My Wife Killed Me, Now I’m the Apocalypse Billionaire

Sean shoved the door open. It slammed against the wall with a crack that made Jessica flinch.

"Sean!" Jessica sat up, pulling the blanket over herself, her expression shifting into something that almost looked like concern. "Oh my God, you're bleeding. What happened to you?"

"Mutated wolf." Sean's voice came out raw, barely above a whisper. His knees buckled and he caught himself against the doorframe. "The serum. Where's the antiviral serum I brought back yesterday?"

Jessica's eyes flickered. Just for a second. A tiny, almost invisible shift that Sean had never noticed before but now read like a neon sign.

"Sean, sit down, you look terrible. Let me get you some water first." Her voice was gentle, careful, the way someone talks to a stray dog they don't actually want to touch.

"I don't need water, Jessica. I need the serum. Where is it?"

Zach sat up behind her, not even bothering to look guilty. He stretched his arms above his head like a man waking up from a comfortable nap and let out a yawn.

"Babe, just tell him." Zach's tone was bored, almost amused.

Jessica bit her lower lip and looked down at the sheets. "Sean, listen to me. Zach was really sick yesterday. He had a horrible fever, and I was scared it might be the beast virus, so I..."

The rest of her words blurred into static inside Sean's skull.

"You gave him my serum." Sean stared at her, his body swaying. "You gave the only antiviral serum in this entire camp to him. For a cold."

"It wasn't just a cold! He was burning up, Sean. I didn't know what it was. I had to make a call." Jessica's chin lifted slightly, her voice still controlled, still wrapped in that thin layer of fake concern that she wore like a second skin.

"You had to make a call." Sean repeated her words slowly, tasting the poison in every syllable. His vision was going dark at the edges now. The beast virus was already spreading. He could feel it in his bones, a deep, grinding ache that had nothing to do with the wolf's claws. "I am going to die, Jessica. Do you understand that? I am going to die because you gave the one thing that could save me to your boyfriend for a runny nose."

"Don't be dramatic, Sean. We'll find another one." Jessica pulled Zach's shirt off the floor and slipped it over her head, calm, unhurried, like this conversation was about a missing grocery item.

Something inside Sean cracked open.

"You're killing me!" Sean's voice exploded out of him, raw and broken and full of every year of silence he had swallowed. He lurched forward, knocking a chair sideways. "You are literally killing me, and you're sitting there in his shirt telling me not to be dramatic?"

Jessica's face went pale. She scrambled backward off the bed, and her hand shot under the pillow. When it came back, it was holding a handgun.

"Stay back, Sean. I mean it. You're scaring me." Her hands were shaking, but her eyes were cold and steady.

"Jessica, put the gun down." Sean's voice dropped. He raised his hands slowly, blood dripping from his fingertips onto the concrete floor. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"You're out of control." Jessica's finger tightened on the trigger. Zach was behind her now, his hand on her shoulder, whispering something Sean couldn't hear.

"Tell me one thing." Sean's chest was heaving. The virus was eating through him, and he could feel his heartbeat going wrong, skipping, stuttering. "Jack. Is Jack mine?"

Jessica's face twisted. Just for a fraction of a second, guilt flashed across her features before she buried it.

"Answer me, Jessica."

"No." The word fell out of her mouth like a stone. "Jack is Zach's. He's always been Zach's."

The gunshot was deafening in the small room.

Sean felt the bullet punch through his chest before he heard the sound properly. The impact threw him backward, and he hit the floor hard, staring up at the cracked ceiling. Blood pooled around him, warm in the freezing air. Jessica was screaming something, but it sounded like it was coming from underwater.

Jack was never mine.

That was his last thought before the darkness swallowed everything.

Then light.

Blinding, painful, white light flooding through clean glass windows.

Sean gasped and shot upright. His hands flew to his chest, clutching at smooth, unbroken skin under a cotton t shirt. No blood. No wound. No pain. His breath came in rapid bursts as his eyes darted around the room.

He knew this room. The ugly floral wallpaper. The fake oak furniture. The framed photo of George Jones shaking hands with the mayor at some charity dinner.

This was the Jones family living room. Jessica's parents' house.

"Are you even listening to me, you worthless freeloader?"

George Jones stood in front of him, red faced, a vein throbbing at his temple, his index finger jabbing the air inches from Sean's nose.

"I said, when are you going to get a real job and stop leeching off my daughter like some kind of parasite? You think you can just sit around this house eating my food and breathing my air? Even a stray mutt at least guards the house. What exactly do you do?"

Margaret sat on the sofa behind George, filing her nails, nodding along like she was listening to a Sunday sermon. Jessica stood by the kitchen doorway with her arms crossed, looking at the floor, saying nothing. Little Jack was on the carpet near the TV, playing with a toy truck.

Sean stared at George's face. The words washed over him, and for the first time in either of his lives, they didn't sting. They didn't even register. Because Sean was doing the math.

March 1st. The calendar on the wall says March 1st. The apocalypse starts June 1st. Three months.

"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?" George leaned closer, his coffee breath hot on Sean's face.

Sean looked him dead in the eyes. No flinch, no stammer, no hunched shoulders. The man who had spent years swallowing insults from this family was gone, buried in a pool of blood on a shelter floor in a future that hadn't happened yet.

"I want a divorce."

The room went silent. Margaret stopped filing. Jessica's head snapped up. Even little Jack looked over from his truck.

"What did you just say?" George's face went from red to purple.

"I said I want a divorce from your daughter. I'll have the papers drawn up by the end of the week." Sean's voice was flat, emotionless, the way a man speaks when he's already died once and discovered that the worst has already happened.

He stood up from the couch and walked toward the hallway. As he passed Jack, he crouched down for just a second, ruffled the boy's hair with one hand, and with the other, plucked a single loose strand and slipped it into his pocket.

DNA test first. Then everything else.

He stepped out the front door into the March sunlight. The air was warm, clean, and completely free of radiation. Three months of normal weather left. Three months before the ice came and the world fell apart.

Sean flexed his right hand and focused.

The air in front of him shimmered for a half second before going still again.

He almost laughed. The pocket dimension. One hundred thousand square meters of empty storage space, still tethered to him, carried back from a life that no longer existed.

Sean shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking. His mind was already making lists, drawing maps, running calculations.

Divorce. Money. Fortress.

Three goals. Three months. No second chances.