What I want to comment on is the weirdness of "paying you" as making amends to those things. Did they steal from you? Did they damage your property? Is there anything tangible to connect the dollar amount to? Because even though you say it's not as if they are paying you as a friend for hire, it still seems on their end it's them using money to manipulate you.

They used it initially to make peace with you, instead of a mature manner and making real amends, emotionally, intellectually dealing with what the offenses were.

then when they decided you were still angry (they couldn't fend off your anger with money) they decided to cancel the check because it didn't work anyway and so now they are manipulating you further by saying "if you won't stop being mad at you I'm punishing you by not giving you the money"

If you were angry about the money itself, you shouldn't be. You should be more angry at the fact that they are manipulative and you probably did the right thing by ending it.