Cartel Wives

by Mia Flores

  We never found anything that caught our eyes. But one day, Peter turned to me with this big, bright smile. “What if we just buy the lot across the street from my brother’s place? We can build our own house.”

  I didn’t even pause to think about it. “Really? Okay!”

  At the time, Peter and I were both totally obsessed with Jessica Simpson’s house on her reality show with her then-husband, Nick Lachey. I thought it was perfectly simple and so cozy. We recorded every single episode and watched them over and over again, writing down every little detail we loved about the house. When we actually started the design and construction, Peter let me take the lead. He wanted to give me a perfect home.

  It was going to take a while to build it to our specifications, so while we were waiting, we bought an unfinished house directly behind Junior and Liv’s home. We even knocked down the wall that separated the properties and decided to build a massive pool and Jacuzzi sitting between them. When the plans were done, it looked like the ultimate retreat, and best of all, we were finally going to be all together.

  Peter and I missed everything about the United States. We dreamed about American food so much that we searched and searched until we found a store that sold Lay’s potato chips and candy you could only find in the States. We’d bring our bags of food into our bedroom, cuddle in bed, and have movie night. We loved Mexico, but it just wasn’t home, so when we got the lot and started to make the plans for our house, we decided we wanted a secret room for just the two of us. This would be a place where we could get away and feel like we were thousands of miles away from our real lives. We’d be free from meetings and phone calls and workers coming into town, and we could make love, talk all night, and get lost in each other. In that room, we’d never feel lonely. We’d always feel safe.

  Unfortunately, we never got to enjoy it. We never even set foot in that room because we had to give up the house before we’d even moved in.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Ultimate Betrayal

  Mia

  In April 2005, Peter and I had finally finished construction on our new house and were waiting for our furniture to show up. Excited and nervous and impatient all at once, we spent pretty much all our time with Junior and Olivia at their house. Olivia and I would talk all night, complaining about silly things like construction or our housekeepers while the guys would sit in the next room, making big decisions and plans for their business. I remember thinking, It feels so good to be with them. They’re just like us. They can relate to everything we’re going through.

  Olivia

  We had everything in common except for one thing: I’d just found out I was pregnant, due at the end of the year.

  Mia

  Peter and I were so happy for Olivia and Junior. Every time that Xavier or Junior’s girls came to visit, it was plain as day that they were meant to be a family. Having a baby was only going to make them closer. It was going to make all of us closer.

  Olivia

  I had this little pregnant belly, and I remember running around the house and all over town, trying to make Peter and Mia feel at home. We were so happy to be back together, and I was over the moon about having Junior’s baby. It had only been a year since we’d left San Juan, but for twins as close as Peter and Junior were, that was a lifetime.

  I thought it was the best time of our lives, full of promise and a new baby. How was I to know it wasn’t? How were any of us?

  Mia

  Sergio Gomez was the last thing on our minds. Sure, Peter’s kidnapping still haunted him, but it always would. The bad memories were something he lived with, and Sergio wasn’t a present danger. Instead, he was like a bad nightmare you knew would return and keep you up all night, but was never going to kill you.

  Olivia

  In the middle of December 2004, we were all sitting at my house when Peter’s phone rang. He was on the line for maybe five minutes, looking pissed off the entire time.

  “Sergio’s on the prowl again,” he said when he hung up. “He kidnapped one of our couriers and raided a couple of stash houses.”

  “Who? And how much?” Junior was yelling.

  “Jerry. Sergio grabbed him and got 290 kilos and $400,000.”

  Mia

  Jerry? I thought, confused. The only Jerry I knew was the barber in Chicago who’d always cut my little brother’s hair.

  Peter must have seen the look on my face because he started talking.

  “Jerry’s one of our couriers. You remember him. He used to work at Millennium Cuts. He was one of the best there.” Of course, I thought. Junior and Pete were close to him and trusted him. The idea that he’d been kidnapped made me sick.

  “Is Jerry okay?” Olivia asked.

  “He’s fine,” Peter said. “Sergio released him. But we don’t know where he is now.”

  Olivia

  Two hundred ninety kilos was over $6 million. Add in $400,000, and you’re up to almost $7 million. That was a lot of fucking money that Sergio stole. To make matters worse, we found out that Jerry had been so terrified after Sergio released him that he stole $600,000 and fled to Puerto Rico. And let’s not forget the $3 million Sergio got from Peter’s kidnapping. All in all, that was over $10 million down the toilet, all because of Sergio.

  Mia

  Later, we found out the whole horrible story of what happened to Jerry. After Sergio and his crew grabbed him, they beat him practically senseless, tied him up, and began to search his house.

  “Where are the openers?” they demanded, meaning the garage door openers for Peter and Junior’s stash houses. Jerry was so out of it he couldn’t even remember. Sergio and the cops then completely ransacked his house, found what they were looking for, and dragged poor Jerry into a blacked-out van.

  Olivia

  The dirty cops had been doing surveillance for months, so they already knew the vicinity where the other stash houses were. They drove around, pressing each of the garage door openers again and again, hoping a door would open. One finally did. Then another courier walked out to see what was going on, and Sergio and the cops kidnapped him, too.

  With Jerry and the second courier in the back of the van, tied up, they kept driving, pushing the button on the garage door opener till they found a third stash house and robbed it.

  Mia

  Honestly, Junior and Pete were more upset about losing their three stash houses than they were about the drugs and cash they’d lost. It was easier and less time-consuming for them to make the money up than it was to get new houses, cars, and workers.

  “We’re going to have to restructure,” Peter said. “They know too much.”

  They moved 100 kilos to an emergency stash house. Unfortunately, the guy who managed it couldn’t be trusted, either. We thought he was a friend, but he set up what looked like a home invasion and robbed them blind.

  Olivia

  When you lose $12 million, you can’t just write it off. Peter and Junior had purchased the drugs from the cartels on credit, and they had to pay them back. No drug lord was going to feel sorry for them. Instead, they’re like, “Tough shit. I’m sorry you got robbed, but you still owe us money.”

  For the next few months, Peter and Junior were stressed. Sergio was still out there, and they weren’t sure how much he knew. So they had to rebuild from the ground up. I’d wake up in the middle of the night, and Junior would be up, pacing around his office, on the phone nonstop. During the day he and Peter would sit together outside for hours, still rolling calls. When they weren’t on the phone, they’d be having meetings or just walking around our connecting yards, talking to each other. They were always on the same page; it was like they shared two sides of the same brain, housed in two identical bodies.

  “Our machine is up and running, and we’re paying our debt back,” Junior said to me one night at dinner. “We’re not there yet, but we’re close.”

  “I know, I just worry.” I was just barely into my pregnancy, and stress was the last thing I needed. Junior k
new it, too.

  “Don’t worry, Liv. Taking losses are part of our business.”

  That’s just who Junior was; always staying positive and shielding me from this stressful life.

  Mia

  Pablo, who we all called Uncle Pablo, was the person collecting their payments and handing them over to the cartels. Pablo was an older man, probably in his late sixties, who lived near San Juan but had spent a lot of time in Chicago. He wasn’t just a colleague, he was practically family.

  Olivia

  I’d met Pablo back when I was first with Junior. He was always with the two of us, going out to the clubs or to these big, private dinners we’d have. We even took Pablo and his son Tony to a fight in Vegas once, that time Junior rented out a few floors of the Mandalay Bay.

  I’d been under the impression that he was Peter and Junior’s uncle, but he wasn’t. Instead, he was their supplier, which explained why they were inseparable. He was one of their main connections to the cartels since he got the drugs for them. Peter and Junior would accept the shipments at their warehouse, have their workers unload three or four hundred kilos, distribute them to their wholesalers, collect the money, run through it, package and vacuum seal it, then turn the money back to Pablo. The cartels sold on credit, and Pablo was the one responsible for paying them.

  Mia

  I met Pablo when Peter and I first started dating. When he came to the States, he’d stay with Peter. He was like an old grandpa, and he went everywhere with Peter. I remember we once went on a date to the movies, and Uncle Pablo came along.

  At first, I thought their relationship was so strange. Pablo was completely dependent on Peter, but Peter just accepted it. One time I was sleeping over at Peter’s house, and Pablo was in town, of course staying with him. We were lying in bed, and Peter heard Pablo down the hall, probably just waking up. Peter yelled to him, “Are you okay? What do you want for breakfast? Did you take your medicine?”

  Is this how these people treat each other? I thought. The stereotype was that guys in the drug trade just looked after themselves, but Peter really seemed to want to take care of this man.

  When I first went to Mexico, we’d go visit him all the time. It was so nice to see a familiar face, and I started to feel like he was family, too. He really liked me. We’d have dinner at his house and stay for hours and talk and laugh with his daughters. I thought, Okay, this is pretty cool. I can get used to this. I had Peter’s family that I was getting so close to, and now his business associates. Everybody’s making money together, and they’re happy, and everything’s going great.

  That’s why it was the ultimate betrayal when Pablo did what he did to Peter. We trusted him. The magic word in this game is trust. Yet you’d get close to someone and believe in them, and then suddenly you’d find out they weren’t worthy of it, not even the slightest bit.

  Olivia

  Sometime that April, when Junior and Peter were still paying off their debt to Uncle Pablo, we were all invited to his house for dinner. Pablo lived maybe forty minutes from my future in-laws, so we were planning to stay overnight in San Juan with them. Pablo’s wife had cooked up a delicious dinner, and we were all enjoying ourselves, laughing and catching up. Business was discussed, but it hadn’t been a cause for concern. Everyone knew Peter and Junior were good for the money. That’s why I thought it was so strange when Pablo suddenly got serious and began talking.

  “I want to propose something to you,” he said.

  Junior was as confused as I was. “Is this about the debt?”

  “Sort of. Hear me out.” He sat up straight. “I’ve been good to you for so many years, and you’re doing very well for yourselves. It takes people a lifetime to acquire what took you less than a year. You owe a lot to me.” He paused and started to look upset. “Your loyalty should lie with me, and yet this is how you repay me?”

  Junior stopped short. “What do you mean, Tío?”

  “Even though you’ve been paying off your debt, your business that you’ve set up in Chicago is worth more to me than your money. You’re in my country now, so I’ll make the rules. I’ll take over your business, and you can come work for me.”

  Pete looked furious. “Excuse me?” Then he added, “A mi no me mandas,” which means “You don’t send for me,” or just “I don’t work for you.”

  “You can just sign over your warehouses, and let your employees know I’m the boss,” Pablo said. “You’ll still have big jobs, of course. Big responsibilities.”

  Junior and Peter looked at each other like Uncle Pablo had lost his fucking mind, which, of course, he had. They had put their blood, sweat, and tears into their business, and no one was taking that away from them. Junior slammed his fists on the table.

  “You can go to hell, Pablo. We’ve worked too hard and too long for you to dictate what we can and can’t do. We built this shit from the ground up without you. This is our business. We put this together, not you.”

  At the same time, Junior and Peter pushed back their chairs and motioned for us to get up. We didn’t even finish our dinners. We just thanked Pablo’s wife and walked out.

  Mia

  Maybe we should have known that when Pablo saw Junior and Peter buying properties, horses, and land, something in him changed, and he’d become envious of them. Maybe we should have realized that he was furious at Peter and Junior because they’d stopped receiving shipments from him. After all, once they’d arrived in Mexico, so many doors opened up for them that they decided to work with other connects. Or possibly we could have gotten into Pablo’s head and figured out that he couldn’t stand that Peter and Junior were younger, smarter, and more worldly than him, that they’d been in Mexico for less than a year and were already making more money than he ever would.

  We went back to San Juan that night and to Guadalajara just a few days later. Junior and Peter were still furious about what Pablo had proposed at dinner, but business was business, so I wasn’t surprised when Peter told me one morning that he had to go meet with him.

  “We have to do the cuentas,” he said. Cuentas were the accounts. “Junior and I have been arguing with Pablo about what we still owe. Tío says one thing, and Junior and I say another. Tío is totally off, so I need to go to his house to settle it.”

  The next day, we hopped into our car and drove through the mountains, two hours, to Pablo’s house. We met Daniela and Adrian there, and I kissed Peter goodbye so I could drive to San Juan with them.

  “I’ll call you later, when I’m done here,” Peter said. “It may take me all day, but I’ll be back later tonight.”

  I wasn’t worried. Peter was with his Uncle Pablo, and aside from that crazy fight at dinner the other night, I trusted him implicitly.

  Olivia

  The day after Peter and Mia had left to see Uncle Pablo, Junior and I were at home in Guadalajara, on the patio eating breakfast. They’d been staying with us while they were decorating their house, so it was our first morning alone together in weeks.

  “How are you feeling, baby?” Junior said.

  “Better than yesterday, but still not great. Eating helps.” I was probably eight weeks pregnant, sick as a dog. I was trying not to vomit as I stared at the spread of food when Junior’s phone started ringing.

  “Hello?” He stopped, grabbed a cup of coffee, and walked into the other room. For the next five minutes, all I could hear was him talking under his breath in Spanish while he paced back and forth. When he came back into the kitchen, he was visibly in shock.

  “Are you okay? What the hell’s going on?” I asked.

  “Somebody kidnapped my brother. They also took Pablo and Tony. Just grabbed them from Pablo’s house. They’re demanding $10 million, and they’ll kill them all if they don’t get it.”

  “Fuck,” I said as I felt a pain in the pit of my stomach.

  “I can’t believe this is happening again to him,” Junior said. “There are only so many times he can get out of a situation like this.”


  I held Junior tightly as we both stood there crying. I knew he was right. You just don’t get kidnapped twice and make it out okay. Nobody’s that lucky, even somebody as smart and strong as Peter.

  Then I thought of Mia, and my heart sank. Had anyone told her yet?

  Mia

  Peter had said he’d be gone all day, so I hadn’t expected to hear from him till at least five or so. When six o’clock rolled around and he hadn’t been in touch, I got just the tiniest bit worried, so I called him. The phone went straight to voicemail.

  “Adrian?” I yelled into the other room. “Have you heard from Peter?”

  “Nope.”

  Peter always called me, even just to say he loved me. This wasn’t normal. But I shrugged it off. He’s with Pablo. He’s fine.

  I choked down dinner and called Peter twenty more times before I decided to go back to the guest room. I walked out to the balcony and sat down in a lounge chair, cell phone in hand. I probably dozed off three times before I got up and went to bed, leaving the sliding door open. Peter and I never spent a night away from each other, and I couldn’t fall asleep without his arms around me. The thought of something happening to him made my heart hurt so badly that I cried myself to sleep. All night long, I’d wake up and hear sounds—a dog barking in the distance, the wind, or a car honking—and I’d jump up. But none of the noises were signs of Peter coming back.

  The next morning, I got up and walked to Adrian’s kitchen to get coffee. I felt like I’d slept twenty minutes. I turned on the TV, sat down on the couch, got up, opened the blinds, called Peter’s cell three times, and did anything and everything to keep myself busy. Where is he? I kept thinking. Honestly, I felt like my heart was shriveling up. Then Adrian walked into the room.