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

Chapter 1: Reborn

"Jessica... where is the specialized medicine I brought back yesterday?"

Sean stumbled through the shelter's door, his voice faint and raspy. He was covered in wounds—in this chaotic world, that was the steep price of venturing out for food. He had been attacked by a mutated demon wolf whose claws dripped with lethal poison. Without that medicine, he wouldn't last another half hour.

Yesterday, when his wife Jessica was accidentally bitten, he had risked his life to retrieve two doses. He had already administered one to her.

Yet, when he reached for the remaining dose, all he met was Jessica's heavy silence.

"Where is the medicine! I asked you, where is the other dose!" Sean demanded, his voice trembling through the agonizing pain.

Jessica frowned, instinctively taking a half-step back. "What are you yelling for... Can't you see Zach is resting? He has a high fever."

Sean followed her gaze. Lying casually on the bed was her childhood sweetheart, Zach, mindlessly twirling a spent, empty syringe between his fingers.

"Sean, don't be so stingy," Jessica sneered, her voice smooth and detached. "You've always had the strongest physique. You can take it. Besides, you managed to get two doses yesterday anyway—once you catch your breath, just go out and grab another one."

Sean gritted his teeth, trembling with rage as he stared at Jessica's unrepentant face. "Are you even hearing yourself?! Yesterday, when you were bitten and crying for me to save you, why didn't you 'just take it'?! I risked my life for that medicine!"

"How is that the same? I'm a woman!" Jessica's eyes flickered, but her tone quickly hardened back into defiance. "Besides, Zach got a fever taking care of me and the baby! If something happens to him, who's going to protect us?"

Suppressing the excruciating agony in his chest, Sean pointed a shaking finger at Zach. "Protect you?! That was my life-saving medicine! What right does he have to it?!"

"Because Jack isn't even your child!" Jessica suddenly shrieked, dropping all pretense. "He's Zach's! Are you satisfied now?!"

Sean felt as if he had been struck by lightning, his mind going completely blank. "What... did you just say?"

"Are you deaf? Jack is Zach's flesh and blood!" Jessica rolled her eyes, letting it all spill out. "If Zach hadn't been taking care of me all these years, do you really think I would've stayed with you? I was planning to make it up to you with a child of your own after the apocalypse ended, but who could have known things would turn out like this!"

She paused, her expression turning cold and detached. "Zach can't die. My son needs his real father. You're so capable—go figure something out yourself!"

"You vile... treacherous animal!"

Sean's suppressed rage exploded. With bloodshot eyes, he lunged forward to Zach and Jessica like a desperate, wounded beast.

"Jessica! Save me!" Zach paled in horror, scrambling frantically to the far side of the bed.

Jessica's legs gave out, sending her collapsing onto the mattress. Watching the murderous Sean close in on her, her hands frantically rummaged under the pillow—and whipped out a cold, dark handgun.

Sean froze in his tracks. Staring down the dark barrel, his heart froze over.

That was the very gun he had left behind to protect her before he departed. He had taken only a single crowbar out into the wasteland to face the savage demon wolf.

And now, the safety he had left for her had become his own execution order.

The panic on Jessica's face twisted into pure malice the moment her fingers wrapped around the gun. "You've gone mad! Don't force my hand!"

BANG!

She pulled the trigger without a moment's hesitation. The deafening gunshot shattered the room.

A bloom of blood erupted from Sean's chest. Carrying a heart full of bitter hatred and despair, he collapsed heavily into a pool of his own blood.

"Revenge... I will make you pay..."

Sean's chest heaved with suffocating rage. Through gritted teeth, he forced out the deadly promise, every breath laced with hatred. Then, as the icy hand of death closed around him, darkness took over and he lost consciousness.

---

Who knows how much time had passed when Sean suddenly snapped his eyes open.

He bolted straight off the bed, lunging forward with a bloodcurdling roar, "I'll kill you all!!"

He braced for the chaotic fray, his body tensed to strike. But his hands caught only empty air.

There was no one in front of him.

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.