Chapter 12: Empire Goes National

January 2020 brought a crisp edge to the air outside our colonial, the kind that made the windows frost at the corners and turned every breath into visible mist when I stepped onto the back deck for my morning coffee. Inside, the house thrummed with a new kind of life—Mia’s belly now a proud, rounded dome that shifted under her loose sweaters, Mom’s lower and fuller, Sophie’s just beginning to show in the way her hips swayed a fraction wider, and Tara’s matching it with that same quiet glow. Four of them carrying my children, the proof of everything we’d rebuilt. The other six—Brooke, Sarah, Raven, Callie, Elena, and the newest addition, Lena, a sharp-witted marketing major we’d pulled in through the OnlyFans beta after she DM’d about a custom video—moved through the rooms like they’d always belonged, robes half-open, laughter low and easy. Ten women. Ten heartbeats tied to mine. The number still hit me sometimes, a quiet thrill that sharpened every decision I made.

I’d seen the signs coming since the New Year’s firelight. News feeds I monitored with my 2026 hindsight lit up with whispers from Wuhan, then Italy. By mid-February I’d already ordered pallets of masks, sanitizers, and non-perishables, routing them through the dropshipping warehouse under a new LLC. “Just hedging,” I told the harem over breakfast, but they knew better. When March rolled in and the first stay-at-home orders hit California, then New York, then everywhere, our online empire didn’t just survive—it detonated. The dropshipping site pivoted overnight to home essentials and remote-work gear I’d pre-stocked from future trends: ergonomic chairs, resistance bands, even early Zoom-friendly lighting kits. Orders flooded in at triple the rate. OnlyFans, our private vault of carefully angled clips—swollen curves glistening under low lights, soft gasps layered over city-sound backgrounds we’d started filming in the dungeon—exploded too. Creators everywhere were stuck inside; fans craved connection. Our subscriber count doubled, then tripled, payouts hitting six figures monthly while the rest of the world scrambled.

The real shift came in April. We sold the colonial at a premium and relocated to a sleek high-rise penthouse in Chicago’s Loop—bigger city, taller walls, a rooftop terrace that overlooked the river and let us feel the pulse of something national. The move was seamless: contractors I’d hired in advance turned the new basement into an expanded play space, soundproofed and mirrored but with floor-to-ceiling windows that framed the skyline like a private throne room. No more thin suburban walls. Here, the empire could breathe.