

Chris Leary inherits a failing corner shop and, desperate to raise money for his girlfriend's treatment, discovers that the store's back door opens into other worlds. His first crossing takes him to a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where he trades food to survivors in exchange for gold and jewels, enough to clear his debts in one run. Pushing further, he stumbles into the immortal realm and negotiates a deal with the goddess Dark Lady: exquisite food in exchange for celestial medicine. But the arrangement carries a dark caveat — the apocalypse world's wealth is bound to the lives of its people. Chris returns with the elixirs, saves an entire survivor base, and locks in a long-term partnership that changes everything. What began as a desperate scramble quietly becomes an empire: one shop, a dozen worlds, and a trader who moves freely between all of them.

Cassidy loved Zane for three years. Only when Zane told her to go buy condoms for him and his new girlfriend did she realize she had always been nothing more than a “bed companion” in his eyes. On her 25th birthday, she caught Zane and his new lover Lily in a tight embrace, and her heart died completely. She decided to leave. A car accident cost her her child and finally made Zane realize his true feelings. Only when she started her new life at Vertex Group did Zane finally understand that he had loved her all along — but now it was too late to win her back.