Validation in controller

I am very new to Laravel, and I need some help with refactoring my code. Now, method is not covered in tests in 100% because I cannot mock validator objet and ints responses. I have following method in my cotroller

public function store(Request $request)
{
    $data = $request->only([
        'name',
        'email',
        'message',
    ]);

    $validator = Validator::make($data, $this->validatorRules);

    if ($validator->fails()) {
        return $this->response->errorFromValidator($validator);
    }

    $savedItem = $this->repository->store($data);

    if (!$savedItem) {
        return $this->response->error('Cannot save');
    }

    return $this->response->succesItem($savedItem);
}

I tried to inject validator in controller's constructor:

function __construct(Response $response, Repository $repository, Validator $validator)
{
    $this->response = $response;
    $this->repository = $repository;
    $this->validator= $validator;
}

and use it in method:

$this->validator::make($data, $this->validatorRules);

but I was getting syntax error, unexpected '::' (T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM). How can I abstract validator outside the method, so I can mock validator in tests?