NINETY DAYS OF WANTING YOU

CHAPTER 1

At 5:47 a.m., there was traffic at the ambassador bridge which always made mara late .

She gripped her fingers hard into the steering wheel, watching the car lights in front of her becoming a red blur ahead. Feeling restless despite the comfort, her knee shaking quickly against the car . It took her a moment to notice. She slapped her hand down to stop it. It started up again right after.

Outside, the Detroit River looked tired and dim, the first gray hints of daylight flickering off its surface, never quite landing right. Canada gleamed. Detroit smelled of sharp—iron, river mud, and concrete that hadn’t seen the sun in almost a week. She’d cracked her window only an inch. Now she closed it tight.

Her phone buzzed from the cupholder. She didn’t check it. She already knew who was texting.

It buzzed again.

This time, she looked.

JEROME — 5:48 AM: Keating's people shuffled the meeting to 7. You’ve got access. Dock entrance is good.

She thumbed a reply: I’m on the bridge. Don’t tell me about the dock entrance until I’m off the bridge.

It buzzed once more. She flipped it facedown, and ended that conversation.

Suddenly, traffic moved. As she entered Michigan the sky suddenly lit up with a strong sunrise colour,but it disappeared quickly behind clouds . She looked at it through her mirror,and for a moment she felt relieved.

That was Detroit for you. Life (or the city)gives you a small moment of happiness then quickly takes it away.

The dock entrance was a freight bay tucked into the south side of the Harwick Building—a glass-and-steel spike next to old brick walls that still remembered being a factory. Inside, everything stunk of newness: wet joint compound, sticky carpet glue, ambition biting sharp and chemicals in the air.

Mara flashed her badge at the service door, took the freight elevator up fourteen floors—Jerome had texted that Keating’s people locked down the main lobby with suits by the entrance, all busy looking important. That crowd wasn’t for her. She’d never needed an audience just to walk into a room.

The elevator opened to an unfinished looking duct work ,harsh fluorescent lights.her heels are hitting the floor loudly and harshly,she regrets choosing to wear heels that early in the morning, Her home /work life feels overwhelming,like it's consuming her , the sound of her heels keeps echoing as she walks .

She pushed through a fire door into the thirty-second floor conference room. Softer lights. Carpet, at last. She sees the city through large windows feels like the city is watching or expecting something from her

Down on Jefferson Avenue, the giant bronze Joe Louis Fist floated in the cold above the median, always pointed at Canada. Mara drove past it every morning, usually without seeing it. Today, it landed differently. She couldn’t tell you why.

Jerome sat at the table, already there—of course he was. He handed over coffee, lid off so she could feel the heat directly on her hands, and didn’t bother with small talk. He knew she didn’t need words at six a.m., just a minute and something to anchor her.

So she took both.

The deal in front of her: $340 million in federal money for transit—channeled through a city contract Cole Dynamics had spent eighteen months building. This was the kind of deal that changed companies, put names on glass, made her father’s name sound different for the first time in a decade—ten years spent as a cautionary tale, always discussed at the edge of dinner conversation, but never straight to her face.

Of course she knew. People always thought she didn’t, but she knew.

Jerome placed the revised contract on the table—forty-one pages. She’d been over it twice last night, once more just after four a.m., lying in the dark, tablet on her chest, the city below never still.

“Page twenty-seven,” she said.

“The arbitration clause,” Jerome said.

“It moved.”

“Keating’s team wants Michigan arbitration, not federal. They sent an updated version at eleven last night.”

She flipped to that page. The new wording was clean, sharp—stripped out the federal framework she’d locked down in August, but not a disaster. More like a precise cut, the kind of thing you send late to see if the other side is still awake.

She set the page down, picked up her coffee. Too hot for comfort. She held it anyway.

“We reject it,” she said.

“They’ll push back.”

“Good.”

Jerome watched her—not exactly weighing her, just calibrating. He’d spent six years learning how. He was the only person honest enough to tell her the truth without waiting to be questioned.she paid him too much to simply compliment her ,but enough to keep him loyal

The door opened—Keating’s team in matching suits, each measured and unreadable. The first one dropped a leather folder on the table and smiled, a rehearsed gesture meant to say the meeting still had to be won.

Mara smiled back. Just as sure. Way less interested.

“Morning,” she said. “Let’s start with page twenty-seven.”

Forty minutes later, she walked out with the federal clause intact, a new Phase Two timeline, and a hard promise about the east-side routing she’d fought for since September. She shook hands, waited until Keating’s group got to the elevators.

Then Mara checked her phone.

One new message. Unknown number. Arrived at 5:47 a.m.—back on the bridge, her knee pounding, watching brake lights melt.

She opened it.

Three words.

Enjoy it, Cole.

No name attached. She started running a trace as soon as she’d read it—Jerome watching her thumbs, silent as ever. The number peeled apart into a relay that ended at an abandoned gas station in Hamtramck.

She stood there by the window, thirty-two stories up, the Ren Cen towers throwing cold light across the river.

Her coffee had gone cold. She finished it.

Her knee was quiet now.

She looked at the message again. The message being three words was not what disturbed her . What really bothered her was the time the message was sent at 5:47 in the morning. The exact minute she crossed into Michigan, alone on the bridge, before she’d told anyone else her route.

Nobody had guessed where she’d be.

Somebody watched her get there.