Page 8 of The Sniper
It does, but I can’t change who I am.
Which reminds me, I’m expecting my new bodyguard to arrive within the hour.I’ve resisted having one after spending my youth surrounded by them.
I was born at the height of Dad’s action hero stardom and never knew a normal life.That is, until I grew up and saw what others had and I didn’t: personal freedom.
Even when the media lost interest in me, for the most part, and Dad stopped doing the big blockbusters, he still pressed me about having a full-time guard.
No thanks.
“Dad, I have an electric gate, cameras, and monitoring.It’s fine.No one cares about me.”
“You have millions of followers and dance around in front of the screen every day with little on.There are crazy people in this world.”
Mom agreed, which made it hard to fight them—that, and they were right, as a lot of those crazies drop into my DM’s each day—but it was last week when I finally had the fright I needed to hire someone full time.
I’d been at an event when it happened.
Someone broke into my Bel Air home and stole the diamond necklace Dad got me for my twenty-first birthday.It was worth over half a million dollars and had a set of matching earrings.
How they got past my security system and inside the safe, I don’t know.
I was devastated.
I’m still devastated.
But that wasn’t what shook me.They also took a pair of my panties and my dildo.
Ugh!
The feeling of revolt and invasion that washed over me was horrible.Then the next steps of reporting it to the police and my family took place.
The humiliation was real.
Of course, someone then leaked it to the press, and for a day it was plastered across social media.
“Jesus, Tiff!”Dad had pulled me into a big hug while Mom rubbed my back.“Imagine if you’d been home.”
I shuddered.
“Move back in with me for a few weeks.Let’s sell your house.I’ll buy you a new one.”
I rolled my eyes, knowing he would.
“No.I love my home.I won’t let them take this from me.”
“Fine, but you need to get better security.Don’t argue with me, Tiff.”
Once one of the top-earning movie stars of the nineties and early two thousands, Dad was always a huge, foreboding figure in my life.That hasn’t changed, despite me now reaching his shoulders.
Protecting both Mom and me are two things Steven Stallone has prioritized.I knew there was no arguing with him.
“Fine,” I’d said, giving in.
A few days later I signed a contract with Black Hawke Security, and the guard starts today.
I’m not new to private security, impenetrable cars and bodyguards shadowing me, but I thought the personal freedom I was enjoying with just a solid security system on the house would last a little longer.
Nope.
