Editing Joey Hunt (section)

==== The birth of Joey Hunt ====
After his disappearance, Patrick laid low. He moved carefully, avoided patterns, and lived between safe houses and transient spaces—cheap motels, industrial outskirts, places designed to be forgotten. Hiding kept him alive, but it wasn’t sustainable. Every day increased the odds of a mistake.

The approach came without warning. Late one evening, while Patrick was exiting a dockside warehouse district on the outskirts of Vice City, a man stepped into his path as if he had always been there. No backup in sight. No weapon drawn. Calm, deliberate.

His name was [[Jack Donovan]]—an FIB agent assigned to a task force focused on large-scale drug trafficking and transnational criminal organizations. Jack made it clear he wasn’t there to arrest Patrick. He had heard the stories coming out of Mexico. The infrastructure failures. The unexplained deaths. The whispers of a man called El Calvo. He was impressed—but more importantly, he saw opportunity.

Jack told Patrick the truth plainly: he couldn’t stay in hiding forever. The cartel would keep hunting. Eventually, they would find him. Refusing the offer wouldn’t mean freedom—it would mean a slow, inevitable death. The offer was simple: A new life. A new name. A clean identity, protected under the authority and rules of the FIB. In return, Patrick would become an asset. He would hunt, infiltrate, and dismantle criminal organizations—first domestically, and abroad if necessary. He would operate in the gray spaces where the law couldn’t openly go. His successes would strengthen Jack Donovan’s portfolio, giving Jack leverage and upward momentum within the Bureau. Patrick understood the deal for what it was. He wasn’t being saved. He was being used. But he also knew he couldn’t refuse. Patrick accepted and from that moment forward, his life no longer belonged entirely to him. He vanished once more—this time not into the shadows, but into a system.

When he emerged again, it would be under a name the world had never heard before. That name was Joey Hunt. The first name, Joey, was chosen deliberately—drawn from the final letter of his murdered friend’s name, MJ. A quiet reminder, carried forward. The surname Hunt required no symbolism. It was simply what he did. From that point on, Patrick Jones ceased to exist.

Joey Hunt spent the following years operating under the direction of the FIB, answering to Jack Donovan. He took on a wide range of assignments—deep-cover infiltrations, financial dismantling of criminal networks, intelligence gathering, and targeted destabilization operations both within the United States and abroad. Joey didn’t love the leash, but the arrangement offered something he couldn’t achieve alone: protection, plausible deniability, and a clean slate. Mistakes could be buried. Records could be altered. In return, Donovan’s career flourished on the back of Joey’s results.

Despite the structure, regret followed him. Joey missed his ex-wife and his daughter Jane—an absence that never dulled. On a handful of occasions, he broke protocol and visited them. Each time ended in anger. Eleanor told him he was dead, that he had forfeited the right to be present, and that he should leave them alone. She had moved on. A new man had stepped into the role Joey abandoned, raising his daughter as his own. His daughter however still asked about her real father, his stories and his legacy. Joey watched from a distance. He sent letters and money whenever he could—acts that angered Eleanor and eventually drew the attention of Jack Donovan, who warned him that attachments were liabilities.