Meanwhile, Betty watched as the chaos spread through the cabin — Red had even jumped out of his seat, and Khan had stationed himself beside Tank to explain the gravity of the situation with a generous amount of implied threat.
She sank back into her seat. "And my alias... is Domination?" she murmured, her expression twisting. "That’s quite... ambitious, isn’t it?"
She sat with it for a moment before her gaze drifted back to the guys. The corner of her mouth curled. She let out a quiet chuckle.
Ashley had given her that nickname off the back of a small joke, and it had stuck. Lucian and Primo had followed. Then again — as the secretary to the Madam of Dominion, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising.
It seemed she wasn’t going to be rid of it anytime soon. She might as well live up to it.
Smiling, she shook her head at the chaos in front of her and turned to the window, eyes settling on the clouds outside.
Just last night, none of us knew what was going to happen.
Her smile stretched until her eyes creased.
But as promised, the Madam came for us.
Would Betty do it all again? Without question. Not because it had been any less dangerous — but because she knew, without a doubt, that the person she answered to was worth every bit of it.
That thought didn’t belong to Betty alone. Even the guys currently attempting to pry Tank from his seat while he clung to it for dear life felt it too, somewhere underneath the noise.
Just last night, they’d had no choice but to pick up their weapons and gear up. And now here they were, carrying on as if the fear had never happened.
It felt... nice, they thought.
Who would have thought they’d be this eager to go home to that empty house together?
But while their people finally exhaled and turned their faces toward home, others were far from pleased by how things had turned out.
