by Alison Ryan
Table of Contents
Epilogue
A Note From the Author
Spring, 2012
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
About the Author
CANAAN
Billionaire Titans Book 4
Alison Ryan
Copyright © 2017 by Alison Ryan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
A Note From the Author
1. Spring, 2012
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
About the Author
A Note From the Author
I hope you enjoy the last book in the Billionaire Titans saga. CANAAN is my most action-packed novel yet. If you have not read the first three books in the series, I highly recommend doing that before continuing. Parts of CANAAN will be confusing without knowing the history of his brothers.
Enjoy! And thank you for reading! To learn about future books and giveaways, subscribe to my newsletter. No spam ever. Just fun.
1
Spring, 2012
Five years ago…
“Arrested? Canaan?” Emerson Titan was incredulous. “Tell me everything. Start from the beginning. Actually, hold on, I’m going to get legal in on this call.”
“Sure thing,” Odin Titan replied to his father. Odin had called from his office in Big Bear, California, where he was training for the upcoming London Olympics in the Modern Pentathlon.
Emerson Titan, in Hong Kong on business, returned to the call. “Odin, I have Devon Kirkpatrick from legal on the line as well. Go ahead.”
“I don’t know much. Canaan was in Tashkent with USA Fencing for an international tournament.”
“Tashkent?” Emerson interrupted. “Which one of the ‘stans’ is that again?”
“Uzbekistan,” the voice of Titan Holding senior legal advisor Devon Kirkpatrick indicated.
“Right,” Odin confirmed. “Canaan somehow wound up in Kazakhstan. A buddy of mine with the team told me there was a girl involved. Shocking, I know.”
“Kazakhstan?” Emerson asked. “What the hell? Why would he even leave the team hotel?”
“Like I said, I’m just getting bits and pieces,” Odin replied. “Has he not called you yet? Or has the consulate contacted you?”
“No, nothing yet,” Emerson assured his son. “Devon?”
“No, sir. I’ll have my team start making calls immediately.”
“A girl again? You boys are always following your hearts. It’s going to be the death of me,” Emerson replied, sighing.
“I don’t think Canaan was following his ‘heart’ necessarily,” Odin joked.
“This is no laughing matter if he’s truly been arrested,” Emerson protested.
“I’m sure our ambassador is a golf buddy of yours. Or somebody at the State Department owes you a favor or twenty,” Odin said.
“Vincent Krol,” Devon Kirkpatrick interjected.
“Oh yes, Vincent,” Emerson recollected. “I knew he was in that region. Wasn’t he working in Uzbekistan?”
“Yes, sir. He was formerly our ambassador to Uzbekistan,” Kirkpatrick confirmed. “He’s the perfect man for this.”
“He’s a Duke man,” Emerson joked. “But I don’t hold it against him. I haven’t seen him in years. Since…gosh…Osaka?”
“Not sure, Dad,” Odin replied. “But it sounds like this is something that can hopefully be handled quickly and quietly, whatever it is.”
“Be that as it may, this could put the Olympics in jeopardy for your brother,” Emerson’s voice trailed off, sounding as if he were shaking his head. “I always worry that some enemy Atlas has made will find a way to come after one of you boys. Have you talked to Achilles lately?”
“A few days ago,” Odin replied. “He’s in L.A. He was working on a new sound with some producer who has a pet pig. Ian Ion, I think he called him. He’s supposed to be a genius with electronic music, but he’s branching out into other genres.”
“It warms my heart that all of you are following your dreams, but I’m understandably worried about Canaan,” Emerson answered.
“I can’t blame you for being concerned,” Odin agreed.
“Is Atlas still in the States?” Emerson asked.
“It’s been two weeks, maybe longer, since I spoke to him,” Odin responded. “He was in D.C. then, but he’s working now; he could be anywhere.”
Emerson Titan sighed, heavily. “I look forward to the day you boys settle down and stay in one place. And give me some grandchildren.”
Odin laughed. “Maybe you should have had daughters, Dad. Instead, you had four boys, and none of the apples fell far from the tree. We’re all young, rich, and single. How can you beat that?”
“Touché, Odin. Touché. If you hear anything more through your backchannels about Canaan, let me know right away. I’ll start digging. Let’s talk in an hour or two.”
“Will do, Dad. Arrivederci.”
Odin hung up and stared at a map of Europe on his laptop. He’d never been to Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan, and he wondered what his little brother could possibly have gotten himself into.
2
Present Day…
“Odin! Who’s your favorite brother? Don’t answer right away, take your time and think about it. As long as the answer is Canaan, you can say anything you want,” Canaan Titan laughed into the phone over the sound of the Aegean Sea crashing into the rocks below his balcony.
“Well, when you put it that way… Why don’t you and Atlas arm wrestle for it?” Odin replied from his condo overlooking the Las Vegas Strip.
“Two words. Gutenberg. Bible. Two more words. First. Folio,” Canaan replied, with a tone of finality.
Odin, who’d been leaning on his headboard watching his wife, Clara, sleeping, sat upright and paused before replying, letting Canaan’s answer marinate in his brain for a moment.
“Those words always get my attention. What about them?” Odin whispered.
“Up for sale,” Canaan said.
Odin quietly slipped out of the room, walking into the kitchen. He pulled a bottle of sparkling water from the refrigerator.
“Impossible,” he responded. “I’d know about them if they were. Why are
you pushing my buttons, Canaan? You must want something. Do you need bail money?”
“It’s a private estate auction. High-end. Invite only. In Vienna. Jewelry, art, cars, all sorts of stuff. Including a library filled with rare books. And I’m talking ultra-rare.”
Odin opened his laptop and started typing as he chatted with his brother.
“What estate? And why wouldn’t I know about it? And when you say ‘Gutenberg Bible,’ what do you mean? A few leaves?”
“The way I understand it, it’s complete. In vellum.”
Odin Titan’s spine tingled. “In vel-…are you fucking kidding me? I’m on the next flight to Vienna. Whatever it takes, I want it. It’s mine. Get me in that room,” he commanded. His Googling came up empty. He began querying colleagues in the rare book world, via e-mail, to ask if they’d heard anything about a Gutenberg Bible for sale. “Whose estate did you say it was?”
“I have a last name. Brentford. That’s all I know,” Canaan explained.
“Brentford?” Odin Titan racked his brain. He knew all the major players in the rare book world, or so he thought. A complete copy of the Gutenberg Bible, printed in the mid-1450s by the inventor of the printing press, Johannes Gutenberg, hadn’t come up for sale since 1978. Four decades ago, that copy fetched over two million dollars; the scarcity of the work and the rarity with which it came to market meant that a price tag upwards of forty or fifty million dollars wouldn’t be unreasonable if one came to market today.
Only twenty-one complete, original Gutenberg Bibles were known to exist, and only three of them bound in calfskin, or vellum.
Odin doubted a “secret” complete copy was out there “in the wild,” but if there was even a slim chance that Canaan’s information was accurate, he’d pursue it to the ends of the Earth. A First Folio, the other book Odin’s younger brother mentioned, was a 1623 collection of thirty-six William Shakespeare plays. Odin’s personal library contained two partial First Folios, but he desperately wanted to add a complete copy to his collection. If this mysterious Brentford fellow actually had a Gutenberg Bible, it was completely reasonable to think he might own a First Folio as well.
“Where are you now?” Odin asked his globe-trotting brother. The last he’d heard, Canaan was in Dar es Salaam, the capital city of Tanzania.
“Greece,” Canaan replied. “A little island in the Aegean.”
Odin rolled his eyes. Sometimes he wondered if it was Canaan’s goal to never spend two nights in a row in the same country. Then again, after the years his younger brother had spent in a Kazakh prison, Odin supposed he couldn’t blame him for having a bit of wanderlust.
“I’ll meet you in Vienna.” Odin checked the time on his watch and did a quick mental calculation as to how soon he could have one of the Titan jets ready and how long it would take to get to Vienna. “Day after tomorrow, unless the sale will be sooner?”
Canaan began to respond, but the phone had been pulled away from Odin’s ear.
“You’ll be nowhere but right here with me,” Clara Titan, Odin’s wife, reminded her husband. She’d heard him talking in the kitchen and had tiptoed up behind him. “It could be any day now. I’m not having you off chasing a book.”
“It’s not a book,” Odin insisted, placing his hand over the phone. “It might be a Gutenberg Bible!”
“Well, these,” Clara said, cupping her hands around her belly, swollen with Titan twins, “Are definitively, one hundred percent, your babies. So, I don’t care if it’s an autographed copy of the Bible signed by Jesus himself, you’re going to be right here with me for the delivery. My due date is less than a week away. Had you forgotten?”
Odin sighed, then placed his hand on Clara’s face. “No. I hadn’t forgotten. I’m sorry.”
He couldn’t possibly have forgotten. He’d never seen anything as beautiful as the way Clara had been glowing since early on in her pregnancy. Her body was full and lush, and their sex had never been more intense and amazing.
He needed no reminder that his wife was pregnant.
He started to speak, but reconsidered. He nodded in resignation. “Canaan, still there?”
“Sure am. Sounds like domestic bliss over there,” he joked.
“Shut up, Canaan. Anyway, Clara is due any day now. I can’t be away. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to acquire those books. You’re my proxy. We’ll talk more soon. Get whatever details you can and figure out how to get yourself on the guest list for the auction. I’m going to have Raven dig up what she can on Mr. Brentford and I’ll send one of my book guys to meet you there to authenticate whatever it is they have.”
“The sale is a week from yesterday,” Canaan answered. “I’ll work on getting in. But there will be some heavy hitters involved. I’m talking the heaviest kind. It might take more than the highest bid to bring home the Gutenberg.”
Odin knew that such a rare and priceless item would bring politicos and even royals out of the woodwork. Beyond money, influence could be up for grabs. Having a president or a prince in one’s pocket might be more than worth the price of a fifteenth century holy grail of the publishing world.
“Raven can do her thing, and I’ll have Duncan fly over there to provide you whatever support you need. He’ll get you all set up in Vienna,” Odin said.
Duncan Gilchrist was one of Odin’s closest advisors and friends, part of the Titan Holdings legal team. With a Master’s in business from Wharton and a law degree from Stanford, he was one of the few people Odin Titan considered an intellectual equal, and he knew Duncan would protect his interests in Vienna. He just needed Canaan to get him a proverbial seat at the table.
“You mean he’ll be my babysitter,” Canaan countered.
“He’ll have a leash in his hand, but the collar will be around my wallet more than your neck,” Odin joked. “And Raven will watch your back. She won’t be happy about missing Clara giving birth, but my wife scares me more than she does.”
3
“This isn’t the Book of Kells,” the slender man in the tailored, charcoal suit said, referencing the magnificently-illustrated, priceless, one-of-a-kind 9th century New Testament housed in the Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland. “But it’s in the same stratosphere. Just seeing this in person has nearly made my heart stop. It’s almost too perfect. You understand my concerns regarding its authenticity, don’t you?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Pierce,” the redhead reassured him. “Do your due diligence. You’ll find it’s quite real; everything I’ve represented it to be.”
Damian Pierce leaned in close, examining the Gutenberg Bible on the dais before him closely, from different angles. “I’m unclear as to the book’s provenance, Mrs.-”
“It’s Ms., actually,” Quinn Brentford interrupted, correcting him.
“Ah, yes, Ms. Brentford,” Mr. Pierce cleared his throat and stole a glance at Quinn Brentford’s deep cleavage as he used a handkerchief to clean his magnifying glass. “I was asking about this particular book’s provenance. It’s not in the record, and it would help the authentication process along if I knew how you came to acquire it.”
“It belonged to my father,” Quinn Brentford replied, lifting her glass to indicate to the butler her need for a refill of the 1945 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild she was nearly finished sipping. “And his father before him. It’s been in my family for generations.”
Mr. Pierce ran his white-gloved finger down the edge of the vellum binding. “It’s exquisite. I just can’t understand how this copy isn’t catalogued. You must realize, Ms. Brentford, this is a very important book. A piece of art, really. It’s a world treasure.”
“I know all about it, Mr. Pierce,” she replied. “I was raised with it. Among all of this.” She swept her arm across the room, letting her gaze follow her hand, admiring the paintings, sculptures, and books that filled the mansion’s showpiece library. “My family values its privacy. I don’t want anything in this collection, especially the Gutenberg, added to any sort of database, inter
net or otherwise. Unless and until it’s sold, it’s mine. I can do with it as I please. I could set fire to it, if I so chose.”
Damian Pierce went white with shock. “Ms. Brentford!”
“Thank you, Anderson,” Quinn said, as her butler presented her with the refilled glass poured from the five figure bottle of wine. She swirled the red and inhaled its aroma before taking a long, appreciative sip.
“Oh, that’s divine,” she sighed, leaning back on the chaise with her eyes closed. Damian Pierce took advantage of the opportunity to appraise Quinn Brentford rather than the Gutenberg Bible.
If anything in the room was divine, it was her.
Full, lush curls of red spilled down her back, and the form-fitting white dress she wore accentuated her considerable assets perfectly. Her skin was flawless alabaster, but for a light sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose. He’d been surprised to find that her eyes were brown, rather than the green he expected. He’d never been in such proximity to beauty so rare and elegant. For a man just past seventy, she made him feel stirrings in his trousers that he hadn’t experienced spontaneously in quite some time.
“Don’t worry, I have no plans to torch the book,” she explained, rising to walk over to where he stood in front of the podium that held the Bible he was charged with examining. “I just wanted to emphasize how seriously I take the privacy of my family and our collection.”
Distracted by having Quinn Brentford at his side, Pierce’s heart hammered in his chest. Her scent intoxicated him.
