As the car glided through Mumbai's glittering evening traffic, I tugged at the edge of the dress for what felt like the hundredth time. The silky fabric slid coolly under my palm, refusing to sit the way I wanted.

  I kept checking the mirror, hoping the makeup hadn't smudged or revealed the male face hidden beneath it. Then I chided myself-this level of makeup could probably survive a cyclone. It wasn't going anywhere for two days.

  Aarav gnced at me from the driver's seat, his reflection shimmering faintly in the tinted gss. "Rex, Sam," he said, smiling as if this entire pn were a casual Sunday drive. "You're going to be fine."

  Sam. Everyone called me that.

  Sami-now that was Sameera.

  Yet the film press had started calling her Sam too, which only made things more confusing. So which Sam was Aarav referring to right now?

  What surprised me most was how calm he seemed. If the lie got discovered, his reputation, his production company, his biggest film to date-everything could colpse. The pressure should've been on him, not me.

  "You don't seem worried that this might go... boom," I muttered. "Like a massive fiasco."

  He ughed, head falling back for a second. "No, Sam, I'm not worried. I know you can carry it off." He gestured at me. "Did you notice the way you walked to the car? That subtle sway in your hips? The way you used your hands? No one was watching but me, yet you were already in character."

  He lowered his voice, leaning in pyfully and conspiratorially. "Honestly? You might just be a better actor than your sister."

  I hoped some of that confidence would rub off on me. "I hope you're right, Aarav."

  His expression softened, becoming oddly sentimental. "Remember that prank you pulled on me on my wedding night?"

  Heat crawled up my neck. That prank.

  "You sat on the suhag-raat bed wearing Sameera's bridal lehenga. Full makeup. Jewellery. And I-" he rubbed his face, embarrassed-"I was drunk enough not to realise it wasn't her. I almost kissed you before Sameera and her friends barged in, ughing like hyenas."

  He grinned. "If you fooled me that night, you can fool anyone tonight."

  Yes, that prank. Sameera and her friends had practically bullied me into it.

  Sure, I had carried it off-but that had been just for a few minutes. Tonight I had to survive hours: conversations, cameras, industry insiders. This wasn't a friendly prank; this was a high-stakes masquerade.

  "So," Aarav asked gently, "shall we go over the pn again?"

  I nodded, though my mind drifted.

  --------

  Sameera and I had grown up in a cramped middle-css ft with peeling paint and a father who drank more than he worked. When he died during our first year of junior college, the ground disappeared beneath our feet.

  Bills piled up.

  Mother started taking tuitions.

  Sameera picked up odd modelling gigs.

  And I-nerdy, awkward Sameer-found a job at a stockbroking firm.

  That's where I discovered my drug: stocks, gold, crypto. I was good at predicting trends, and slowly it became a habit-an addiction.

  For three years, life treated us kindly.

  Sameera got her first big break in films.

  My crypto portfolio skyrocketed.

  We moved into better neighbourhoods, bigger houses.

  The nerdy boy became the reckless spender.

  But the fall was worse than the climb-at least for me.

  Crypto crashed.

  I had invested not only my money but other people's as well.

  Loan sharks began circling, threatening to recover their money "by any means."

  Then, in the middle of that chaos, Sameera disappeared.

  A short message to Mom: I'm tired of the industry. I'm leaving. Don't worry about me.

  I ughed when I first heard it. Sameera? Tired of fame? More likely she was tired of Aarav-ten years her senior-and had run off with someone else. She had always been impulsive.

  She even voice-messaged Mom st week saying she was safe and would be back soon.

  So when Aarav came to me-desperate, cornered-and said:

  "I need you to be her for one evening."

  I said yes.

  Ten khs was a road to salvation.

  Ten khs was survival.

  Ten khs was... the price of my dignity tonight.

  ---------

  The car slowed and stopped, pulling me back to the present. Aarav turned to me, speaking softly. "Sam... remember what I told you."

  He stepped out, circled around, and opened my door like a courteous husband escorting his gmorous wife.

  I pced my hand in his, exactly as rehearsed.

  The moment my foot touched the pavement, a wave of light exploded across my vision.

  Fshbulbs.

  Cameras.

  Shouting.

  Chaos.

  "Sameera! Over here!"

  "Look left!"

  "Sam, one pose!"

  A reporter lunged forward, thrusting a mic in my face.

  "Sameera, is it true about the pstic surgery?"

  The question snapped me straight out of my daze.

  Pstic surgery?

  These people had wild imaginations.

  I froze for half a second, but Aarav slipped in smoothly between me and the reporter. "No comments," he said, calm and authoritative.

  We hurried inside.

  Only when the doors closed and muffled the frenzy outside did my lungs expand fully.

  "One step cleared," I whispered.

  But the real battlefield y ahead.

  Inside were producers, directors, actors-every person who knew Sameera intimately. People who would greet me, tease me, recall memories I didn't have, expect inside jokes I didn't know.

  I inhaled deeply. The air smelled of perfume, champagne, and pressure.

  Time to enter the lion's den.

  Time to become my sister.

  ------

  Copyright Notice & Discimer

  > ? Moon Winters, 2025. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, pces, and events are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resembnce to real people, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this story may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used for review purposes.