by Mia Flores
One person called another, moving the SOS up the ladder, until someone finally got the ear of Chapo, Mayo, and Arturo Beltrán.
At this point, Adrian and Daniela had decided to get the hell out of Puerto Vallarta because it wasn’t safe, and Adrian realized that although he couldn’t protect his little brothers, he could save his nephew. They loaded up their car so fast they forgot Brandon’s car seat, then started driving toward Guadalajara—a long, five-hour trip, where cell service was spotty.
Olivia
In the meantime, while Adrian’s car was winding into the mountains and we were tied up in that torture chamber, Arturo Beltrán Leyva called and demanded to talk to Junior about the ransom he and Peter were prepared to pay to set us free.
“What did you get yourself into, and why are you offering so much money?” he said firmly.
“Because I have to,” said Junior. “I have no other choice. I’m not going back to the States.”
“Look, we’re going to get you and your brother out,” the BLO boss said. “But it’s not going to be easy. What is the most important thing to you both?”
Junior didn’t have to think twice. “Getting our wives out of this mess.”
“It’s done,” Arturo said. Then he paused and added, “Keep this phone on you from now on. And remember: tú mandas cabrón!” (meaning “You tell them what the fuck to do”).
Mia
That’s when the AFI officer started freaking out. He agreed to let Olivia and me go, knowing that if we got hurt, they’d be in deep shit. Then he released the Chinese guys and their associate because they weren’t worth anything to them.
Olivia
Chapo, Mayo, and Vicente then got on a call together to figure out what to do. They realized they had $5 million sitting in a plane on a runway in Juárez, and if they rerouted that plane, they could get the money to Puerto Vallarta.
Vicente called the AFI office to negotiate.
“Keep the Flores brothers safe,” he demanded, “and we’ll pay you in exchange for their freedom. But it’s going to take about two and a half hours.”
“We don’t have that kind of time,” the official said.
Unfortunately, two and a half hours wasn’t going to work. The AFI and immigration officer had been serious about wanting to send Peter and Junior back to the United States, and they’d called the feds.
“The US Marshals will be here in half an hour,” the AFI agent said. “They’re taking Peter and Junior. We can’t make a deal.”
The drug lords huddled together on the phone again and quickly came up with a plan B. They told Vicente to call the AFI officer right back.
“We could do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said, “but regardless, you’re not sending the twins back to the US. And since you’re apparently insisting on keeping them, we’re going to do things the hard way.”
Mia
As a matter of fact, the cartels were prepared to go to war to save Junior and Peter from being sent back to the United States; Chapo, Mayo, and Vicente had begun amassing an army to come get them.
Olivia
The AFI agent knew he and his men were going to be outnumbered by whoever the cartels were sending, so they suited up in full war gear and shuttled Peter and Junior out of the station as fast as they could. They didn’t give them bulletproof vests, but they did push them into a bulletproof Suburban, with two armed agents stationed on either side of them. The US Marshals were supposed to arrive by one p.m., and they had to meet them the minute they showed up.
The AFI agent got behind the wheel and began driving around the streets of Vallarta, frantic. After a few minutes, his phone rang. It was Músico, Arturo’s right-hand man. Músico made all phone calls for Arturo and was one of Junior’s closest friends, and right then, he was demanding to speak with Junior.
The AFI officer handed the phone back to Junior and Peter. Then, Músico started talking.
“We have hundreds of men ready to fight for your lives. Every road that leads to the Puerto Vallarta airport is blocked off. Every street is barricaded. There’s no way you’re getting on that plane. There’s no way you’re going back to the US.”
As he listened in, Peter paused for a minute and realized just what was happening. But before he could say anything, Músico started to talk again, his voice cracking. “I don’t know if there will be a shootout. This might not end well. But whatever happens, Junior, please know it’s been an honor knowing you. Knowing the both of you.”
Mia
When Músico said that, Peter thought about a million things, but three really stuck out. First, he remembered what his dad always said to him: “Don’t ever let them take you to jail.” Next, he thought about me. Finally, he said to himself, Junior and I came into this life together, and I guess we’re going to leave this world together. Then he grabbed his brother’s hand, closed his eyes, and felt hot tears start to run down his face.
Olivia
Junior choked up as he was talking to Músico. “But… our family.”
Músico replied, “Don’t worry about your family. You have my word that I will guard them with my life and get them out of Mexico safely. I promise I won’t let anything happen to them.”
That was the signal for the AFI officer to make his move. He rolled down his window, put on his turn signal, and as he inched toward the side of the road, he motioned for his caravan to pull over, too. Then he jumped out of the car and made a call.
As he held the phone to his ear, he began pacing back and forth, clearly distraught. The US Marshals were about to roll into town, guns blazing, ready to capture the Flores brothers, and they were going to run right smack into the cartel’s army. Something devastating was about to happen, and the AFI officer knew he’d put his men in the middle of it.
Then, he got back in the car and drove slowly toward the plaza in downtown Vallarta. As he rounded a corner, he saw almost a hundred men holding AK-47s, their guns drawn. Probably half of them surrounded the AFI officer’s caravan, and Mencho walked up to where Junior and Peter were sitting.
“Cuate? Time to go.”
The AFI officer looked at Peter and Junior, put his gun on the floor, and exited the car with his hands up. As he opened their door, Mencho said, “Vamos,” signaling for them to get out.
Junior and Peter slid off the seats just as two of Mencho’s men took their places in the back. They were decoys, intended to throw off the Marshals, who were getting closer.
Then Junior and Peter walked quickly toward a waiting car. Before they reached it, though, Junior turned around, approached the AFI agent, shook his hand, and told him, “You did the right thing. Don’t worry, I’m not going to let anyone harm you. My brother and I are going to look out for you.”
Mia
That’s when they started driving back toward Ranchos, where our beach house was. They were in a massive procession of bulletproof cars. Every guy on the passenger side had his window rolled down, his gun peeking out, ready to fire. There were also men piled in the back of pickups, weapons drawn, in broad daylight.
They got to the first army checkpoint and switched cars, joining Mencho. When they entered the second checkpoint, Mencho rolled down his window and the Mexican army waved them through, their guns also drawn.
Not long after, they pulled up to our house, and Olivia and I ran out the door screaming.
Olivia
Before we headed back to Guadalajara later that day, Junior had one more phone call to make. He needed to reach Adrian to tell him we were on our way back.
“Adrian!” he yelled. “We’re safe. We’re driving back to Guadalajara. We’ll be there tonight.”
I ran to my husband and grabbed the phone right out of his hands, mid-conversation. I needed to know if my baby was okay that second.
“Brandon’s fine,” Adrian said. “He misses you but knows you’re coming.”
I was too upset to even hear what he said. “You took my baby without his car seat,” I yelled. “You for
got the fucking car seat.”
I hung up the phone and heard a room full of guys—including my husband—burst out in laughter.
CHAPTER 17
Do-or-Die Time
Olivia
Right after Junior and Peter came back to our beach house, some Mexican federal agents drove all of us back to Guadalajara in two armored trucks. It was me and Junior in one and Peter and Mia in another. The whole ride back, I remember thinking, If I ever really wondered whether or not the federal government was assisting drug lords, this sure as hell settles it.
In fact, agents were so in the cartels’ pockets that Peter and Junior decided to pay the AFI officer who helped them escape the US Marshals $2.25 million, just as a thank you.
Chapo, Mayo, and Arturo Beltrán had saved our husbands’ lives once again—and ours for the first time—which cemented Junior and Peter’s position in the cartels even further. Just like any big company that has executives, they were now at the top, and that afforded them benefits. Chapo gave them special passwords to let paid-off government officials know which cartel they were connected to. The passwords were basically “get out of jail free” cards. Then, to make them feel even safer, he specifically told them they’d never have to worry about extradition. After all, he was always notified when the United States was planning to pay a visit.
Mia
Even with that kind of protection, Peter and Junior were feeling less and less safe every day. They added extra security at the perimeters of our houses and invested in new cameras that were more sophisticated than the regular “eye in the sky” kind you see in department stores. There wasn’t a single blind spot between the two of our homes, and it was a constant reminder of the harshness of my life. I remember thinking, It’s like I’m living in a war zone.
Olivia
But Junior and Peter weren’t ready to get out entirely.
“We’ve been talking about scaling back, baby,” he said to me, “I think maybe we could just slow down, not grab any more work from Chapo, Mayo, or the BLO, and just send our own work.”
I was skeptical. “What does Peter say?” I asked.
“He’s mostly concerned about our workers. We’re everything to them. We’re responsible for eighty families, and we can’t just back off. They need to make money. But he also thinks that we can never really get away. We make all the money for the cartels, and every time we accept shipments in the United States, we’re in debt to them. If something gets seized, we’ll owe millions.” Junior paused. “My brother may be right; I’m not sure we can ever just walk away from them without getting killed.”
“There’s no halfway, is there?”
“I don’t know, so that’s what we need to discuss.”
Mia
The bad taste of our kidnapping was still with us, and we knew it would never leave. Even though the cartels had promised to protect us, there was nothing truly stopping anyone from trying to kidnap us again. There was nothing keeping the Mexican government from arresting and extraditing Peter and Junior, either. Sure, the cartels had told my husband and brother-in-law they were untouchable, but if there’s anything we’d learned in the last four years, it was that life could change at a moment’s notice.
By March 2008, that realization—and the question of what we should do about it—felt even more urgent because Olivia and I had just discovered we were both pregnant.
Olivia
I always said I wanted my kids a grade apart. I loved being a mom, and I adored being pregnant, and before I’d had Brandon, I felt so close to Junior knowing his baby was growing inside me. I loved how attentive he’d been and how much he catered to me; he would kiss my belly and rub my feet every night, saying, “You’ve never been more beautiful to me.”
Still, I knew Junior was hesitant about having another child. His worst fear was something bad happening, and me having to raise our babies alone. But understanding how much I wanted it, and how much he loved our family, he went with it. He and I started trying to get pregnant again pretty much immediately after Brandon was born.
We tried and tried and tried every month, and had a lot of fun in the mix of it all, but nothing happened. After a year, I was like, “What the heck is taking so long?”
Then I got kidnapped.
I guess I should have known I was pregnant that night. I mean, I suspected—I’d been pretty up and down emotionally—but I hadn’t confirmed it. But then, bam, we got dragged out of that club, and I was a thousand times more crazy and hormonal than I usually am. I’d never cried so much or so loudly. As soon as we got back to Guadalajara, I took a test, and sure enough, there were those two little blue lines on a stick.
I was so happy when I found out. I wanted nothing more than to be a devoted wife and mother. Having Brandon with Junior had been the greatest thing that had ever happened to us; we developed such an intimate bond, a closeness that was almost unexplainable.
Junior was the best dad, too. He and Brandon were glued at the hip. They took naps together. Junior sterilized his bottles and watched every Disney movie with him. We had three housekeepers—one per floor—to make sure the house was spotless, but Junior would not let the señoras touch Brandon’s bottles. His associates started calling him Mama, and when you’d see Junior, he’d be carrying his messenger bag full of phones and our boy’s diaper bag, one per shoulder and crisscrossed in the back. When I’d walk in the house and see Brandon, he’d turn his little head on me because he just wanted to be with his dad.
It was going to be another new beginning for us, or so I told myself. But deep down, I knew we couldn’t keep living like this. Our babies deserved better.
Mia
Even though Peter and I were married over two years before we decided to have a baby, I’d always known I’d wanted to be a mom. I’m a nurturer—I like to take care of people, really listen to them, and let them know they’re loved—and I knew Peter would be a wonderful dad. But we’d put it off, mainly because we wanted to enjoy each other’s company. One morning in 2007, though, Peter woke me up. He was kneeling by the bed, and he took my hand.
“I have to ask you an important question,” he said.
“Is it something bad?”
“No, it’s not bad. Just listen to me. I want to know if you want to have my baby.”
I was a little confused, but I went along with it anyway. “Yes. I’d love to have your baby! We’ve already talked about this.”
“No, serious. I want to make sure this is forever.”
I was getting more confused by the second. “We’re married. Of course this is forever. What are you saying?”
“I don’t want you to say anything today. I want you to think about it. I want to offer you $5 million, and you can go if you know that you can’t be with me for the rest of your life. If you know in your heart that you can, then we should have a child. But if you know that this is not what you want and I am not what you want, and this life is not what you want, then I’d rather see you happy somewhere else.”
I was floored. I started thinking, Why is he doing this to me? Is this a trick? But I realized he couldn’t bear to have me live through another kidnapping. This was not an easy life, and the future—the next day, even—felt so uncertain. Having a child was momentous and final in a way that just being married wasn’t. Because if he’d died or disappeared before having a child with me, it would just be my loss. If the same thing happened with a baby, it was a loss for an entire lifetime. Peter knew that having a child was the biggest decision we’d ever make, and right then, I realized it, too.
The next day, though, I said yes. Peter was my life. Our future family was my life. And one morning in March 2008, just two months after our kidnapping, I got the news I’d been dreaming of.
I love pizza. I could eat it three times a day and still go back for more. Yet one night, Peter and I ordered pizza, and I couldn’t stand to look at it, let alone eat it.
“Get that away from me,” I said to Peter.
I
went to bed early, still hungry, and the next morning, I woke up and walked to the bathroom. Sitting on the vanity was a cup holding one beautiful flower and an unopened pregnancy test. I removed the test from the cup and walked back into the bedroom to talk to Peter.
“What’s with this?” I asked, smiling.
“Go back in the bathroom and take that test,” he said. “I have a feeling it’s going to be good news.”
Less than five minutes later, I saw those two little blue lines on a stick.
Olivia
For all of us—me, Mia, Junior, and Peter—the Puerto Vallarta kidnapping became our second chance. When Mia and I were tied up, thinking we’d die right there before having more babies, our husbands were thinking the same thing. They were asking themselves, Is this the life we want for our wives and children? We can’t do this to them anymore. If this happens again, it’s going to end in tragedy, and everyone, including our kids, will be dead.
I also realized how lucky we’d been. If the Marshals had taken Junior and Peter back to the United States, they would have been facing life behind bars. I would have been left alone, pregnant, with two babies to raise by myself.
That’s why Junior and I started talking almost nightly about getting out.
“I won’t ever forget what you looked like at K’s funeral,” he said to me. “You were pregnant, lying on the ground in agony. I felt it then and I feel it now: That can’t happen again.”
