'Salvatore,' the 31-year-old owner of a small pub in Sicily, has a different story. His tale starts like many: he opens a pub in a small town near Palermo where he organises small concerts and conferences and airs soccer matches on television. His friends and family come to the establishment and it starts to thrive. Then, sooner of later, 'they' arrive.

At first, a man comes in asking Salvatore for small favours. Salvatore concedes out of fear. Eventually, the man attempts to extort money. It is at this point that Salvatore's story differs from most: Salvatore refuses and does not pay the pizzo.

'I don't enjoy recounting this incident,' says Salvatore, 'because then I have to remember it all. And when I think about everything I went through, and am still going through, I get upset. But then I think: if I don't tell my story then maybe no one will ever know what happened to me, and if instead I do, maybe it will serve as an example for someone else.'

Salvatore takes a deep breath and begins: 'It was January of 2004. My pub was doing really well at the time. There aren't very many spots for young people in my city and my pub was a reference point for them. We organised live concerts, put on soccer games. It was a dream come true.

'Then one night he came. He was a previous offender in town who had already spent a few years in jail for extortion. He was known and feared by everyone. He started coming to my pub on a regular basis. I always tried to avoid him. He asked me to do him favours constantly. Sometimes he needed a car to go to Palermo, other times he would ask to borrow Euro200 (HK$2,100). At first, because I was scared, I went along with it. After, I realised that he was testing me.'

The request for favours is part of the Cosa Nostra's game of extortion; it is a way to train the victim and gain his or her trust.

'Then one night around 10pm,' continues Salvatore, 'he calls me and tells me that there are people in Palermo with 'lots of experience'- not specifying what type - and that my pub 'annoyed' these people. 'You need to give them a gift,' he told me. They wanted Euro400.

'In this way, the matter would be taken care of. He stressed that I shouldn't talk to anyone about it, otherwise, these people were capable of blowing up my place. I was very afraid. I passed a sleepless night in the company of my parents. We reflected on what I should do for hours and hours.'

Salvatore and his family made a brave choice. 'The next morning I went to the marshal's office. He advised me to lodge a complaint against my extortioner. He said that if I didn't do it the mafia would slowly drain me of money. So I decided to rebel and start the process of pressing charges'.

Salvatore's telephone was put under surveillance. The phone tappings confirmed the accusations and the accused man was arrested days later. Once these first steps were over, Salvatore entered a period of anxiety and regret. 'Little by little my pub became emptier and emptier,' he recounts. 'No one came anymore. Some [customers] were afraid that the place could be blown up at any moment. They already treated me like I was a dead man.

'People said I was a bad guy, a traitor. I lost all my clients. I would wake up in a panic in the middle of the night. I dreamed of my death. I began to think I was crazy and that I had made the wrong decision.'

Help came for Salvatore with the members of Addio Pizzo (Good-Bye Pizzo), an anti-racket association in Palermo. 'The folks at Addio Pizzo gave me hope and opened my eyes. I needed it. I realised that I wasn't alone. On the weekend they would come and visit me. They supported me, brought lots of people. The pub however, was still failing. Before I reported my extortioner I made Euro1,000 on a Saturday, after his arrest I made a meagre Euro50 in an evening.'

Fortunately, through the members of Addio Pizzo, Salvatore became aware of a law in Italy that guarantees a partial recompense for those who suffer economic damage after having reported an extortioner to the police.

'I had lost Euro46,000 since that man was arrested. I received Euro26,000 from the state. I bought another place, a bar a little outside the centre of town. Business is going well enough. Clients are mostly from out of town.'

But Salvatore's story does not end here: 'One day a relative of mine - a 'man of honour' - paid me a visit. He came often. He told me that I had done a stupid thing; that I shouldn't have reported that man, 'he was only the father of a family' he told me. He proposed an amends. The family of the extortioner would pay me Euro250 a month and I in turn would have to sign some documents that would lighten the penalty of the extortioner. I reported this relative of mine as well and the process is still under way.'

The pizzo is one of the main sources of income for the mafia in Sicily. But it is not only about economic profit. The pizzo is also a highly efficient instrument that the mafia uses to mark its territory.

Maurizio de Lucia, a magistrate from Palermo who must live and work with four bodyguards for security reasons, explains the system of the pizzo: 'The most recent investigations have revealed that entire sections of Palermo pay the pizzo yet no one reports anything. It has happened on occasion that these extortioners have been discovered and arrests made, but even in the face of evidence and despite the fact that these mafia members were already in jail, the storeowners refused to denounce them. In this case, the law obliges us to accuse the storeowners of aiding the mafia.'

Many people have been killed by the mafia after refusing to pay the pizzo. These murders are not just about individual punishment, but about warning other Sicilians of the consequences of such actions. Killing owners and burning down establishments are strategies of terror used by the Cosa Nostra. By creating an atmosphere of terror, the mafia assures that establishment owners will think twice before rebelling against the pizzo and reporting them to police.

So what does Salvatore, a man who dared to rebel against the pizzo, have to say to the small business owners that still pay the mafia? 'They have to understand that the mafia can be brought to its knees. The public prosecutor's office has been at my side through the whole ordeal. It only requires a bit of courage. Today, if an owner refuses to pay the pizzo, retaliation is unlikely. The mafia has realised that the state can beat it.'

Mr de Lucia, who knows Salvatore well, agrees: 'The mafia is still frightening, but it isn't what it was 15 years ago. Cosa Nostra has a new strategy in this day and age. Mafia members do not like publicity and try in every way to avoid appearing in the current-events section of the newspaper. The mafia has changed and we have to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, there are still very few people who have the courage to report their extortioners and rebel against the mafia. We are not looking for a single declaration, we hope for a collective denunciation. Only then,' concludes Mr de Lucia, 'will citizens [of Sicily] be able to consider themselves free people in a free city'.

The small business owners of today's Sicily are still afraid. Rebelling is not easy and Sicilians do not trust the country's institutions to protect them.

In 1992 the state failed to protect Giovanni Falcone, the legendary magistrate who was killed by the mafia after they detonated 300kg of dynamite they had place under a highway Falcone was driving on. Falcone, his wife, and the bodyguards who protected him were all killed in the attack.

Falcone was given an extraordinary amount of protection while alive; for security reasons he even lived in a jail on the island of Sardinia for a while. Ten escorts accompanied him day and night. But despite everything, the mafia succeeded at killing him. And if the mafia can kill a man that the state provides its best protection for, how will a humble storeowner from Palermo survive?

It has been over three years since the day Salvatore decided to rebel against the mafia. His extortioner is already out of jail and ironically he has opened a pub about 100 metres down the road from Salvatore's. Every night the place is packed with people.

'Every once in a while I'll be walking down the street and I'll happen to meet the gaze of my extortioner. He never says a word to me, but with his eyes it's as if he is telling me that sooner or later, within 10 or 20 years, he'll make me pay.'

'It hasn't been nice to recount this story of mine once again. As I said, it makes me remember and relive those moments. Please do not write my [real] name. Do not even write the name of my city. I do not want to be a hero, I just want to be left in peace.'