Page 71 of Hunter
I can’t believe little Valentine got herself a man. Gabe was in total shock when I told him that I found her kissing some hockey player in the library. I have no idea how she got him to even look at her, but I’m so glad that she did.
After I saw him, I looked him up. It was easy to figure out who he was, even amongst all the other good-looking men on his team. He was handsome and rugged and looked like he could be from New York. He looked like he could handle it. He also looked like someone who was going to make both my grandmother and the boys happy.
My grandmother told me not to embarrass her and is expecting me to live up to her name.. Even while on a permanent vacation in Europe, she’s still pulling the strings that are tied to me. I didn’t want to disappoint her, but I also had no idea how I was going to live up to it.
And then I had an idea—that idea turned into a plan—and now, Gabe and Dylan are gonna use that plan to proposition Val’s boyfriend. Not only will we own Val, but if her boyfriend wants Val’s debt paid off, then he’s gonna need to pay too.
I might have money coming to me in the future, but it’s not here now. Gabe wants to pave his own way, and right now, until he can get back on his feet, he and Dylan are moving forward with the plan that we created.
Dylan was Gabe’s cellmate, and they became good friends while they were inside. He’s twenty-five and did two years for running bets, scamming credit card companies, and playing cons. A few months after he finished his parole in New York, he asked Gabe if he could live with us, and after he was here for a few weeks, he talked to us about an idea that he had.
He started partying as soon as he dropped his bags off in the guest room, and I don’t think we saw him for the first seven days that he was here. According to him, he was “living the college experience he never got.” He loved going out where all the athletes live and the sororities were. Those were his two hangouts.
One night, last November, he asked us to come with him to this hockey party out on Jock Row, and we watched him sell out of the product that he brought within thirty minutes. I remember standing on the sidewalk in front of the big football houses and Dylan telling Gabe that they should run HU like they were each doing before they were in Danbury. Make some money like they talked about doing when they were on the inside.
I told them no date-rape drugs, and Gabe agreed. Dylan just smiled as the ambulances and cop cars raced to the other side of campus. I heard that some girls got attacked in a dorm that night.
They started selling and set up a delivery service. The extra money helped. My dad’s estate is still tied up in court, which means so are my bank accounts.
My grandmother is generous, but there’s always a condition attached. She used to call it “a penny and a promise,” and I try not to ask her for more than my monthly allowance, which isn’t a lot, considering who she is and what she’s worth.
She also thinks that I need to “learn some responsibility,” so I told the two of them that I’d handle the orders and make sure it all goes smoothly. Right from our living room. In my grandmother’s townhouse.
We were good for two solid weeks before Dylan brought this guy home from one of his trips to Jersey. Evidently, he and Dylan had run in the same circles and went way back. His name was Jeremy, he had a coke problem, and no redeeming qualities.He was thirty-two and creepy, and I didn’t want him in the house. So Gabe sent him out.
We had a crew of people who pushed for us, and they ran all over campus doing deliveries, but I didn’t want him at school. Instead, I had Gabe send him downtown and further into the Havenwood Hills, and I really didn’t care how he felt about it. He was gross, and I didn’t like him.
He wanted us to start selling GHB, roofies, and Special-K. I saw the way his cloudy eyes lit up when he mentioned each date-rape drug, and I just knew by the eagerness in his voice that he’d used those before.Ick.
He would do this really creepy thing before he left to go out, and it took me a few times seeing it to put it all together, but I did. He wears a body camera, and I’m pretty sure he records himself.Double Ick.
He’d put it on and he’d stand around the house, looking for an angle that he liked while checking his phone to make sure it was recording. He said it was for “people watching” before he asked me to stand in front of him so that he could adjust the camera to be eye level with my tits.Ewwwww!
Gabe threw his sorry ass out, and Dylan had a tantrum about it. A week later, Dylan woke us up in the middle of the night to tell us that Jeremy had been stabbed to death in the back of an alley. I remember thinking that he probably deserved it.
That was a few days ago. And now Dylan’s got his friend’s phone and body cam footage. When we watched it, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and what I was feeling. Because there was Valentine Garcia stabbing this asshole to death… and for the first time, I hated her a little less.
FORTY-TWO
“You and tutor girl?”Monroe asks, sounding salty as hell while turning his body around to talk to me from the front seat of Jake’s car. “What the fuck was that all about? You fucking kissed her like you just won the fucking [Stanley] Cup.”
“Get your head right, man, we’re playing Stonebridge,” Jake barks out. “I don’t give a fuck if you have to sit on your dick for the next three hours, I’m gonna need you to stay locked in.” I buckle my seatbelt and adjust, said dick, just as Jake clocks me in his rearview mirror.
“You good?”I mean, I feel absolutely insane like I’ve had some kind of fucking psychotic break, but…
“Never fucking better, man.” And I am; I’ve got my girl, I’m playing tonight, and I told Alvi to go all in on bets for us winning 2-1.
Boys confirmed that we’ve got this. When we win, we go on to play Coventry for the conference playoffs, and I’ll make a little money for Ed to cover up those fuckingX’s. This is the start of her new fucking life and the one that I get to have. I’m fucking jacked and clap my hands to hype these assholes up.
“Good, because I need your head—all your fucking heads—in the game and focused on tonight. We’ve got a fucking game to win,” Jake demands as he parks the car and turns it off. “You can give us your love life update or whatever the fuck that was, after we clinch a playoff spot,” he adds before exiting his car and slamming his door.What’s up his ass?
“Yes, Daddy,” I reply back, knowing full well that this nickname is gonna annoy the shit out of him.
“Stop stressing, we got this, man,” Max says over his shoulder as he starts handing us our bags from the back.
“Your sister’s gonna lose her shit,” he adds and smiles, “First Red and Chase, and now you and Edi? She’s gonna be happy as hell over this.”Good, we all need some fucking happiness for a change.
“You call her, Edi? She let you do that?” I ask, and he catches the sharp uptick in my voice. It’s a reminder to everyone and anyone that I’m not playing about my girl.
