by Mia Flores
Instead, the police were there with Paco to escort us out of the airport safely.
That day, I realized again how powerful Junior and Peter were. They didn’t just have everyone—including the federal police—on their payroll, but these guys were prepared to do anything to protect them and us.
Mia
When we’d travel, Peter and Junior would take meetings during the day, and Olivia and I would go shopping or out to lunch, then meet them for dinner. Junior would entertain their clients, while Peter would sit back, a little serious. Still, it was always clear they were on the same page about anything and everything.
When we were out on the town, their associates just couldn’t understand why Olivia and I were always there. They’d just stare at us like, “Do you always have to be with your husbands?” In Mexico, women don’t go out with their spouses if there’s business involved; they’re home taking care of the kids or cooking.
Olivia
Junior and I went to Culiacán all the time, and it was another world to me. The whole city was plugged, just completely cartel-infested. We’d sit outside and eat at the taco stands, and hundreds of pickups would pass by with armed men hanging out of the truck beds, in broad daylight. As I tried not to look too hard, a group of them would jump out and walk right past me to order, radios strapped to their waists and machine guns lying across their backs. Entire families, with little babies, would be eating tacos, and it wouldn’t even faze them. It was so normal that they’d become numb to it.
Then, you’d hear shots in the distance, and someone’s radio would go off. A muffled voice would bark orders, and the men standing in line would turn around, march back to their pickups, load up, and burn rubber toward whoever was shooting.
Mia
Olivia and I never went into the mountains to see Chapo, though. That was strictly off-limits to women, unless you were a stripper or a prostitute. But according to Junior and Peter, there were plenty of them there because Chapo loved to pay for girls and always had them around. If they were young, all the better, and sometimes, he’d specifically ask for virgins.
Every inch of Chapo’s compound was spotlessly clean, and he had good hygiene. Why? Because he always had a girl on standby.
Olivia
Peter and Junior weren’t into that, though. After watching how their father acted, and all the heartache their mother went through, they wanted to be different with us. They were devoted to me and Mia and didn’t even think of cheating on us.
They made that clear when they were in the mountains, too. Chapo had twenty satellite phones, and every time Junior would land at Chapo’s compound, he’d call me on one to say he’d made it there safely. Then before he’d leave, he’d call me again to say he loved me. Chapo and Mayo would laugh at him every time he grabbed one of the phones.
“Your wife is muy carbona,” one of them would say, meaning, “She must be the boss.”
Once, when Vicente was there with his dad, he laughed, adding, “You must be scared of her!”
Junior would just shake his head, smile, and joke, “I’m more scared of her than Chapo.” Then everyone would burst out laughing.
All that power, and he still chose to think I was in charge.
Mia
Chapo was the boss, but he was a real person, too. Peter said he had this unique, super sharp sense of humor and was always kidding around. But not in a goofy way. He’d just say little things, and you couldn’t really tell if he was messing with you or not. He was really engaged, really perceptive, and was always making a very deliberate effort to stay on his toes and keep you on your toes. He was taking B12 shots and flying in special vitamins from Europe every week. “I like to keep my mind strong and my body healthy,” he’d say.
Olivia
That’s probably one of the reasons he liked Junior and Peter so much. They kept him feeling young.
Junior and Peter were just kids, in their mid-twenties. Chapo and Mayo were thirty years older than them, and it was fun for them to have these young guys in their inner circle. Plus, as Americans, they were different, exotic almost, and Chapo just soaked that up. Chapo adored American food, and he once shut down a Burger King just so he could eat there. He loved talking about their business across the border because he knew how hard it was to work in the States. The challenge was exciting to him. It was a whole other world.
Mia
Junior and Peter being American wasn’t just good for stories or thrills, though. They knew how to deal with their American workers in a way the Mexicans never would.
Most of their wholesalers in Chicago were black, and people from Mexico didn’t trust them. They’d never dream of giving them work because they don’t have family in Mexico, and south of the border, the only thing that matters is where your roots are. Family is the cartel’s insurance. If you don’t pay up, they’ll kill your wife and your kids.
This psychological barrier existed on the other side, too. The black wholesalers and dealers didn’t respect the paisas, or their Mexican connections. They’d say, “Those paisas in sombreros don’t speak a lick of English!” There was no one to bridge that divide till Junior and Peter showed up. They built these new networks, business boomed, and suddenly everyone was happy.
Olivia
Their meetings with the cartels became natural and easygoing because of it. The more they got to know Chapo and Mayo and the richer they made them, the more relaxed things became. They started to become family to them. When they’d get to the palapa, Mayo would stand up from his chair, motion for them to sit down, and say, “No, Pedro, Junior, take my seat.” He’d always state both of their names, one right after the other, because he couldn’t tell them apart.
El Mayo started taking care of Junior and Peter because he loved how humble and appreciative they were. In Mexico, giving gifts to say thank you is expected, but Peter and Junior were the best at it. They’d gifted Mayo’s sons with $150,000 Rolex Masterpieces and $150,000 choppers, and even though Mayo never let his kids ride motorcycles because his grandson had tragically died on one, he still expressed his gratitude.
Chapo adored Junior and Peter and looked at them like sons. He even pushed them to be good influences on his youngest kid, who was sort of immature. Today, Alfredillo’s famous for posting Instagram photos of stacks of cash, his Lamborghini, hot girls in bikinis on yachts, and his pet cheetah. Back in 2005, there was no Instagram, and Alfredillo was just known as a rich narco junior. He lived in Guadalajara near us, and sometimes we’d see him driving his white Lamborghini way too fast past our house. Chapo got on him for this, and he wanted him to hang out with Junior and Peter.
“You’re good for my son,” he said to my husband and brother-in-law.
Sure enough, Alfredillo started coming by our house after that.
Mia
Chapo and Mayo used to make jokes about how big Junior and Peter were. Chapo would laugh and say, “You can feed all the pigs in the world with the scraps you leave behind.” Basically, that means that you’re making so much money that you can afford to drop some for the pigs that are sniffing around under you. To them, Junior and Pete were these wonder twins, capable of almost anything.
Olivia
Things were so relaxed that sometimes the jokes were aimed at Chapo.
It was hot in the mountains during the day, so a lot of the time Peter and Junior wore shorts when they flew there. For Americans, this was normal. When it’s hot, you’re sure as hell not wearing jeans. But in Mexico, shorts are for women, and if a man wears them, people think he’s feminine. Even though Chapo understood American culture, it wouldn’t stop him from poking fun at them when they’d visit.
“I know you have the money to buy the other half of your pants,” he’d say.
Junior and Peter loved kidding around, so one day before flying out they found out Chapo’s size, bought a pair of shorts for him, wrapped them up nicely with a box of Viagra, and presented them to him as a gift. It became the biggest joke out there in
the mountains.
Mia
At home, we never joked about business or Chapo, much less talked about it. In fact, we hardly discussed all the money that was coming in. By 2006, cash was something that was just there, free for the taking and spending. In fact, I felt jaded, almost unfazed, like a banker who walks into the vault a few times a week and sees millions of dollars in front of him. I never stopped and said in shock, “Oh, my gosh! We have so much money!” I just knew we had millions and could spend as much of it as we wanted. In fact, a few steps away from our bedroom was a room where Junior and Peter stored their cash. Probably $2 or $3 million was piled up, all tied in little bundles, and if I needed some, I’d just walk in and grab a few stacks.
I got new pieces of jewelry all the time. We bought a new car every couple of weeks, and Peter would give away the old car to one of his low-level workers or one of our cleaning ladies. They probably couldn’t afford the gas, but here they were, with a brand new car in their garage.
Olivia
A $10 million loss from a raid, theft, or seizure used to be a huge deal, but that year, big losses were just part of the game. Sometimes, they wouldn’t even tell us about them, and they never made Junior have a bad day. You hear of husbands coming home from work, stressed out after terrible days and taking it out on their wives or ignoring their kids, but not Junior. He was always so positive.
Once, all of us were out at this really nice Italian restaurant, and Junior’s phone rang. In the middle of the conversation I heard him say, “$10 million gone? Okay. We’ll just have to make it up this week.”
I flipped out. “Make it up this week? You lost ten million dollars?”
“Don’t stress, Liv,” he said. “It’s just a part of business.”
Mia
Peter wasn’t the type of guy to get really happy about making money. He never said, “Hey, baby, I made a million dollars today, let’s go out to eat!” Both of us came from nothing, and millions of dollars hadn’t made our lives better. Sure, it made things easy and nice, but better? Not really. If anything, things were just more complicated.
Olivia
Honestly, I always felt that money was the root of all evil. I’d see people all of sudden with wads of cash, and it had turned them into monsters. Junior would always say to me, “No, you don’t understand. They didn’t become assholes overnight. They were always like that; they just didn’t have the means to show it.”
I couldn’t wrap my brain around how that could happen. When I was a teenager, I thought earning money would make me truly happy, really complete me, but pretty fast I figured out there’s more to life than that. Life’s about family and love and putting good into the world. Since then, there have been times I’ve had millions of dollars and times I couldn’t pay my bills, and my heart’s been the same through all of it.
Same with Junior; money never changed him. He was different from all the rest. He would have been the same, good person if he’d worked from nine to five every day.
Throughout 2006, it would be something I’d have to remember—because while life couldn’t have been better at home, the Mexican drug trade was about to reach a boiling point, with all of us caught in the crosshairs.
CHAPTER 15
“This Is Going a Little Too Far”
Olivia
Not only was 2006 the best year, business-wise, for Junior and Peter, it was also one of my happiest years at home. I was so caught up with Brandon, trying to be a good wife and mother, that I stopped being a busybody and stayed out of Junior and Peter’s business. I was obsessively in love with my family, encased in this bubble, in complete denial of what was really happening around me. But I didn’t care. I felt safe and secure, and most of all, happy.
I even let go of my music career. For two years, I’d been flying from Mexico to Miami to New York, then back to LA, to record, and it became too overwhelming. Junior and I had devoted so much time bringing famous producers, songwriters, and engineers down from the States to Mexico City, and we’d spend weeks at a time in our recording studio, working with them. We had strong ties and close relationships to music executives and top artists, and if there was a connection, it was ours. I was even presented with the opportunity to sign Drake before he signed to Cash Money Records.
But the music was too consuming, and the business was too demanding. My family needed me. I let my career slide, and Junior supported my decision; he just wanted me to be happy.
With more time on our hands, Cancún became our favorite spot. We’d take the whole family down on long vacations with us, sometimes months at a time, and once we realized we were there constantly, we decided to buy a condo. All of Junior and Peter’s wholesalers and employees came to visit, and when we weren’t there, they used it as a vacation house.
Sometimes Mia and Peter would watch Brandon while Junior and I would go to dinner. The next night, they’d head out to the same restaurant, and the waiters would give the guys dirty looks because they thought they were living double lives.
During the day, we did family things like going out to the pyramids, or we’d take Brandon in the pool. He’d swim around with his floaties, then beg Junior to throw him up in the air and catch him as he came up from the water like a little fish. When he’d get tired, the three of us would lie in the cabana as he fell asleep on his daddy’s chest. As we watched the sunset, Junior and I would hold hands.
It was heaven. And I know I was just fooling myself, but at the time I thought, Why try to fix something that isn’t broken?
Mia
It really was heaven. Peter and I moved into a five-thousand-square-foot penthouse that had been owned by the famous singer Alejandro Fernández, the son of legendary singer Vincente Fernández. It had white Italian marble everywhere, twenty-foot ceilings, and windows wrapped around from one end to another. The master walk-in closet was the size of a studio apartment, and the elevator opened up right at the front entrance.
The only things I had to worry about were how I looked and whether Peter was stressed about his day. I never had to cook or clean, and I always tried, but Peter wouldn’t let me.
“Mia, what are you doing?” he’d yell at me. “You better not be cooking!” Then he’d come up behind me and kiss me.
We never wanted to leave that house, and there we shared our deepest feelings and secrets with each other. There was hardly a minute when we weren’t laughing about something. We’d sit on our balcony, listening to music, looking over the city every single night. We decided we were tequila connoisseurs, and we tried every top-shelf tequila known to man.
Plus, their business was still growing by leaps and bounds. Chapo would check on Peter and Junior more often, and he always made a point to ensure that our family was safe. Life was just getting easier, and money was rolling in. Peter and Junior had branched out to Atlanta and New York and into Canada, and because of that, my husband’s brain was just lighting up with ideas. Every day it was something new, made possible with the help of all the new people he and Junior had met.
Olivia
After their dad’s kidnapping, Junior’s friend Sobrino, who he’d met at Tony Roma’s, set up a meeting with his uncle, La Puerca, or El Animal. His real name was Manuel Fernández Valencia, and he was both Chapo’s close associate and Mochomo’s compadre in the BLO.
Puerca lived in Mérida in the Yucatán in a beautiful, twenty-thousand-square-foot hacienda with horse stables on his grounds. As Peter and Junior sat in one of his grand rooms, their voices echoing as they discussed business, Puerca told them he had his own tunnels from Mexicali to Calexico and his own routes to the border. They partnered with him, which allowed them to grab less work in the States and more in Mexico. Apparently, with greater risks came huge profits.
Mia
Through Chapo, they’d connected with one of his lifelong friends, Alfredo Vásquez-Hernández, and his wife, Maria. Chapo and Alfredo were so close that Chapo had named his son Alfredillo after him. Alfredo was Chapo’s logistics o
perator, making sure the cartel’s drugs were loaded onto their trains, semis, or 747s. In Mexico, there was no credit, so Peter and Junior had to pay for their loads upfront.
Maria owned a currency exchange, and she started changing our money from pesos to dollars or vice versa, getting it from point A to point B. She would charge 5 percent from Chicago to Mexico and 3 percent from LA. This sounds like a lot—when they moved $20 million, she could net up to a million—but it was additional security because the money was guaranteed. Suddenly, they’d solved one of the difficult parts of getting money across the border.
The cash was coming in faster than Peter and Junior could move it, so they invested in a private plane with Maria, paying a million each for it. Maria would go shopping and use her bags to take the attention away from the suitcases of $5 or $10 million she’d picked up from Junior and Peter’s workers at a small airport by the naval base in Kenosha, Wisconsin, or in Torrance or Long Beach, California. After she handed over the cash to them, Peter and Junior would reinvest it that day.
Olivia
Their infrastructure in LA was one of their biggest challenges. They had to build a machine from the ground up in a city that wasn’t familiar to them, and it took research, time, and learning from other people’s mistakes to bring together a great team. But it paid off. At their peak, the route through LA was so successful that they had two to four drivers on the road constantly.
