Killed by My Wife, Reborn as Her Nightmare

JUST THE HELP

CHAPTER 1:

The knife in Adrian’s hand shook. Not from weakness, though God knew he had plenty, but from the scalding rage simmering just beneath his skin.

On the granite counter before him lay the ingredients for the Mole Poblano he was cooking, dried chilies, almonds, a bar of Oaxacan chocolate. A dish of celebration, of family.

A lie.

Elena had demanded it for tonight’s dinner. “Make it perfect, Adrian. Grandma is coming.” Her voice had been a sharp, polished thing over the phone, leaving no room for his feeble protest about the delivery shift he was already late for.

He clenched the knife tighter. His lungs burned, a familiar, acid ache that never truly faded.

He could feel the ghost of the oxygen cannula, the plastic tubes he’d reluctantly removed an hour ago. He cooked better without it. But breathed worse.

The heavy thud of the front door closing echoed down the hall.

Adrian stopped what he was doing. She wasn’t due back for hours.

Muffled voices drifted in, a low, masculine chuckle, the light chime of Elena’s laughter. A sound he hadn’t earned in years.

He wiped his hands on the stained apron and moved to the kitchen doorway, a silent spectator in his own home.

The scene in the foyer was framed like a brutal painting. Elena, her back against the wall, her head tilted back in surrender.

A man Adrian didn’t know, tall, tailored in a suit that cost more than Adrian’s last six months of chemo, had her pinned there, his mouth on her throat. One hand was tangled in her dark hair, the other splayed possessively on her hip.

Look away, a pathetic voice inside him begged. Just go back to the chocolate, the chilies. Pretend.

But his feet were stone. His breath hitched, triggering a chain of shallow, wet coughs he couldn’t suppress.

"Just another one," Adrian thought, the rage dissolving into a familiar, hollow ache.

Another expensive suit, another arrogant smile, another man Elena would discard in a week or two. They were all the same, bankers, heirs, minor celebrities drawn to her beauty and her family's money.

This man was no different. Just the latest prop in her endless performance of contempt.

He’d stopped learning their names after the first year.

Elena’s eyes snapped open. They met his over the stranger’s shoulder. No shock. No shame. Just a cold, dismissive flicker before she closed them again, a small, deliberate smile touching her lips.

The stranger, Diego, Adrian would later learn his name, pulled back slightly. “Someone’s watching,” he murmured, his voice a rumble of pure amusement.

“Don’t mind him,” Elena whispered, her fingers tracing his jaw. “He’s just the help.”

The words were a physical blow. Adrian felt them in the hollow of his chest, where the cancer was slowly eating him alive.

The help. A live-in cook, a nurse, a ghost tolerated for the medical debts her family reluctantly covered.

Diego turned, his gaze sweeping over Adrian: the sweat-damp singlet, the flour-dusted trousers, the raw, red knuckles from grinding spices. His lip curled, a silent verdict delivered.

“So this is the husband,” Diego said, not to Adrian, but to the air between them. “The one you said was… what was the word? Manageable.”

Elena finally detached herself, straightening her silk blouse with a fluid, unbothered grace. “Adrian, this is Diego Navarro. A business associate. Be a dear and fetch us some wine from the cellar. The ’98 Rioja.”

She didn’t wait for a response. Linking her arm with Diego’s, she led him toward the grand staircase. “Now, where were we?”

Adrian found his voice, a broken thing. “Elena… the family dinner…”

She paused on the third step, looking down at him as one would at a persistent insect.

“The Mole had better be sublime, Adrian. Grandma’s taste is impeccable. And for God’s sake, put your tubes back on. That rattling breath is unsightly.”

Then they were gone, their footsteps fading into the upper floor, followed shortly by the definitive click of her bedroom door locking.

The silence that followed was absolute, and in it, Adrian heard the truth he’d been choking down for five years.

He was not a husband. He was a prop. A convenient, dying shield against her family’s expectations, a charity case whose mounting medical bills were the perfect excuse for her coldness. And now, he was an audience for her contempt.

A violent, wrenching cough seized him. He stumbled back into the kitchen, collapsing against the sink as his body convulsed.

This was no subtle tickle; it was a storm ripping through his chest. When the fit passed, his palm came away from his mouth smeared with blood

Panic, cold and slick, shot through him. He fumbled for the small portable oxygen tank on the counter, hands trembling as he reattached the cannula to his nose.

The hiss of releasing gas was the sweetest sound he knew. He inhaled, the sterile coolness soothing the fire in his lungs.

His phone, an ancient Nokia clutched together by tape, buzzed on the counter.

It was a message from his boss, carl "Where the hell are you?? The hotel delivery was for 5 PM! If you value this job, get here NOW. Last warning"

The job. The last shred of something that was his. He was a deliveryman for a boutique grocery service.

The pay was a pittance, but it was money he earned. Or it had been, until Elena’s demands routinely made him miss shifts.

He typed a reply, fingers clumsy. Emergency. Family. Can’t come.

The three dots danced, then stopped. No reply. He was fired. He knew it.

The weight of it all, the betrayal in his foyer, the blood on his hand, the lost job, the relentless, ticking clock in his chest, crashed down.

He slid to the floor, his back against the cold kitchen cabinets, the oxygen tank humming beside him like a mechanized heart.

Upstairs, the house began to shake.

Not literally. But the vibrations were unmistakable, the rhythmic creak of her antique bedframe, muffled thumps against the wall, the low, rhythmic groan of a man’s voice punctuated by Elena’s sharp, theatrical cries.

She was doing it on purpose. Ensuring the architecture of the house carried her infidelity to him, ensuring he felt it in the tiles beneath him.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but he couldn’t block it out. Each sound was a needle. Each cry, a twist of the knife.

"This is your life," the darkness behind his eyelids seemed to whisper. This is the epilogue of Adrian Martínez. Dying on a kitchen floor, listening to his wife fuck a stranger, while his family prepares to arrive for dinner.

A single, hot tear escaped, cutting a path through the dust and sweat on his cheek. He didn’t brush it away.

Because some men aren’t killed by betrayal, or disease, or humiliation.

Some men are eroded by them, grain by grain, until nothing is left but dust waiting to be swept away.

He didn’t know, as he sat there in the gathering dark, that the erosion was almost complete.

And who knows, tomorrow, they might finally sweep him away.