Teresa Mendoza is a poor, young woman in Mexico who meets a drug runner, Guero and falls in love. Guero is part of a major Mexican cartel. 

Epifanio wants to step back from the drug business to run for governor but his wife, Camila won’t hear of it. She actually runs the business and she won’t sit back to be a governor’s wife. She plans to expand the business to Texas. He can stay in Mexico and become governor without her. 

Guero moves up the ranks of the cartel and Teresa enjoys the spoils. When things begin to go wrong, Guero prepares Teresa for the worst. If a special cell phone rings, it mean that he’s dead and she has to run. He provides her with cash and a passport. He gives her a notebook and tells her to trade it for her life with Don Epifanio. 

On day, the dreaded cell phone rings. Guero is dead and she’s told to get out of the house, now. She runs to Guero’s cousin, Chino’s. The cartel kills him but Teresa saves his wife Brenda and their son but the cartel blows up her car. Brenda and her son run in one direction, Teresa the other. She runs to the safe house where she finds the go-bag with money, notebook, and drugs. 

The cartel members find her with the notebook. While one member rapes her, she shoots him. She grabs the money and drugs and flees to Don Epifanio. He takes the notebook but refuses to help her. She presses him, threatening to kill herself and he acquiesces. She gets in his vehicle and they take a drive, when he gets out to take a phone call, she realizes that her life is in danger. She takes his gun from under the seat and as they drive, she tells them to stop the car. When they won’t she shoots the drive and the car flips over.

Teresa crawls out of the wreck, but Epifanio is injured. He says that if she leaves him she will die but if she helps him, he will protect her. She takes the notebook and the go-bag and leaves him behind. 

Epifanio’s men track her down at a gas station but she hides the notebook before they grab her and bring her to a warehouse where she meets Camila. The gas station was in her mule route. The owner called her. Epifanio has been leaving her messages. He was in an accident and he’s looking for a girl. The warehouse in in Dallas, Texas. 

She sees her future self, who tells her she’s going to love it here.