NOT long after this picture was taken with his wife Vicky, Chris Soteriou’s neck was slit and he was stabbed multiple times in the chest and back.

He had no idea what had just happened except he felt warm fluid running down his body and that whatever it was had happened fast.

During the attack on the night of January 2, 2010, his only thought was keeping his wife safe and urging her to run.

The attack should have killed him.

When he woke from a coma in Royal Melbourne Hospital 10 days later, he wished the attack had killed him when he learned his wife was behind it.

The businessman’s brother John, revealed those behind the brutal attempted murder in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, were his own wife and her lover Ari Dimitraki.

“He wanted to die,” John told Sunday Night. “He wanted to die.”

The father-of-three was happily married and never for a second suspected that his wife had been plotting to kill him on the night of his 44th birthday celebrations.

He told the show, he saw a man crouching near his car in a dark laneway, prompting him to ask the guy whether he was “all right”.

“As I lifted my head he just grabbed me from the jacket and just slit my throat,” Mr Soteriou said.

“There was no feeling, just shock, like ‘woah’. I just felt the blood run down my chest and felt this warm fluid running down my body.”

Pictures shown to the program show he and his wife seemed the perfect married couple, and he lavished expensive presents and holidays on her.

But she was carrying a secret — she was having an affair and wanted her husband out of the way.

Footage of Vicky Soteriou at Richmond Police Station was also shown where she confessed to the affair and the plot to kill.

“I’ve come to confess that Ari and I had organised it,” she said.

When asked by police why she wanted her husband dead she replied: “Because it was ... I know, it was stupid, absolutely silly, I know.”

Vicky had even managed to convince their eldest daughter that her father had organised the attack to frame her before she was found guilty, the program was told.

And despite the horrific ordeal and recovery, he told Sunday Night he has forgiven his wife and is working on rebuilding his relationship with his daughter.

When asked why his wife would want him dead all he could say was: “As a divorced husband I was probably worth three million dollars, as a dead husband I was probably worth seven million dollars.”

In 2011, Vicky Soteriou and Ari Dimitraki were both found guilty of attempting to kill Chris Soteriou.

Ms Soteriou has been jailed for nine years non-parole for attempted murder.

The show also revealed that his wife had tried to ask another former lover to kill Mr Soteriou five years before.

But he thought it was a joke and they broke up soon after that.