My Ex-husband Threw A $10,000 Card At Me While Leaving Me For A Younger Woman. Seven Years Later, I Finally Checked The Balance. Why Was There $2 Million In The Account?

I held my breath. My trembling finger moved the mouse toward the single video file inside.

Ethan gracefully stood up and went out onto the balcony to light a cigarette, leaving me alone with Daniel. I sat there in front of the inert screen, feeling as if I were before a door connecting life and death.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. I knew that after this click, my life would be turned upside down again.

But I couldn’t run anymore. I needed to hear him, to know what he had left for me in his final moments.

My finger clicked. The screen flickered, and then the image appeared.

The image on the screen trembled slightly before stabilizing, likely due to Ethan’s unsteady hand holding the camera. The background was the same miserable apartment but with a bit more light.

Daniel was sitting up, propped against the headboard of the bed with several pillows supporting his skeletal back. When I saw him, I had to cover my mouth to keep from screaming.

This was not the handsome, elegant Daniel of seven years ago. The man in the video was consumed.

His hollow cheeks accentuated his sharp cheekbones. His thick black hair had been shaved off, revealing a pale scalp.

His skin had a waxy, sallow pallor. His eyes were sunken and dark, but they still shone with the same familiar warmth.

He was wearing the white shirt I had given him for our third wedding anniversary. It was now huge on him, hanging loosely on his frame of skin and bones.

The open collar revealed a sharp clavicle. But what hurt the most was his smile.

He was trying to smile for the camera—a forced smile twisted by pain but filled with love. “Hey, Laura. Ex-wife.”

Daniel’s voice coming from the laptop speakers was weak and halting—a far cry from his deep, resonant voice of before. “By the time you see this video, the grass on my grave will be pretty tall—maybe even up to your knees.”

He paused to catch his breath, his chest rising and falling with difficulty under the large shirt. He raised a hand and waved, trying to seem playful.

“How do I look? A little rough around the edges, right? Don’t you dare say I’m ugly, okay? I told Ethan to put some makeup on me, but the guy has no skills. I don’t know what he put on me, but I look like a clown.”

I broke down, my tears blurring his image on the screen. “Daniel, even on the verge of death, you’re trying to make me laugh.”

“You didn’t want me to see you suffer, so you used that bitter humor to hide the raw reality. Didn’t you know that seeing you try to be cheerful hurt me a thousand times more than if I had seen you cry?”

“Laura,” His voice turned serious, with no trace of a joke.

“I know you’re crying. Don’t cry. You get so ugly when you cry. Your eyes swell up like a panda’s, and who’s going to look at you at work tomorrow? Come on, stop it. Listen to me.”

He raised his skeletal hand and brought it toward the screen as if he wanted to reach through time and space to wipe away my tears. The gesture was so familiar that I instinctively leaned forward, wanting to rest my head on his hand.

But I only touched the cold glass of the screen. “I’m sorry,” Daniel said, his eyes looking directly at the camera, deep and sad.

“I’m sorry for leaving you alone in this world. I promised to protect you for life, to grow old together until our teeth fell out, but I broke my promise. I’m a scoundrel. I’m leaving first. Don’t be mad at me, okay?”

I shook my head at the screen, saying through sobs, “I’m not mad. I’m not mad, Daniel. I’m just mad at how foolish you were. Why did you hide it from me? Why did you endure it all alone?”

In the video, Daniel began to cough violently, his whole body writhing. Ethan, off-camera, tried to step in to help, but Daniel waved him away.

He held it in, covered his mouth, and after a long moment of ragged breathing, he was able to continue. “I don’t have much time. There are some important things I have to explain to you so you don’t have any more doubts, so you don’t hold a grudge against me,” the video continued.

Daniel took a sip of water from a glass Ethan handed him. He winced as he swallowed as if there were thorns in his throat.

After a few seconds to compose himself, he looked steadily at the camera, his expression becoming serious and full of remorse. “The first thing I want to explain is about that day at the courthouse,” Daniel said, his voice trembling.

“Remember it was pouring rain? I saw you drenched, shivering from cold and rage. When I threw the card at you, I felt my hand shaking. I had to hold back, to grit my teeth to say those cruel words. I told you it was charity to get lost.”

Daniel looked down, avoiding the camera as if fleeing my accusatory gaze from the future. “In reality, at that moment, what I wanted most was to run and hug you. I wanted to get on my knees and beg for your forgiveness, to tell you I loved you more than anything in the world.”

“But I looked at myself. I looked at the medical report in my pocket. I couldn’t. If I hugged you, you’d feel how thin I was. You’d smell the medicine. And most importantly, if I softened at that moment, you would never agree to leave me.”

Daniel smiled sadly. “I know your character, Laura. You’re very sentimental. If you knew I was dying, you’d sell everything, you’d quit your job to take care of me in the hospital. You’d watch me lose my hair, vomit blood, lose control of my body. It would traumatize you for life.”

“I didn’t want that. I wanted the Daniel in your memory to always be the handsome, arrogant man. Even if he was a bastard, it was better than being a walking corpse.”

I listened to his every word as if I were swallowing hot coals. The raw, painful truth was being revealed through the weak voice of the deceased.

He had played the villain perfectly—so well that he had deceived the woman he had shared a bed with for years. He accepted my undying hatred just to give me peace in the future.