Cartel Wives

by Mia Flores

  It was Sunday morning, so the only staff around were our bodyguards, who stood outside our house and did surveillance of the neighborhood. But I knew people would be coming around soon, and there was no way our security could protect us from them. Everyone had tabs on Junior and Peter, and cartel members were always doing business with them on the weekends. If they drove up and couldn’t find them, they’d know something was up. Not only that, but they’d act on it.

  I had to come up with a decoy.

  Just then, one of their associates walked over and knocked on the door.

  “Where are Junior and Peter?” he said when I opened it.

  “They’ll be back,” I answered. “They went to talk to someone.”

  He left, and five minutes later, Junior’s friend Paco came by. As I saw him walking toward the house I thought, Oh my God. Time to act.

  I grabbed my bag in one arm and my baby in the other. I marched out the door to the car and put Benjamin in his car seat, bundling him up. I left the car door open, then ran back toward the house, screaming loud enough that Paco could hear me.

  “Mia, let’s go! My motherfucking husband, how could he do this to me? I’m leaving him! Junior cheated on me, and I’m leaving him and this fucking country!”

  I could see Mia standing up slowly, staring at me like I’d lost my mind. She gave me a look like, What the hell?, then realized what I was doing and grabbed her diaper bag.

  I kept on going. “That fucking bastard! I’m out of here!”

  “What?” Paco said when he saw me racing back toward the car, trying to get the hell out of Dodge. “Oh, hell no, that’s not true.”

  He thought I was just acting crazy. There was no way in hell Junior would have cheated on me, but as far as Paco knew, I’d made up my mind that he had.

  “Where are you going?” he said.

  “None of your business. And if you see that motherfucker, tell him I don’t want anything to do with him. Come on, Mia!”

  I went back to the house and picked up Brandon. Mia had started putting Bella in her car, and she’d already loaded up a handful of stuff in her backseat. I pretty much threw Brandon in his car seat and slammed my car door, started it up, and pulled away as fast as I could. As I drove down the driveway, I could see Paco and my neighbor in the rearview mirror, their hands up in the air.

  Mia was right behind me in her car, and we met Daniela, Adrian, their kids, and my in-laws outside the gates of our subdivision. Then we started driving, a line of luxury SUVs so conspicuous they might as well have had flashing neon lights on them, toward the Mexican border.

  CHAPTER 23

  Crossing the Border

  Olivia

  Nuevo Laredo was the closest border crossing to Guadalajara, and it was a twelve-hour drive away.

  I knew Nuevo Laredo all too well; it’s where I was arrested when I was a teenager. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the center of my drug smuggling. In 2008, it was ground zero for cartel violence.

  The Gulf Cartel had always ruled Nuevo Laredo, and their armed wing, Los Zetas, did their bidding when they needed to fight the police, the government, rival cartels, or members of their organization who’d wronged them. Los Zetas were ruthless; gunfights and kidnappings were common, but in one attack, the militia cut out six victims’ hearts, carved Zs into their chests, and left their bodies in caves. In 2004, thinking that the Gulf Cartel was losing their hold on Nuevo Laredo, the Sinaloa Cartel moved in, looking to expand, and a turf war broke out. By 2008, Sinaloa had a firm grasp on the city, and everyone at the border was Chapo’s eyes and ears.

  Mia

  In Nuevo Laredo, one call from one person who’d noticed that Junior and Peter weren’t home and smelled a rat would guarantee an automatic hit on our whole family. It was even possible that Los Zetas would spot us, figure out who we were, and kill us just to rub it in El Chapo’s face.

  Yet here we were, driving blind toward one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico, with no help, no protection, and no exit strategy.

  Olivia

  I had Benjamin and Brandon in the backseat in the car seats, and it was the first time I’d driven alone with them. Junior had always been in the car with me, and I’d always sat in the back with my boys. Luckily, Benjamin was so tiny that more than half the time he’d be asleep, and Brandon was so used to driving long distances in Mexico—like back and forth from Puerto Vallarta to Guadalajara—that I knew we wouldn’t have to stop much. Probably only for meals and potty breaks.

  Mia was alone in her car with my poor niece, who wasn’t even two weeks old. Adrian was driving with Daniela and their new baby; Daniela’s kids were driving another car; and my in-laws were in a fifth car.

  We probably could have piled into fewer cars, but we all thought, probably stupidly, “We have warehouses full of vehicles, so why not take as many as we can?” Still, we had to leave a dozen behind.

  Mia

  We abandoned everything that didn’t have sentimental value or that we wouldn’t need on the road. We scrapped our Ferraris, ATVs, and even our plane. There just wasn’t time to grab any of our valuables. We knew it would all get stolen in a matter of time, and we later found out that within a few weeks, Junior and Peter’s associates had taken everything: designer clothes, handbags, man bags, Viking appliances, ATVs, Jet Skis, motorcycles, and all of our cars. They even took the chandeliers and light switches off the walls. It was a free-for-all for everyone, even their closest friends.

  Olivia

  We couldn’t care less about our stuff, and it was the last thing on our minds as we started driving. We just wanted to make it to the border, to our safety zone. Without stops, Nuevo Laredo is a good twelve-hour drive from Guadalajara, and we didn’t get there till three in the morning.

  We were terrified at the idea of using our phones on the way. I kept thinking, What if someone’s listening in? so I didn’t call my family to tell them we were heading home to Chicago. I wasn’t prepared to reveal the truth, and, plus, it sounded like a suicide mission.

  We were so paranoid, but with good reason. A line of Range Rovers, BMWs, and Mercedes trucks, driving like bats out of hell, is pretty much like standing out in the middle of the street with a sign that says, “Hey! We’re a bunch of drug dealers escaping for our lives. Come kill us!”

  When we finally got to Nuevo Laredo, we stopped at the Hilton to change the babies and get them ready for the long ride. I pulled my sleeping children out of the car, looking over my shoulder every five seconds.

  “We’re not staying,” I said to Adrian. “We have to keep going.”

  “Crossing in the middle of the night is a huge red flag. Let’s just wait till morning.”

  “No, we have to leave now,” I said. “We have to get out of Mexico.”

  After we stumbled back into our cars, we lined them up, with my truck leading the way since I’d crossed so many times before. As I exited the parking lot, I was so nervous and scared that I swerved out too far and hit something in the road, hard. I couldn’t be sure, but I think it was a divider. I heard a muffled “flap… grind… flap…” and as my wheel rim started to scrape against the road, I knew what had happened. I had a flat tire, right there in the middle of cartel-infested Nuevo Laredo.

  It was a bad one, too. Whatever I hit ripped my tire right off the rim. I jumped out of the car, my babies still in the back, grabbed my head in the middle of the street, and started freaking the fuck out.

  “Let’s just leave it. I don’t care! Let’s forget the car!”

  Bear in mind that this was a $150,000 Range Rover. In Mexico, you can’t use credit or get a loan for a car purchase, so we’d paid all cash for it. I loved that stupid car, but I loved my life a hell of a lot more.

  My nephews hopped out of their car and started to jack my Range Rover up.

  “Stop!” I screamed. “Let’s just leave it!” I walked over to them to try to push them back in their cars. I swear to God, I thought that, at any minute, someone was going to drive
by and shoot all of us.

  The truth was they might have because Adrian’s phone had just started ringing.

  Mia

  Adrian and Daniela were in the car behind me. I kept looking in the rearview mirror and seeing Adrian lift his phone to his ear, then start barking something or other into it. I knew none of it was good. It wasn’t even dawn on a Monday morning, and in drug dealer time, the workday had just begun. People had started calling Junior or Pete, heard their calls go straight to voicemail, and figured something was up. Junior and Peter always answered their phones. No one had my number or Olivia’s number, but they all knew Adrian’s.

  “They keep calling! What the hell am I supposed to tell them?” Adrian shouted at Olivia, who was still railing against Daniela’s son to just give up and let her ditch the Range Rover.

  “How the fuck do I know?” she said. “Just tell them they’re still sleeping!”

  With new babies and schedules like theirs? No way. There was no possible way their workers wouldn’t realize that things were really off. We couldn’t get around it.

  I couldn’t believe the situation we were in. My C-section stitches hadn’t even healed, and I was still in pain. Any time Bella had cried during the drive, I’d had to pull over, hop in the backseat, and nurse her. We’re so close, I thought as I looked straight ahead out my windshield. I can see the border. There were agents with huge guns pacing back and forth, questioning cars and letting people through. We’re so fucking close, I thought, and then, suddenly, I just lost control. It had all become too much. I grabbed the steering wheel and exploded.

  “We’re never going to get out of here! We’re going to die here!” I loosened my grip, raised my fists, and started pounding as hard as I could on the steering wheel. I paused, felt even more helpless, and started pounding harder, screaming at the top of my lungs. I didn’t care if I woke Bella up; she was a baby, and she wouldn’t remember. But if I didn’t let out my rage, I thought I actually might get out of the car and try to run for the border.

  Then I saw Olivia’s car start moving.

  Olivia

  Daniela’s son fixed my tire faster than anyone at Midas ever had, and I got the hell off that street as quickly as I could. Seeing the border crossing in front of me, I gunned it. The other cars fell into line right behind me, and I zipped right along toward an open booth. It was so early that most of the lanes were actually open.

  “Hello,” I said as I rolled down my window, handed the agent my passport and my kids’ birth certificates, and waited to move right through.

  The officer looked at my stack of papers a little too closely, for a little too long. “No, you can’t go,” he said. “You have to turn around.”

  My heart stopped. “What the fuck? What do you mean?” Now, I know that’s not how you’re supposed to speak to an armed government official, but I was in no mood to be polite.

  “You have Mexican plates and your children were born in Mexico. You have to have a proper visa for them to cross.” He stepped back and moved his arms, like he wanted me to pull over.

  I was desperate but was trying not to sound like it. “But, I’m their mother, and my baby is two months old. I’m an American! How are we going to get in?”

  “Go back and get proper documentation for the minors, and we’ll let you through.” The guard motioned once again for me to turn my car around.

  I just sat there in park and stared at him. Being nice wasn’t going to work, so maybe being bat shit crazy would. I started yelling. “They’re going to kill us! We’re all going to be fucking killed!”

  The guard backed up, acting like he was either going to bring out reinforcements to arrest me, or run because he thought I was a suicide bomber. I kept going. “Let us through now, or we’re all going to die!”

  I looked around me, and I could see everyone else getting out of their cars. My father-in-law was arguing with someone, and Adrian had just thrown his hands in the air. Mia was white as a ghost. The border patrol officer had lifted up his walkie-talkie to call for backup. I didn’t know what else to do, so I jumped out of the car and started screaming. “They’re going to fucking kill us if you don’t let us through!”

  Mia

  Before we’d left, I’d been careful to gather together all the paperwork I’d stashed away next to my bed. I had my birth certificate, as well as Peter’s. I had my passport and Bella’s birth certificate. I even had a notarized letter, written by Peter, stating that our daughter could cross the border. But it was no use. They wouldn’t let me through because Bella had been born in Mexico, and I didn’t have a visa for her.

  I was so in shock that I hardly remember walking into the border agent’s office. All I can recall was how cold it was when I stepped out of my car. It was that kind of predawn wetness you often feel in Chicago but rarely in Mexico—the type of chill that you just can’t shake off unless you bundle up right away. As I wrapped a blanket around Bella and zipped up the only coat I’d brought along, I just remember thinking, It never gets cold like this in Mexico.

  But all bets were off at that point. It could have started snowing, and honestly, I wouldn’t have been fazed.

  Olivia

  When I walked into the border agents’ office and saw Mia sitting there shivering, I jumped into mama bear mode. “You cannot just let her sit there like that,” I said. “She’s freezing!” I would have done anything to protect my family at that point. I was so desperate to get us across the border.

  Finally, though, I had an idea. I pulled out my phone and dialed a saved number. On the third ring, a person on the other end picked up.

  “Good morning, this is Matt,” said a friendly voice on the other end of the line. Thank God he’s up, I thought. I knew that a lot of DEA agents started the day before dawn, so I wasn’t all that surprised that he’d answered. I was totally wired, but I explained the situation to him as calmly as I possibly could.

  “Let me talk with the border guards,” he said after listening, and I handed my phone over to one of them.

  They talked for what felt like forever. But when the agent closed up the phone and motioned for me and Mia to come over, I realized we might be okay.

  Matt must have told them to search the hell out of us because, when they took us outside again, they scanned our cars from top to bottom. We stood there for probably three or four hours while they X-rayed the insides and outsides, then brought out the dogs to sniff every inch. The whole time, I was like, Do they honestly think I’d be trying to bring drugs over the border when I’m running for my fucking life? Then it hit me: We were always going to be treated like criminals. Because that’s what our husbands were.

  Everything checked out, so the agents led us toward our cars. We put the babies in their car seats, got in ourselves, turned the keys, and put them in gear.

  As I glanced in my rearview mirror, I was afraid of what was behind us, but I was more terrified of what was to become of us. Still, there was nothing I could do. Just as during every other bad thing that had happened in my life, I had to make a decision, take action, and hopefully learn something and be a better person because of it.

  Here goes nothing, I thought, and I began driving across the US border toward the rest of my very uncertain life.

  Mia

  Adrian, my father-in-law, and one of our nephews were stuck at the border. Adrian had been deported the day he’d been released from federal prison years before, my father-in-law had a huge criminal history, and our nephew didn’t have his birth certificate with him, so they weren’t going to get clearance to cross till they got their papers straight with US immigration. Daniela, her children, and my mother-in-law stayed back with them, but that didn’t make us feel any better.

  Olivia

  They hugged us goodbye and said, “Don’t worry, we’ll switch hotels every day. We’ll be fine,” but we didn’t know if we’d ever see them again. Matt had promised to work on their paperwork, but he hadn’t offered to protect them. Adrian’s phone was
still ringing off the hook, and it was a matter of days before someone was going to put two and two together and start to search around Nuevo Laredo for him. I’d always been close to Adrian and Daniela, and I felt like I was saying goodbye to them forever. I honestly thought we would never see our family again.

  After we crossed and got back into our cars, I said to Mia. “Let’s just keep going. All the way.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “We’re exhausted.”

  “Yes, definitely.” My adrenaline was pumping, and I felt like I could drive all the way to Canada if I had to. It was going to be a twenty-some-hour drive, and I’d be damned if I was going to stop for the night.

  Mia

  When you have 1,400 miles ahead of you and what feels like a lifetime in your rearview mirror, you have a lot of time to think. I spent half the drive worrying about Bella in the backseat and the other half wondering what was happening to Peter, but when I actually stopped and took stock, I realized, This is the first time in almost five years I’ve been alone. Peter had done absolutely everything for me. I’d never had to step up to the plate and take care of myself. Now I had to do that and protect my daughter.

  Olivia and I had bought new phones after we crossed, and I’d called my mom right away. Now she was calling every five minutes to find out where I was. I’d told her everything, finally: that Peter and Junior were traffickers, that they’d become informants, that they’d surrendered at the airport, and that we’d escaped with our lives. Every detail had made Mom frantic.

  “Are you okay? Where are you? Why don’t you stop?” she kept saying.

  I’d respond, “Mom, I love you, but I’m trying to drive. I can’t have you calling me all the time. I have to keep my full attention on the road.”