All Chapters of My Boyfriend’s Wedding Gift Is Fake: Chapter 1 - Chapter 7

“Ma’am, I’ve counted these twice. Out of your twenty thousand dollars, only the top two thousand are real. The rest are counterfeit.”I stood at the counter, clutching the receipt in my hand.My mind was buzzing.“This money is a cash gift from my wedding. How could there be counterfeit?”My hands began to tremble.My father, Bryan Roche, was still lying in the hospital. He needed the money for the surgery.But the bank teller had counted it twice in front of me.It was a total of eighteen thousand dollars in counterfeit bills.I had been married to Peter Grant for one year.The cash gift was twenty thousand dollars in total.We had agreed back then to keep the money untouched and only take it out when we needed it urgently.My father had been diagnosed with early-stage liver cancer.The doctor said surgery plus chemotherapy would cost at least thirty thousand dollars in total.My mother and I added up all the money we had at home.We were still short by eighteen thousand

By the time I arrived at the hospital, it was already evening.My mother was sitting outside the hospital room, leaning against the wall and fast asleep.I did not wake her up. I sat down next to her.I closed my eyes as my mind recalled the day’s events.The counterfeit money. The divorce. Deborah and Peter’s words. Every word they said felt like a knife stabbing into my heart.I did not know how long had passed when my phone buzzed.It was a notification.I opened it and saw that it was Peter’s livestream.He was in the living room at home, facing his phone camera. His eyes were red, as if from crying. He looked grief-stricken.“Guys, I really didn’t think she would be like this. We’ve been married for a year. I gave her good food and a comfortable life. She won’t even give me one kid. Now her dad is sick, and she wants to divorce me. She also wants to take the money my family gave her during our wedding.”He put my photo on the screen. It was a photo of me lying on the c

After Deborah returned from the hospital, she laid low for two days.I thought she would go to the hospital for further tests. But she did not.She probably refused to believe that she had cancer.Peter came to see me instead.“I’ve been thinking. You only lost your mind because your father got sick. So here’s the deal. After your father dies, you work out a few kids for my family. After that, I’ll forgive you. You won’t have to pay back that twenty thousand dollars.”I looked at his shameless face and laughed in exasperation.“Peter, I’m giving you two choices. One, you can admit on your own that the cash gift contained eighteen thousand dollars in counterfeit money. We will be able to proceed with the divorce by mutual agreement, and I won’t pursue legal action against you. Two, we’ll see each other in court. When that happens, I won’t only get a divorce. I’ll also sue you for marriage fraud, using counterfeit money, and defamation. Your choice.”He stared at me for a long tim

Peter did not give up after that.The next day, he came again.Deborah was in a wheelchair. Peter pushed her and stopped downstairs from my apartment.She had lost a lot of weight. Her face had very little color, and her hair had turned gray. She looked completely different from the person who used to wear a bright red coat and curse at people smugly.Peter looked up at my balcony and shouted at the top of his lungs.“Riley! Get out of here!”I did not go out.He kept shouting for more than ten minutes. He woke up all the neighbors in the building.When Peter saw that I would not come out, he simply pushed Deborah into the building, went straight up to the third floor, and knocked on my door.I opened it and saw Deborah slide off the wheelchair. While on her knees, she looked at me with tears in her eyes.“Riley, I’m so sorry. I said some awful things before. Don’t hold it against me.”She reached out to grab my hand. I took a step back.“Riley, I know I was wrong. I should