Citations:twist the knife

Verb: "to deliberately do or say something to worsen a difficult situation or increase a person's distress, irritation, or anger"

 * 2006 — Laura Kipnis, The Female Thing: Dirt, Envy, Sex, Vulnerability, Serpent's Tail (2007), ISBN 9781852429812, page 31:
 * This is being presented as the brave new thing, with words like "choice" lobbed around just to twist the knife a little deeper for cranky old feminists, who used the word differently.
 * 2009 — Lucy Dillon, Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts, Berkley (2011), ISBN 9781101478752, page 198:
 * "And I'm not seeing anyone," she added, just to twist the knife — in whom, she wasn't sure.
 * 2010 — Eric L. Haney, No Man's Land, Berkley (2010), ISBN 9780425233009, page 122:
 * Terry took a pull on his cigar, "If it were purely political, they would have sent pieces of the boy to his grandfather; just to twist the knife, so to speak."